The No. 1 Hand Grenade, as the name may suggest, was the first hand grenade designed by the British, and was the first grenade used in World War I. Unlike later grenades, which operate on timed fuses activated by pulling a pin, this grenade uses an impact fuse, meaning it detonates when it strikes the ground. To ensure it was thrown and activated properly, a long handle was included for easier throwing, and the cloth streamers on the tail stabilized its flight and made sure it impacted on its nose. The long handle, however, was dangerous in trenches, and resulted in several accidents when the grenade would be detonated as its nose knocked against the backs of trenches when soldiers were reaching back to throw. In addition, German prisoners informed their captors that it was possible to deflect the grenade with wooden boards, and, if it did not detonate, could also be thrown back. It was soon replaced by the No. 3 in 1915, which had a shorter handle. Eventually, the introduction of the timed fuse grenade in the form of the Mills Bomb would see the end of impact fuse hand grenades in the British military.

Text and image via the Ontario Regiment Museum

A pretty decent look at the first real U.S. tank, the M1917 Renault, with Len Dyer of the National Armor and Cavalry Restoration Shop.

The U.S. Army Tank Corps picked up just under 1,000 of these in the last days of WWI and they remained in service to one degree or another through the 1930s.

Posed 1920s US soldiers including 1903s, 37mm gun, BAR, light mortar and 1917 Renault tank

They made pretty good public relations tools, though…

Boys playing on M1917 tank, Raton, New Mexico 1920

In one of the most colossally stupid moves in modern military history, the Army is looking to scrap their three active-duty and six National Guard Long-Range Surveillance companies in the next 60 days. Established back in the 1950s, they were known as Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRP, or Lurp) back in Vietnam and Alamo Scouts in WWII.

A team of Alamo Scouts pose for a photo after completing a reconnaissance mission on Los Negros Island, February 1944.

In all some 882 billets will be saved as each unit is small (just comprised of 15 six-man teams led by a staff sergeant and a minute headquarters staff). Undoubtedly, since they are such a small community, they don’t get a lot of attention and support.

What will be lost will be unique airborne-qualified specialists that excel in forward surveillance and battlefield-intelligence gathering that is integral to the units they are assigned to such as the 82nd ABN, 101st Air Assault and 10th Mountain on active duty and the enhanced readiness units including the Alaska Guard in the reserves.

The argument is that this role can be given to drones who provide a soda-straw view of the battlefield. Gray Eagle squadrons, which contain 9 of the modified MQ-1C UAVs and about 120 personel in three platoons, will pick up the slack but since the Army is only funding 152 of these drones (and just 31 ground systems) and the 160th SOAR is getting two full 12-aircraft squadrons and two 4-ship units are in Afghanistan, there will only be one Gray Eagle squad per each of the 10 active duty division and none for the Guard or Reserve. The Army is also picking up 36 Improved Gray Eagles (IGE) with extended range for use by SF.

And of course what isn’t mentioned is that Gray Eagle replaced the old RQ-5 Hunter and RQ-7 Shadow drones in MI units, so there are a lot of eggs in the Eagle basket so to speak.

Team 5 from the Maryland Army National Guard’s Long Range Surveillance Company, C Company, 1-158th Cavalry get ready to jump during Leapfest XXXI, in Kingston, R.I., Aug. 2, 2014. Leapfest is an airborne parachute competition sponsored by the Rhode Island National Guard to promote high level technical training within the international airborne community. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Brady Pritchett)

“Every year there are capabilities that must be added, but unfortunately this means the Army must divest some,” Army spokesman Troy Rolan said as reported by Stars and Stripes.

Commanders identified operational LRS units as a low priority, he said, adding that the decision to cut LRS companies was aided by “extensive computer models using combatant commander plans to determine what the Army needs.”

The problem is that a lot of Guard LRS units are composed of guys who were former active duty, many with Ranger and SF tabs.

The tribal knowledge these units have is simply not replaceable if needed in the future– leading to the enduring question of why the military always has to reinvent the wheel when the next war comes because they scrapped it in peacetime for the square.

Scott A. Duff over at American Rifleman has in interesting piece up about the M1 Garands transferred via Lend Lease in the early days of WWII.

FDR sent them over largely before Pearl Harbor, after which U.S. Garand stocks were so low that millions of M1903A3  Springfields and M1 Carbines were cranked out to equip the enormously growing American war effort.

From Duff:

Large quantities of M1 Garand rifles were to be transferred to England. The first appropriation was made on March 27, 1941, and authorized transfer from current production and existing stocks by random requisition. After a second appropriation on October 28, 1941, a percentage allotment of current production was authorized. These transfers continued even after the declaration of war against Japan until a decision in March 1942 that all .30-cal. arms be allotted to the U.S. Army. Transfers were officially terminated at the end of June 1942. In all, a total of 38,001 M1 Garand rifles were shipped to England under Lend-Lease. These were the “British Garands,” which in recent years have become highly sought after by collectors.

More here.

And also, as a bonus, here is a great video that shows you how to partially load an M1, a trick not known by many for sure.

U.S. Army Soldiers with 1st Brigade, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division conducting defensive operations during Swift Response 16 training exercise at the Hohenfels Training Area, a part of the Joint Multinational Readiness Center, in Hohenfels, Germany, Jun. 20, 2016.

(U.S. Army photo by Spc. Nathaniel Nichols/Released)

Note there seems to be a good old fashioned CBRN drill going on, hence the paratrooper with his tripod mounted M2HB-QCB Browning heavy machine gun in 12.7mm (.50BMG) and his new-fangled M50 joint service general purpose mask, which replaced the older M40 a few years back.

The beercan-sized cage on the muzzle of ma deuce, held by a three-legged bracket is the blank firing adaptor. The adaptor reduces the muzzle size, slowing the escaping gasses and thus causing a recoil “kick” large enough to cycle the weapon. So if you ever see a M2 so equipped, the picture was taken during an exercise.

(U.S. Army photo by Spc. Nathaniel Nichols/Released)

And, as this short-sleeved paratrooper above shows, Germany does get hot in June. Of course we can’t fault him for not being in a chem suit, but good luck getting a cheek-weld on that M4 (note yellow BFA) while wearing a mask. Still, it’s nice to see mono-pod grips being used more. They are hella useful.

Lt. Louis Curdes, USAAF in his P-51D “Bad Angel.” The markings are from the 3rd Air Commando Group, 4th Fighter Squadron, from Laoag Airfield, Luzon, Philippines, 1945. Proudly displayed on the fuselage of “Bad Angel” were the markings of the pilot’s kills: seven Nazis; one Italian; one Japanese…and one U.S.

The US plane was not a mistake, or friendly fire, he intentionally took it down.

Dafuq?

Yup.

Curdes arrived in the ETO with 82nd Fighter Group, 95th Fighter Squadron in April 1943 and was assigned a P-38 Lightning. Ten days later he shot down three German Messerschmidt Bf-109s. A few weeks later, he downed two more German Bf -109’s– making him an ace in a month. Over the next three months, Curdes shot down an Italian Macchi C.202 Folgore fighter and two more Messerschmidts before his luck ran out, being splashed by a German fighter on August 27, 1943 over Salerno, Italy.

Escaping, he made it back to Allied lines and after training on P-51s, was sent to the Pacific where he dusted a Mitsubishi reconnaissance plane near Formosa.

Then came the American.

It was an unarmed C47 cargo plane that was attempting to land at Batan air field which had recently been taken over by the Japanese, it would have been certain death or worse for the 12 passengers and crew. Not being able to raise the plane by radio and attempts at waving the C47 off ignored, the C47 still continued with it’s landing plan. At that point Lt. Curdes choose to shoot the C47’s engines out and force them to do a water landing where they were picked up by a Navy ship in the area.

It’s an odd story for sure, but left Curdes as the only American WWII pilot to down at least one of each major enemy’s planes– and one of his own.

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 July 27, 2016: The RNs factory for curiosities in gun-mountings

Via IWM

Here we see the Powerful-type first-class protected cruiser HMS Terrible during her brief career, decked in a tropical white scheme that she used around 1900. Although beautiful in her own respect as a late 19th Century brawler, it was the use of her guns ashore that brought her lasting fame.

Built to rule the waves as independent units capable of raiding enemy merchant ships in time of war– while safeguarding HMs own from the enemy’s similar raiders– the Powerfuls were a two-ship class of very large cruisers with lots of coal bunkerage that enabled them to sail 7,000 nm at 14 knots. Should they stumble on an enemy surface raider, their twin 9.2″/40 (23.4 cm) Mark VIII cocoa-powder breechloaders could fire a 382-pound CPC shell out to 12,846 yards, which was pretty good for the era. A large number of QF 6-inch and QF 12-pounder 12 cwt naval gun (3-inch) guns made up secondary and tertiary armament (though at some point a few 6-inchers were traded for 4.7-inchers, but more on this later).

Class leader HMS Powerful was laid down in 1894 at Vickers Limited, Barrow-in-Furness while her sister and the subject of our tale, HMS Terrible, was laid down at the same time at J.& G. Thomson, Clydebank (Glasgow). As such, she was the seventh such RN vessel with that name dating back to 1694.

HMS Powerful Steaming up the English Channel, 1900, by maritime painter Charles Dixon RI. Note the black hull, buff stacks/masts, and white superstructure. Both ships of this class carried this scheme through about 1900.

Completed 8 June 1897 at a cost of £740,584, Terrible beat her design top speed of 22 knots on her trials by hitting 22.4 kn over a four-hour period and made  Portsmouth to Gibraltar with an average speed of 18, which was fast for a pre-Dreadnought era cruiser, especially one of some 15,000-tons.

They were stately ships.

The Captain’s cabin was ornate

HMS Terrible portrait via Royal Grenwich Museum

Note how Terrible differed from the first image in this post as she looked in 1897 in these two images.

Her first use in war came when the Boers kicked it off against the British in South Africa.

In November 1899, HMS Terrible disembarked six naval guns (two 4.7″, 4 12 pounders) at Durban and, accompanied by 280 members of the Naval Brigade, saw them off by train to Ladysmith, just before the Boers closed the ring and began the storied Siege of Ladysmith. The naval guns were to play an important role in disabling the fire from the Boer Long Toms long enough till a relieving column rescued the town some months later.

Her sister HMS Powerful likewise dismounted a contingent and more guns at Simonstown, and under Commander AP Ethelston above became part of a Naval Brigade, with four guns, and several hundred men. They were sent by train to join the army of Lord Methuen, which was following the western Cape Colony railway hoping to rout the Boers blocking its advance to relieve the town of Kimberley, and engaging the Boers at Graspan on 25 November, which left half the force dead or wounded.

HMS TERRIBLE He who sups with me require a devil of a long spoon

Note the straw hats common to RN sailors, coupled with Army style field uniforms

4.7 Naval Gun on Carriage Improvised by Capt. Percy Scott of H.M.S. Terrible. Photo by E. Kennard

From “South Africa and the Transvaal War” 1899:

“You may be interested to hear a little about the Navy, who have come to the front as usual and met an emergency. From the first it would seem that what was wanted were long-range guns which could shell the enemy at a distance outside the range of their Mauser rifles, and the captain of the Terrible, therefore, proposed a field-mounting for the Naval long 12-pounder of 12 cwt., which has a much longer range than any artillery gun out here. A pair of waggon wheels were picked up, a balk of timber used as a trail, and in twenty-four hours a 12-pounder was ready for land service. Captain Scott then designed a mounting for a 4.7-inch Naval gun by simply bolting a ship’s mounting down on to four pieces of pile. Experts declared that the 12-pounder would smash up the trail, and that the 4.7-inch would turn a somersault; the designer insisted, however, on a trial. When it took place, nothing of the kind happened, except that at extreme elevation the 12-pounder shell went 9000 yards and the 4.7-inch (lyddite) projectile 12,000 yards. Captain Scott was, therefore, encouraged to go ahead, and four 12-pounders were fitted and sent round to Durban in the Powerful, and also two 4.7-inch guns. People say here that these guns saved the situation at Ladysmith. A Naval friend writing to me from the camp says: ‘The Boers complain that we are not “playing the game”; they only expected to fight rooineks, not sailors who use guns that range seven miles, and they want us to go back to our ships. One of our lyddite shells went over a hill into their camp, killed fourteen men and wounded thirty. Guns of this description are not, according to the Boer idea, at all proper, and[Pg 142] they do not like our way of staggering humanity. Had these guns been landed earlier, how much might have been saved? It is a peculiar sight to see the 4.7-inch fired. Many thought it would turn over, but Captain Percy Scott appears to have well calculated the stresses; there is with a full charge of cordite a slight rise of the fore end, which practically relieves all the fastenings. Hastily put together, and crude as it looks, it really embraces all the points of a scientific mounting, and it wants a great expert to pronounce an opinion on it. The gun is mounted so high that to the uninitiated it looks as if it must turn over on firing, but it does not, and the higher angle of elevation the less strain there is on it. The arrival of our guns practically put the Royal Artillery guns out of use, for they can come into action 2000 yards behind those supplied to the soldiers and then make better practice. Their arrival has, every one admits, quite changed the situation.’

***

“Captain Scott has also rigged up a searchlight on a railway truck with a flasher attachment, the idea being to use it for communication with Kimberley and Ladysmith if these places are surrounded. It has been tested at a distance of forty miles, and proved a great success. I am told, too, that he is now engaged in designing a travelling carriage for a 6-inch gun, and has, indeed, converted the Terrible into a factory for curiosities in gun-mountings.

“Each mounting, by the way, has an inscription upon it, presumably concocted by the ship’s painter. One, a parody upon the Scotch proverb, runs, ‘Those who sup with me will require a devil of a long spoon’; another, ‘For what we are going to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful—Oom Paul’; and a third, ‘Lay me true and load me tight, the Boers will soon be out of sight.’ I saw one of these guns fired with an elevation of 24 degrees and a range of 12,000 yards, and fully expected to see the whole thing capsize, but it hardly moved. After the firing of several rounds I carefully examined the mounting, and noticed that, crude as it might appear, a wonderful amount of practical knowledge was apparent in its construction; the strain was beautifully distributed, every bolt and each balk bearing its proportionate share. It is in every way creditable to the navy that when emergency arises such a thing could be devised and made by the ship’s engineering staff in twenty-four hours.”

Besides her 4.7’s in use, Terrible‘s Marines and Tars manned a series of armored trains that they helped craft.

A British armored train designed and manned by Terrible’s crew during the Second Boer War, covered with 6 inch anchor rope, provided by the Royal Navy, to provide it protection. The improvised additional armor was the source of its name, “Hairy Mary.” (Photo from the McGregor Museum)

Royal Navy bluejackets of HMS Terrible pose by an armored train at Durban during the Boer War. Mounted on the flatbed carriage is an improvised signal lamp consisting of a searchlight and shutter mechanism, powered by a dynamo attached to the train. The officer to the right of the image is possibly Capt. Percy Scott RN. The tower of Durban Post Office can be seen in the background. IWM Q 115145

They also found time to do a spot of fishing:

The next year, Terrible sailed for China station where she repeated her efforts ashore though in a smaller scale, during the Boxer Rebellion. On that trip, she carried 300 Tommies of 2 Btln. Royal Welsh Fusiliers and 40 Royal Engineers.

Arriving in Tientsin 21 June 1900, Terrible landed four of her 12 pounders and, with the help of muscle from Col. Bower’s Wei-hai-Wei (1st Chinese) Regiment, engaged in the relief of that city the next month.

1902 Crewmen of HMS Terrible at Hong Kong. Note the teak decking and that flatcaps have replaced straw hats. The RN was changing…

Returning to the UK, she and her sister were soon obsolete (their 9.2-inch guns were unique) and, after a brief refit, were placed in ordinary in 1904 after less than a decade’s service.

During WWI, she was reactivated and used as a high speed troop transport (sans most of her armament and with reduced crews) in the Med and Northern Africa, bringing as many as 2,000 soldiers at a time to far off ports to support operations in Salonika, Egypt and Palestine.

Great War service had her in a more sedate haze gray with only her small casemate guns still mounted.

In 1920, she was disarmed, renamed the ignoble TS Fisgard III (taken from the old central-battery ironclad ex-HMS Hercules), and used as an accommodations and training ship for another decade. She was sold in July 1932 for scrap.

Likewise, Powerful was renamed TS Impregnable in November 1919, and was sold on 31 August 1929 for breaking up.

The teak decking from both of these vessels was extensively salvaged and crafted into everything from ashtrays to inkwells, chairs and desks and are out there, typically with commemorative brass plates in great numbers.

Even her bell was sold off.

Her most enduring legacy, and that of her sister Powerful, is the long-running Royal Navy Field Gun competition which has in turn evolved into the Royal Military Tournament race, which celebrates the epic Ladysmith (and later Tientsin) gun train that saw the scratch Naval Brigade manhandle six field guns each weighing nearly half a metric tonne over rough terrain to save their Army brethren.

Although a Majestic-class carrier, HMS Terrible (R93), was to carry on the old cruiser’s memory, that vessel was instead sold to Australia who commissioned her as HMAS Sydney (R17/A214/P214/L134) in 1948. Thus, the Royal Navy has not had a “Terrible” on their active list since 1920 when our old girl took the “Fisgard” moniker.

Speaking of which, TS Fisgard itself remains as the National Sea Cadet Engineering Training Centre aboard RNAS Prestwick.

More information about Terrible, especially her use at Ladysmith, can be found at Anglo-Boer War.com, Roll of Honour and the Royal Museums Greenwich.

Specs:

Ship model HMS Terrible by Oldham Hugh, via IWM

Displacement: 14,200 tons deep load
Length:     500 ft. (150 m)
Beam:     71 ft. (22 m)
Draught:     27 ft. (8.2 m)
Propulsion:
Two shafts
4-cylinder VTE steam engines
48 Bellville-type water-tube boilers
25,000 hp
Speed:     22 knots (41 km/h)
Range:     7,000 nautical miles (13,000 km) at 14 knots (26 km/h)
Endurance:     3000 tons coal
Complement: 894 (designed). By 1915, ~300.
Armament:     (Largely disarmed 1915)
2 × BL 9.2-inch (233.7 mm) Mk VIII guns
12 × QF 6 in (15.2 cm) guns
16 × 12 pdr 3 in guns
12 × 3 pdr guns
4 torpedo tubes (deactivated 1904)
Armour:
2–6 inches (51–152 mm) deck
6 inches (150 mm) barbettes
6 inches (150 mm) gun shields

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/membership.htm

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

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“Sir John MacDonald. Jacobite captain of cavalry. Aged, frequently intoxicated, described as a man of the most limited capacities.”

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“A cast iron ball of 3-pounds weight, fired from open sights. This is round shot. This is what it does…”

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“A cylindrical canvas bag, eight inches in length, packed with musket balls and pieces of jagged iron. This is grape shot. This is what it does…”

Culloden is a 1964 docudrama written and directed by Peter Watkins for BBC TV.

It portrays the 1746 Battle of Culloden that resulted in the British Army’s destruction of the Scottish Jacobite rising of 1745 and, in the words of the narrator, “tore apart forever the clan system of the Scottish Highlands.”

Described in its opening credits as “an account of one of the most mishandled and brutal battles ever fought in Britain,” Culloden was hailed as a breakthrough for its cinematography as well as its use of non-professional actors and its presentation of an historical event in the style of modern TV war reporting.

The film was based on John Prebble’s study of the battle.

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Donald Holbert

Soldiers, assigned to 1st Armored Division, Task Force Al Taqaddum, fire an M109A6 Paladin howitzer during a fire mission at Al Taqaddum Air Base, Iraq, June 27, 2016. The strikes were conducted in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and aimed at eliminating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The Alpha 6 (Paladin) variant is mega sweet as far as 155mm SP guns go and only about a sixth of all M109s operational in the world got the upgrade which includes the longer 39-caliber 155 mm M284 cannon (which gives a max range of over 30,000m with RAP rounds) in a more advanced M182A1 mount, an increased 39 shell internal mag, beefier engine and an integrated fire direction center which moves well beyond the 1960s tech the gun originally carried, allowing it to be fed data in real time from brigade level and pop off a round in seconds after moving if doing “shoot-and-scoot” artillery fire, which is the only way to ensure survival on the modern combined armed battlefield.

Then of course there are hyper velocity projectiles (HVP) in the testing phase for Paladin that could hit Mach 3 and enable larger caliber guns to launch HVPs at air and missile threats over medium ranges (10–30 nautical miles) turning the howitzer into a very capable surface to air defense weapon if needed.

From the Internationales Maritimes Museum Hamburg

Russian fleet at the port of Batumi in today’s Georgia was made from a work of French marine painter Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager (1814-1879) during the Crimean War. It is one of the 24 beautiful views published under the title “A Voyage in the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles”. The painter had been commissioned by the western allies in an expedition to make sketches and plans of the positions of the Russian Empire. From today’s perspective, it is a strange combination of art and military strategy

Machine Gun Mike breaks out a select-fire, suppressed HK MP5SD built by Urbach Precision and shows you why it’s so muffly.

It’s got all the goodies, being a suppressed SBR with both three-round burst and full-auto selector switch and on-board en-quieter that is capable of putting the hush on even super-sonic hardball. Yup, the MP5SD was developed by Heckler & Koch in 1976 for military commandos and was designed to allow standard NATO ball, already in service for subguns and handguns, to be used in the integrally suppressed little SD, but still be quiet enough to where mechanical action noise is all you hear.

Plus, the way the can is made, it is very effective at eliminating muzzle flash, making it a good choice not only for operators at night working by PNVs, but also in use by clandestine lab teams taking down meth labs with potentially lethal fumes– which is why you stumble on a lot of these that have been loaned by the feds to podunk local SWAT teams.

Perhaps the most unsung use of a MP5SD was in the Gambia.

You don’t have to look in this diplomatic pouch

The Gambia is the smallest independent country in mainland Africa. It gets its name from the River Gambia that cuts it in half. Independent since 1965 it is almost completely surrounded by its much larger neighbor Senegal which it was friendly with. In 1981 its population was slightly under a million and it did not even feel the need to have an army. The country’s president Sir Dawda Jawara was invited to attend the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles due to the Gambia’s status as a member of the British Commonwealth.

On July 31, 1981, 400 Marxist radicals under the name of The Movement for Justice in Africa that had been armed and trained in Libya took advantage of his absence to seize control of the country. In the capital city of Banjul they sized Jawara’s family, the radio station, police armory and airport. President Jawara declared he would return to his country and asked for British help. He was given a British Army force of two men. These two men were not your average soldiers, they were SAS men.

Margaret Thatcher and three SAS personnel after the six-day Iranian Embassy siege in London, May 1980. She was a big fan of the SAS, who in turn were a big fan of the MP5.

The 22^nd Special Air Service Regiment, (better known as the SAS) has been Britain’s premier commando force since the end of world war two. The detachment was made up of then-Major Ian Crooke and a picked sergeant. Crooke had years of experience in Borneo, Ulster, the recapture of the Iranian Embassy in London and other hot spots by the time of the Gambian affair and had risen to third in command of the SAS. He and a sergeant that remains unnamed to this day donned civilian clothes and left for Senegal, Gambia’s neighbor.

They brought grenades, a pair of Heckler and Koch MP5SD submachine guns and a matching set of Browning Hi Power pistols, all of which fired the same 9mm cartridge in a diplomatic pouch. They arrived the next day and walked over the border and into the lawless Gambian capital dressed in polo shirts and blue jeans. They were met by Mr. Clive Lee, a former commando who had retired in Gambia who had been in touch to see if he could be of assistance. The three men ventured together through the capital to assess the situation.

They found that the airport had been retaken already by elite French-trained paratroopers from Senegal, who President Jawara had also contacted for assistance. The three commandos made contact with the Senegalese forces and outlined a plan to retake the city and defeat the rebels. The SAS team went first – disguised as doctors -to the local hospital where President Jawara’s family was being held and disarmed the rebels there without incident. The commandos then led the assault on the radio station and the government’s police armory with support of the Senegalese the next day.

A film crew from the BBC captured the out of place and out of uniform British commandos several times running all over town from engagement to engagement.  By August 3^rd, the attempted coup was over and the quiet and professional SAS men flew back to Britain just as President Jawara returned to the Gambia from there.

In the aftermath of this stunning event Major Crooke was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. He retired as a Colonel and now lives in South Africa. It was estimated that anywhere from 600-1000 Gambian casualties were suffered in the three days of rebellion and anarchy. In December 1981 seven ringleaders were sentenced to death after trail for their role in the coup.  President Jawara was re-elected five times in democratic elections and remained the leader of his country until he was removed in 1994…..by a military coup.

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 Aug 3, 2016: The Grand Ole Bear

With tomorrow being the 226th birthday of the U.S. Coast Guard (by proxy of the Revenue Marine Service), I figured we would get a jump on it by celebrating their most famous vessel today.

Here we see the one-of-a-kind Revenue Cutter/U.S. Navy Gunboat/Coast Guard Cutter Bear. She remained afloat some 89-years and spent about half of that in armed maritime service, making 35 patrols to Alaska, three trips to Antarctica, and serving in the Spanish-American War as well as both World Wars.

Built in 1874 by the firm of Alexander Stephen & Son in their Dundee Shipyard (Hull No. 56) on the east coast of Scotland, she was reinforced to operate in dense sea ice as a sealing vessel operating in the Far North. Crafted of live oak, with planks six inches thick and a deck of teak wood, some spots on her hull were over 30-inches thick and braced by timbers 18-inches square. A three-masted barkentine with yards on her foremast and gaffs and booms on her main and mizzen, she could make a stately 14-knots under canvass and was fitted with a steam plant that could push her at 6-knots.

Delivered to W. Grieve, Sons & Company of Dundee (and St. John), she was operated by that firm from Newfoundland until 1880 when ownership changed to one Mr. R. Steele, Jr, who continued her sealing career, completing 10 annual trips to the waters off Greenland in the search of then-valuable seal pelts.

With the fiasco that was the U.S. Army’s Greeley Expedition needing rescue from their brothers in blue, who had no such vessels capable of service in the ice, Bear was purchased for $100,000 by the U.S. Navy, 28 January 1884, at St John’s and duly commissioned after brief refit as USS Bear, 17 March 1884, with one LT. (later RADM) William Hemsley Emory (USNA 1866) in command.

After her brief naval career that involved assisting in the retrieval of Greeley and remaining associates (which can be read in more detail here) the 10-year old scratch-and-dent sealer turned rescue ship was decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register in April 1885, transferring to the Treasury Department’s Revenue Cutter Service.

Leaving New York 9 Nov after picking up a trio of 6-pounder popguns and a magazine filled with torpedoes (mines) for destroying derelicts found at sea, USRC Bear arrived in San Francisco after a fairly rapid passage of just 87 days.

Soon after arriving, she picked up her most famous master.

Captain Michael A Healy, USRC Bear. Note parrot

From the Coast Guard Historian’s office:

In 1885 the colorful “Hell Roaring”‘ Mike Healy, a dynamo of a man with an unpredictable temper, assumed command. Healy was a good skipper, and he commanded the Bear for more than nine years, longer than any other. He had another distinction as well: he was the first African-American to command a U.S. Government vessel. In time, Healy and his ship became legend in the lusty, brawling Territory of Alaska.

The Bear’s duties on the Alaskan Patrol were many. She carried mail which had accumulated at Seattle during the winter, as well as Government agents and supplies. On her trip south from Alaska, she transported Federal prisoners and other questionable characters whose presence in Alaska ‘was undesirable. The deck of the Bear often served as a court where justice was dispensed swiftly but fairly. The Bear also conducted investigations, undertook crime prevention and law enforcement. She and other cutters like her were often the only law in that turbulent part of the world. The Bear also conducted soundings to improve charts of Alaskan waters, and her surgeon furnished medical attention and surgery to natives, prospectors, missionaries, and whalers. These duties are still part of today’s Bering Sea Patrol.

“Hoisting Deer aboard the Bear, Siberia, Aug 28th 1891.”; no photo number; photographer unknown. USCG Photo

Photograph shows a Native American child and man sitting on the deck of a ship, the revenue cutter Bear during a relief voyage to rescue whalers off the Alaska coast in 1897. The man is showing the child how to smoke a pipe. By photographer Samuel Call. LOC.

In 1897, Bear was involved in the great Overland Rescue of eight whaling vessels and 250 crewmembers who were trapped in the ice and was able to penetrate to within about 85 miles of Nome, still far too short to do the whalers any good. The ship then dispatched an over-land party of’ 1LT D. H. Jarvis, 2LT B. P. Bertholf, and Surgeon S. J. Call. Equipped with dog teams, sleds, and guides, Jarvis and his companions set out for Point Barrow.

Crew of the Revenue Cutter Bear ferrying stranded whalemen,

Again, the Coast Guard office:

Before them lay a 1,600-mile journey through frozen, trackless wilderness. But the “Overland Expedition for the Relief of the Whalers in the Arctic Ocean” as it was ponderously called, became one of the great epics of the north.

During the exhausting journey, Jarvis and Call collected a herd of nearly 450 reindeer. Driving the herd ahead of them in the face of icy winds the party reached Point Barrow about three and one-half months after being put ashore by the Bear. To the despairing whalers, the arrival of the relief party was nothing short of a miracle.

An in-depth Harpers article from 1899 details the mission with maps and illustrations.

The Spanish-American War saw Revenue Cutters mobilized under Naval service but the slow and increasingly creaky Bear simply maintained her annual trip to Alaska and performed patrol on the West Coast on the outside prospect that a Spanish auxiliary cruiser may pop up over the horizon.

This followed a tough couple of years during the Klondike and Yukon gold rushes from 1898-1900 in which she was the only law enforcement asset in the territory, her bluejackets having to enforce order on more than one occasion while in port. She likewise had to rescue many a lost landlubber who had packed aboard condemned craft in Seattle and set off for Alaskan waters or bust.

Off Barrow

USRC Bear Dressed with flags circa 1900. Description: Catalog #: NH 56690

USRC BEAR Caption: At San Diego, California, before World War I. Description: Courtesy of Thomas P. Naughton, 1973. Catalog #: NH 92207 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command

Alaskan natives dancing on deck of USRC BEAR circa 1913

When World War I came, Bear conducted neutrality patrols along the Alaskan coast while on 28 January 1915, the Revenue Cutter Service, and the U.S. Life-Saving Service were combined to form the United States Coast Guard.

COAST GUARD BUREAU OF TREASURY DEPARTMENT. REVENUE CUTTER ‘BEAR’, RIGHT, WITH S.S. CORWIN, 1916. Harris & Ewing Collection. LOC LC-H261- 6165 [P&P]

Then, came another decade of more traditional service on the frozen beat.

USCGC BEAR At Point Barrow, Alaska, 21 August 1922. Catalog #: NH 91762
Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command. Note she still maintained her 1917 “war-paint” which was not painted over with the more standard white scheme until the following year.

The midnight watch on 10 June 1924 showing the crew in the land of the midnight sun, literally. Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard, 1930. Catalog #: NH 56694

USCGC BEAR in the Arctic Ocean. Description: Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard, Catalog #: NH 56692

United States Coast Guard cutter BEAR (1884-1948), in ice pads. Description: Received from Coast Guard, 1930. Catalog #: NH 170.

In 1929, after 35 annual deployments to Alaska and service on the periphery of two wars, Bear was removed from the Treasury Department and offered for sale, with a half-century under her keel. Her place had already been taken in the fleet with the commissioning in late 1927 of the purpose-built steel-hulled icebreaking gunboat USCGC Northland (WPG-49).

Saved from the scrappers by the city of Oakland, California, for a token fee, she was renamed Bear of Oakland and used as a museum ship.

In 1930, she was used as the filming location for the sealer “Ghost,” in the Milton Sills as ‘Wolf’ Larsen version of Jack London’s The Sea Wolf.

Then came the famed Arctic explorer, Rear Adm. Richard E. Byrd, USN, who was looking for a (cheap but capable) vessel for his Antarctic Expedition and he purchased the Bear of Oakland from the city for just $1,050 in the Spring of 1932.

The thing is, Bear (renamed SS Jacob Ruppert) still had her 1885-mounted 6-pounders aboard (with breech blocks) which caused Byrd, officially a civilian on a civilian ship, some heartburn in Mexican ports when he stopped to recoal her on the way through the Panama Canal to Boston, but he nevertheless appeared in that New England port in August.

For visibility in the whiteout, she was painted coal black

Leaving for the Antarctic in 1934, the ship was vital to Byrd’s successful expedition, which included the explorer spending four months over-winter on the frozen continent that is discussed in his autobiography Alone.

Note her black scheme

Returning to Boston in 1935, Byrd leased Ruppert/Bear to the Navy for $1 per year, and she was stored at the Boston Naval Yard in poor condition.

Then in 1939, Byrd’s United States Antarctic Service Expedition got underway and the old Bear was refitted with a diesel engine, her original figurehead was replaced with a carved polar bear, new canvas and rigging was brought aboard, and new spars and a foreyard of fresh Oregon pine were fitted.

She was given stores for 18-months, kennels for 78 sled dogs were built on deck, and a U.S. Army M2A2 light tank was heaved aboard to test in the ice. A Barkley-Grow T8P-1 two-engine seaplane was hoisted aft.

This resulted in her second official (not counting her unofficial transfers in 1898 and 1917) Navy commission as USS Bear (AG-29), 11 September 1939.

USS Bear (AG-29), formerly the US Revenue Cutter Bear, operates in Antarctic waters during the 1939-40 season as part of the U.S. Antarctic Service. The aesthetic of the seaplane on a three-master is pure 1930s.

Photographed circa 1939, possibly during Byrd’s 1940 Antarctic Expedition. This ship also served as USS BEAR (AG-29) and as USCGC BEAR. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-1033748

In early 1941, Bear returned to the Antarctic for her third and last trip, this time to evacuate the Americans from the continent with the looming war.

USS BEAR (AG-29) Awaiting to evacuate west base in the Bay of Whales, Antarctica in 1941, she noses against bay ice. Supplies had to be carried from the base camp in the background. Ross Barrier is the thick ice on the left. Description: Catalog #: NH 56697 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command

Returning to Boston, her newly rejuvenated sail rig was scrapped. Her spars and yard removed, only the stumps of her masts remained. Equipped with a Grumman J2F-1 seaplane and armed with some AAA mounts (seen under tarps below).

She was a warship again.

In May 1941, the Northeast Greenland Patrol was organized with Bear, her ice-strengthened Coast Guard replacement Northland, and her old sailing companion the former Interior Department ship North Star, with Captain Edward H. “Iceberg” Smith, USCG, in overall command of the force.

USS BEAR (AG-29) Off the Boston Navy Yard, 2 July 1941. Catalog #: 19-N-24311 Copyright Owner: National Archives. Note Grumman J2F-1 aircraft carried.

They soon struck pay dirt and Northland seized a three-man German weather station along with the Norwegian sealer D/S Buskø (159 gt) in September (three months before Pearl Harbor) and took her to MacKenzie Bay, on the Greenland coast, where Bear took up tow and “protective custody” of her prisoners for the trip down to Boston.

Buskø carried with a crew of 20 Norwegian quislings, a supposed German agent, and “one other dog,” who was working as a radio supply ship to keep German weather stations operating in the Far North operational. She was the first capture of a belligerent ship by U.S. Naval forces in World War II and arrived on 14 October to a big international news splash.

A few more trips around Greenland and Iceland were left for her, but by 1944, the writing was on the wall for the old warrior.

Decommissioned, 17 May 1944, Bear was transferred to the Maritime Commission for disposal, 13 February 1948.

Sold by the Maritime Commission for commercial service in 1948, she was renamed Arctic Sealer and was to be used as a sealer home ported at Halifax, Canada– her original purpose, but this largely fell by the wayside and she did not return to her old stomping grounds after all.

After moldering away in Halifax for almost 15 years, she was resold for conversion to a floating museum and restaurant at Philadelphia, PA, but she foundered under tow 90 miles south of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia on 19 March 1963.

Note that her rigging and masts have been partially restored

Her wreck site is unknown, despite the best efforts of a 1979 search conducted by cadets from the Coast Guard Academy.

The old ship remains alive in the work of maritime artists.

The famous old Coast Guard cutter BEAR. From the Collection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt Catalog #: NH 1918 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command Original Creator: Charles Robert Patterson, artist

USCGC BEAR, 1884-1948. Description: Copied from U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1945 Catalog #: NH 56695 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command Original Creator: Hunter Wood, USCG, artist

Her bell is at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling and is kept in tip-top shape while her binnacle has been retained at the USCGA.

The polar bear figurehead from Bear is in the collection at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. Following his celebrated 1940 expedition, Admiral Byrd presented the figurehead to the facility.

The Coast Guard maintains an extensive 40-page online scrapbook of the old Bear as well as an extensive website.

Since 1980, her name has been perpetuated by the class-leader of the Famous-class 270-foot medium endurance cutters, USCGC Bear (WMEC 901) based at Portsmouth, VA.

Coast Guard Cutter Bear transits past the Statue of Liberty in New York City June 19, 2016. The Bear is a 270-feet medium endurance cutter

As for “Roaring Mike” Healy, the Coast Guard named their newest icebreaker (WAGB-20) for him in 1997, shown below, while reindeer-herding lieutenants Berthoff and Jarvis each had a cutter named after them in modern times.

Specs:

Length: 198′ 4″
Beam: 30′
Draft: 17′ 11″
Displacement: 703 tons
Launched: 1874
Machinery: Compound-expansion steam, 25-5/8″ and 50″ diameter x 30″ stroke, 101 nominal hp (1885)
Diesel engine/sail rig (1935) Diesel only after 1939.
Speed: 14kts max on sail, 6 on steam, 8 on diesel
Complement: 51 (1884) 39 (1939)
Armament: 3 x 6-pound rapid-fire guns (1885) disarmed 1935. Equipped with small arms and light machine guns 1940.

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/membership.htm

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

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

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Here we see a Consolidated B-24D Liberator heavy bomber, specifically #42-72843 “Strawberry Bitch” at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio.

DAYTON, Ohio — Consolidated B-24D Liberator at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. (U.S. Air Force photo)

She was flown to the museum in May 1959 and they have an extensive gallery of photos of her here.

Strawberry Bitch is one of just eight surviving B-24Ds known to exist– and several of those are in wrecked condition overseas.

Established in the Middle East 31 October 1942, the 512th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), U.S. Army Air Force, was initially equipped with obsolete B-17C/D Flying Fortresses transferred from Tenth Air Force. These were replaced with Liberators in early 1943 and they became part of the Ninth Air Force.

Operating from bases in British Palestine, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, the Flying Skulls attacked shipping in the Mediterranean and harbor installations in Libya, Tunisia, Sicily, and Italy to cut enemy supply lines to North Africa. Struck airdromes, marshalling yards, and other objectives in Sicily and Italy after the fall of Tunisia in May 1943.

Reassigned to Fifteenth Air Force in late 1943, and moved to southern Italy to bomb factories, oil refineries, oil storage facilities, airdromes, bridges, harbors, and other objectives.

Between Sept 1943 and June 1944, Strawberry Bitch flew 56 combat missions that are detailed here.

As for the “Flying Skulls,” they hung up their bomb sights in 1965 with the retirement of the B-47 Stratojet (after switching to them from B-29s) and were inactivated for three decades then came out of retirement in 1994 as the 512th Special Operations Squadron  then the 512th Rescue Squadron (512 RQS). Now part of the 58th Special Operations Wing based at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, they operate HH-60G Pave Hawks on CSAR missions for bug eaters.

Joseph Pennell (1857–1926). Submarines in Dry Dock, 1917. Transfer lithographic drawing. Bequest of the Estate of Joseph Pennell. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (005.00.00) LC-DIG-ppmsca-40029

The Library of Congress—which holds the largest multi-format collection of materials on the American experience in World War I—will present a major exhibition in 2017 to commemorate the centennial of The Great War.

The United States’ involvement in the “war to end all wars” began on April 6, 1917, when the U.S. Congress formally declared war on the German Empire, and concluded Nov. 11, 1918, with the armistice agreement.  The exhibition will examine the upheaval of world war, as Americans experienced it—domestically and overseas.  In the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, the exhibition will open in early April 2017 and close in January 2019.  Initially, it will feature 200 items, but during its 18-month run, numerous other artifacts will be rotated into the display.

Now through April 2017, the Library of Congress is featuring twice-monthly blogs about World War I, written by Library curators who highlight stories and collection materials they think are most revealing about the war.  The blogs can be viewed at http://www.loc.gov/blogs/.

An exhibition showing how American artists galvanized public interest in World War I is currently on display at the Library of Congress.  “World War I: American Artists View the Great War” is on view through May 6, 2017 in the Graphic Arts Galleries on the ground floor of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C.  The exhibition is free and open to the public Monday through Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  An online version can be viewed here.

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Aug 10, 2016: The Dynamite Buffalo of Rio

Cruzador Nitheroy [sic] [i.e. Nictheroy] by Marc Ferrez, Detroit Publishing Co. Image via LOC LC-D4-21236

A Dynamite Gun, that is.

In March 1892, a group of Brazilian navy commanders and army leaders started to run afoul of President Marshal Floriano Peixoto that led to an open manifesto between the military and the executive branch that basically said, either you listen to us and fix the government, or we will fix it for you. It wasn’t farfetched as the year before the Brazilian Navy had a hand in replacing President Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca.

Well, Peixoto called their bluff and by Sept. 1893 the Navy was in an open revolt known to history as Revolta da Armada, and the best ships, including the ironclad battleship Aquidabã (5,500-tons, 4×9.2-inch guns) went over to the rebels in Rio harbor/Guanabara Bay.

This left Peixoto fresh out of a Navy to command and his agents went about assembling what was derided as the “cardboard squadron” to blockade the rogue forces into surrender.

Guns were thrown on fishing vessels coastal steamers acquired locally and manned by whatever mariners could be enticed to put to sea, but everyone knew they and the handful of torpedo boats still loyal to the government would be no match for the big Aquidabã should the leviathan make a determined break for open water.

Aquidabã at Hampton Roads 1893. A formidable foe indeed.

In New York, agents of the Peixoto government purchased the pleasure yachts Feiseen and Javelin as well as the merchant steamers Britannia (Norwegian-built, 2600-tons) and El Cid for rapid conversion to warships for the new fleet.

The SS El Cid, a 7,080-ton cargo ship with some accommodation for passengers, was built for the Morgan Line at Mr. Collis P. Huntington’s Chesapeake Dry Dock & Construction Company, only the sixth ship constructed by that yard, since known as Newport News Shipbuilding. Delivered for merchant service 24 August 1893, the Brazilians purchased her almost sight unseen on 26 October.

El Cid and her three sisters (El Sud, El Norte, and El Rio) were designed as auxiliary cruisers for wartime service if needed and had three deckhouses, a 17-knot speed (very fast for the merchantmen of the day), coal bunkers arranged to protect her machinery and boilers from naval gunfire, watertight bulkheads, and a main deck with weight and space reserved for a decent naval gun forward.

Speaking of guns, the Brazilians went all out.

Dynamite gun on Brazilian ship, Nitheroy [i.e. Nictheroy] by Marc Ferrez, Detroit Publishing Co. Image via LOC LC-D4-32259

All guns are projectile weapons. In other words, they use force to propel an object down a barrel out to a target. The only thing that changes is the type of propellant and the projectile. In a Remington 870, a load of shot is scattered out of the muzzle by an explosion of smokeless powder set off by a primer. Well the dynamite gun does the same thing, it’s just that the projectile is made of TNT and it’s pushed out by a charge of compressed air. Kinda like a spud gun, but instead of a potato, you fire a bomb. The father of this device was one Edmund Zalinski.

Born in Kórnik, Prussian Poland on December 13, 1849, Edmund Zalinski immigrated to the US with his parents at age four. Not quite 15 years old, he dropped out of high school and volunteered for the Union Army during the Civil War. Serving in the artillery, he finished the war as an officer and remained in the Army once peace broke out. A pretty smart guy, he taught military science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology while inventing several mechanical doo dads. One of these was a dynamite gun. Showing his device to the military, (he was still on the Army rolls as a First Lieutenant); it was love at first sight.

By the next year, Zalinski had teamed up with a company calling itself the Pneumatic Dynamite Gun Company of New York (presumably to tell itself apart from the Pneumatic Dynamite Gun Company of other towns) and was off and running. The gun was huge, and looked like something Jules Verne would use to shoot a missile to the moon. It had a 15-inch (379.5mm) bore. Using compressed air, it could catapult 500-pounds of dynamite more than two miles with better accuracy than the black-powder cannon of the era. The air was produced by a steam-powered (think locomotive) compressor fueled by coal.

Well the Navy liked the idea so much that they built the world’s first “Dynamite Cruiser.” Ordered for $350,000 from cruiser and battleship maker William Cramp and Sons, Philadelphia, she was laid down in 1887. Named appropriately the USS Vesuvius, its main battery would be these new guns. Mounting three of Zalinski’s 15-inch pneumatic guns, the guns were located with their breech along the keel of the ship three decks down and their 55-foot long barrels poking up through the 01 top deck. To aim the weapons, since the guns could not be turned, the whole ship tacked port or starboard while the pressure of the air was adjusted to correct range. Charges of various sizes ranging up to a quarter-ton could be used to do anything from bombard shore positions to sink ships and, being electrically fused, could fire on a delay or even while submerged.

Vesuvius in 1891…the three tubes on her main deck are 15inch FIXED Dynamite Guns

Other than Vesuvius, the Brazilians were the only other sucker taker for a large caliber Dynamite Gun naval mount. For the gun, they purchased one (1) full caliber 15-inch round and 10 10-inch sub-caliber projectiles meaning the ship had a very big but very brief bark. A further 2 full caliber rounds and 16 10-inch sub-calibers were loaded on the more lightly armed (2×4.7inch QF) steamer Britannia (renamed America by the Brazilians) who would serve as Nictheroy‘s escort of sorts.

As for the two yachts, they were stripped of their above deck structures, given a pivoting Hotchkiss torpedo tube and 1-pounder rapid-fire mount of the same make. They were hoisted aboard Nictheroy‘s deck for the voyage to Brazil.

Unlike on Vesuvius, in which the Dynamite Guns were fixed and the ship had to be tacked one way or the other to bring a target under fire, the gun on Nictheroy was made to slew port to starboard, allowing a much more efficient laying on target. A Rand air compressor below decks provided pneumatics for the gun.

Besides the 15-inch Zalinski forward, Nictheroy was well equipped from the works of Mr. Hotchkiss under the supervision of E. W. Very, late Lieutenant USN and now General Director of the Hotchkiss Ordnance Co, to include a 120mm rapid-fire single mount (with 50 rounds) aft of the after deck house, two rapid-fire 100mm mounts (with 200 rounds) on the bluff of the bow, eight rapid-fire 6-pounders (with 1,419 rounds) distributed broadside firing through the existing freight ports, nine 1-pounders (with 1,340 rounds) distributed on deck, and two 37mm revolving cannon on the bridge wings outside the pilothouse. Ports were cut for four torpedo tubes on deck to launch Howell automobile torpedoes of which the Brazilian agents bought 10, each with a 92-pound gun cotton warhead.

Two magazines were arranged in the former holds, reinforced with wooden planks, equipped with elevators, and flooding capabilities.

(Brazilian auxiliary cruiser, 1893-1898, formerly S.S. El Cid, later USS Buffalo) View on board, probably taken while fitting out for Brazilian Navy service in November 1893 at the Morgan Iron Works, New York City. The gun, which is mounted at the ship’s stern, is almost certainly a 4.7 quick-fire weapon built by the Hotchkiss Ordnance Co. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105944

View on board, probably taken while fitting out for Brazilian Navy service in November 1893 at the Morgan Iron Works, New York City. Her single 15-inch dynamite gun on the forecastle (left center) was offset 3 feet to starboard of the centerline and was trainable right ahead and on both bows. The gun on the right may be one of the two 33-pounder (4-inch) Hotchkiss quick-fire guns that were listed as having been mounted forward on the bluff of the bow on each side. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105942

View on board, probably taken while fitting out for Brazilian Navy service in November 1893 at the Morgan Iron Works, New York City. Shown looking forward from near the stern, aft of the main mast. The gun is probably one of the ship’s nine one-pounder Hotchkiss quick-fire weapons, eight of which were mounted on top of the deckhouses. She also had two 1-pounder Hotchkiss machine guns on top of the pilothouse. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105943

Probably shown fitting out for Brazilian Navy service in November 1893 at the Morgan Iron Works, New York City. Several barges are alongside. Nictheroy’s single 15-inch dynamite gun is on the forecastle. A small quick-fire gun, probably one of her eight 6-pounder Hotchkiss weapons, is barely visible behind a shield on the weather deck aft. Six of the other 6-pounders were carried behind ports in the hull, along with four tubes for Howell torpedoes. Her former name, El Cid, has been painted out on the bow but the ship still wears the rest of her mercantile paint scheme. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105941

In the span of just 24 days from when the Brazilians purchased El Cid, she was armed, equipped, painted, and recommissioned as Nictheroy. With the two yachts turned torpedo boats lashed to her deck and her holds filled with new shells for her never-fired guns, Nictheroy left New York on 20 November 1893. Her escort Britannia/America, carrying most of her Dynamite Gun shells, set out five days later as her armament was held up in shipping, delaying her departure.

As amazing as it sounds, just four months later this little formation took on the mighty Aquidabã and won.

On 16 April 1894, the ironclad warship was anchored off the coast of Santa Catarina, near the Fortress of Anhatomirim. Early in the morning, the loyalist government-controlled former yacht turned torpedo boat Gustavo Sampaio, accompanied by three other torpedo boats and Nictheroy in support, attacked Aquidabã. They managed to pump at least one Honeywell torpedo (some sources say two) into the bow of the once-proud battleship and, her front compartments open to the sea, she settled in the mud as her crew fled after thoroughly wrecking her.

During the battle, Nictheroy took Anhatomirim and a smaller rebel battery under naval gunfire and kept them from plastering her mosquito boat squadron.

The next day, when Nictheroy and company returned, Aquidabã and the forts were deserted and, as reported by the New York Times, a boarding crew from the Dynamite cruiser soon struck up song on the ironclad’s organ.

Over the next few years, with the naval revolt ended, Nictheroy was increasingly sidelined, no longer needed. The ship was subsequently used as an accommodation hulk for the school for apprentice seamen at Rio de Janeiro.

Going back home

When the United States entered into war with Spain in 1898, Nictheroy‘s three sisters were bought by the U.S. Navy from commercial service and, after a few guns were added, were used as the auxiliary cruisers USS Yosemite, USS Yankee and USS Dixie.

Remembering the Nictheroy, U.S. agents approached the Brazilians and arranged to purchase the former American steamer for the battle line (they already had the only other Dynamite cruiser in service, USS Vesuvius) on 11 July 1898. However, the Brazilians had the last laugh and disarmed the Nictheroy completely, forcing her back to the East Coast to rearm.

Rearmed with a more traditional battery of 2×5″/40cals and 4×4″/40s and refitted, she was commissioned into U.S. service as USS Buffalo on 22 September 1898 at New York Naval Yard. However, as hostilities halted with the signing in Washington of a Protocol of Peace between the United States and Spain more than a month before, her wartime service was moot and she was decommissioned, 3 July 1899 after a cruise to Manila.

A bugler sounding the call to breakfast in 1898. The gun appears to be a 4″/40cal. At this time the ship carried four of these weapons plus two 5/40 guns. Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN (Medical Service Corps), 1975. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 82990

Buffalo was brought back out of ordinary 2 April 1900, to serve as a Training Ship, a role she maintained for the next five years. During this period, she undertook four voyages to the Philippines with replacement crews for the Asiatic Fleet and on one of the return legs accomplished a circumnavigation.

She does look handsome in white! Photographed in 1902, while serving as a training ship. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56644

USS Buffalo Photographed at Algiers in January 1904 while serving as a training ship. Courtesy of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (MC), 1933. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 434

A footlocker inspection on the main deck in 1904. The Sailor on the left, closest to the camera, is Chester Bryon Harper. Courtesy of Mr. Gene B. Reid (Harper’s grandson), 1983. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 94193

After layup at Mare Island Navy Yard in 1905, she was refitted for work as a transport and largely disarmed. She continued her operations carrying replacement crews to the far off Asiatic Fleet on China station, carried Marines to Nicaragua in 1909, and operated off Mexico during the troubles and civil war there.

In 1914, Buffalo undertook a seven-month expedition to Alaska to build radio stations and towers up and down the coast, many of which remained operational as late as the 1960s. Her expedition, which included some 44 civilian technicians, upgraded the facilities at Woody Island near Kodiak, on St. Paul and St. George in the Pribilof Islands, on the island of Unalga, and at Dutch Harbor near Unalaska as well as built new ones at Sitka and Cordova.

USS Buffalo at Mare Island, California loading materials for the expedition to Alaska radio stations. 1914 NHC Accession #: UA 557

Dressed with flags at Kodiak, Alaska, on Independence Day 1914, during the 1914 Alaskan Radio Expedition. Note her extensive away boats. Collection of Admiral Montgomery M. Taylor, donated by Louisa R. Alger, 1962. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105444-A

At the naval coaling station at Sitka, Alaska, in October or late September 1914. During the 1914 Alaskan Radio Expedition. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Collection of Admiral Montgomery M. Taylor, donated by Louisa R. Alger, 1962. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105470

Teddy, a ship’s mascot, on the ship’s forecastle circa mid-1914 during the 1914 Alaskan Radio Expedition. Teddy, probably an Alaskan bear cub, is also shown posing with one of the ship’s divisions in Photo # NH 105464. Note the ship’s capstain in the background. Collection of Admiral Montgomery M. Taylor, donated by Louisa R. Alger, 1962. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105596.

When World War I broke out, Buffalo transported the U.S. diplomatic mission to Russia’s Provisional Government after the fall of the Tsar in 1917 and was then refitted as a destroyer tender (AD-8), serving in Europe until Sept. 1919 when she transitioned to the Pacific, serving in China and Japan until 1922.

On 12 November 1918 in European waters wearing pattern camouflage dazzle paint. Note her masts have been enhanced. Photographed by E. J. Kelty. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56642

At Gibraltar circa December 1918, with USS Schley (Destroyer No. 103 ) alongside and the collier USS Jupiter (Fuel Ship No. 3) in the background. Note that Schley is still wearing pattern camouflage, while Buffalo has been repainted from the image above into overall grey. Also, of interest, Jupiter with her distinctive transfer stations, would go on to become USS Langley CV-1. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56643

Now all gray. At Villefranche on the French Mediterranean coast in late 1918 or early 1919. Donation of Captain Stephen S. Roberts, USNR (Retired), 2008. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105907

The ship’s baseball team ashore in the Azores in March 1919. Photographed by St. Jacques. Courtesy of Paul H. Silverstone, 1983. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 94998

No longer useful, the aging steamer was decommissioned on 15 November 1922 at San Diego. She was used as a barracks ship until stricken from the Navy List on 27 May 1927. She was sold four months later for scrap. It is not believed that any artifacts remain from her although I would like to hope that some museum in Brazil has her Dynamite Gun in a dusty back room.

As for her merchant sisters turned SpAmWar auxiliary cruisers: El Sud/USS Yosemite hunted down the Spanish steamer Antionio Lopez during the war and was scuttled after being wrecked in a storm in 1900; El Norte/USS Yankee was very active off Cuba and survived as a Naval Militia training ship until she ran aground on Spindle Rock near Hen and Chickens lightship in 1908; and El Rio/USS Dixie (AD-1) gave her full measure as a warship then training ship and finally the Navy’s first official destroyer tender before she was sold for scrapping in 1922– meaning El Cid/Nictheroy/Buffalo was the last survivor of her class.

Specs:

Displacement: 7,080 tons (6,635 t)
Length: 406 ft. 1 in (123.77 m)
Beam: 48 ft. 3 in (14.71 m)
Draft: 20 ft. 8 in (6.30 m)
Propulsion
Coal fired boilers
Steam turbine
Single propeller
Speed: Designed for 17 knots, made 14.5 knots (26.9 km/h; 16.7 mph) in Naval service with armament.
Complement: A figure of 350 officers and enlisted given for Brazilian service. In U.S. service this was reduced to as little as 150 by 1898 and to >50 before 1909.
Armament:
(Brazil, 1893)
1×15 inch Dynamite Gun
1x 4.7-inch (120mm) rapid-fire single mount
2 4 inch (100mm) mounts
8 6-pounders
9 1-pounders
2 37mm revolving cannon
4 torpedo tubes
(US, 1898)
2x 5 in (130 mm) guns
4x 4 in (100 mm) guns
(*Disarmed by 1909 though her 5 inchers may have been removed by 1900)

*In 1917 she probably was rearmed, most likely with a few 3″/23 cal mounts and 6-pdrs though I cannot confirm this.

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(Photo Credit: State Department via U.S. Army)

Here we see an image of a typical late 1940s/early 1950s U.S. anti-tank team with a 75mm M20 recoilless rifle. Fielded by March 1945, the M20 saw limited service in WWII, but did yeomen work in Korea and in the early days of Vietnam. The three-man team looks pretty standard: M1 combat helmets sans covers, OD uniforms to include M1943 field jackets, leather holstered M1911 and M1 Carbine with buttstock mag pouch for sidearms. The mountains could be the hills of Georgia or North Carolina, or they could be West Germany…or Korea.

Speaking of which, Ethiopia was the first nation in Africa to contribute a complete unit of ground troops to the UN Korean command– the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Kagnew Battalions. The names of the three Ethiopian gunners from Addis Ababa preparing to fire a 75mm recoilless rifle are, from left to right: Cpl. Alema Welde, Cpl. Chanllo Bala and Sgt. Maj. Bogale Weldeynse.

Formed from the Royal Guards division of the Imperial Ethiopian Army, the Kagnew Battalions drew their name from Haile Selassie’s father’s warhorse. They served alongside the U.S. 7th Infantry Division suffering 121 dead and 536 wounded during the course of the conflict. They had none of their members counted among the captured. In general serving one-year tours (with several men serving two or more), some 3,158 Ethiopians served in Kagnew Battalions from 1951-54.

“We knew there was going to be sacrifice. But this sacrifice was not for nothing. It was for peace and liberty,” Col. Melesse Tessema, an Ethiopian veteran of the Korean War, said in a 2010 interview. “My friends, they gave their lives for history and for the freedom of human beings.”

In 1961, Los Alamos National Laboratory started work on a project known then as TX-61 to come up with a 700~ pound tactical nuclear bomb with a yield that could range from 0.3-340 KT of glow in the dark.

Put into production at the Pantex Plant (Zone 11) near Amarillo, Texas in 1968, an estimated 3,155 B61 bombs were completed by the 1970s and, with the steady paring down of Russo-American nuclear stockpiles in the START and SALT treaties as others, the current number of operational devices stands at around 1,200 with only about 200 deployed.

The old school B61 (DOE image). Seems pretty simple.

Today the B61-3, -4, -7, and -10 series bombs, most of which are stockpiled on U.S. bases abroad such as in Europe and the Pacific, are the oldest items in the American nuclear triad and it is doubtful they could penetrate ultra modern strategic C4I facilities deep underground such as the ones believed to exist in Russia, China, DPRK and Iran, built since the 1990s, which can run over 1,000 feet deep and are protected by granite.

Still, they serve as something of “NATO’s Nukes” giving regional powers such as Italy, Spain, Germany and Turkey the nominal capability to carry an American-owned nuke under extreme circumstances (a B61 can be toted aloft by a Tornado or F-16).

Last week, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) announced they formally authorized the production engineering phase of its B61-12 warhead life extension program (LEP), which will include some capability for deep digging, dial-a-yield warheads, upgraded guidance packages and tail units.

The new B61-12, graphic by engadget

“Reaching this next phase of the B61-12 LEP is a major achievement for NNSA and the exceptionally talented scientists and engineers whose work underpins this vital national security mission,” said NNSA Administrator Lt. Gen. Frank G. Klotz (Ret.). “Currently, the B61 contains the oldest components in the U.S. arsenal. This LEP will add at least an additional 20 years to the life of the system.”

They expect it to be able to send the B83-1—the last megaton-class weapon in America’s nuclear arsenal— into retirement when the program gets fully fleshed out by 2020.

When the U.S. entered WWII, the entire garrison of tiny Kiska Island in the Aleutians consisted of a 10 man U.S. Navy radio/weather station. As a diversionary attack as part of the Battle of Midway, on 6 June 1942 the Japanese landed in force, some 550 men of an elite Naval Landing unit.

Over the next year, the Japanese build up on the remote island grew to 3,700 Navy personnel at Kiska Harbor and some 3,500 Army personnel at Gertrude Cove despite U.S. air and naval attacks. They put in fire hydrants and the beginnings of a water system, laid hundreds of foxholes, personnel trenches and barbed wire entanglements; dug underground bunkers into the hillsides; constructed a power and telephone network and erected a Shinto shrine.

In the harbor floated Kawanishi H6K ‘Mavis” flying boats, Nakajima A6M2-N ‘Rufe’ floatplane fighters and Aichi E13A ‘Jake’ floatplane bombers/reconnaissance aircraft. They also crafted a slipway and repair facilities for midget submarines (more on this later).

With a looming Canadian-U.S. force ready to invade the frozen tundra near the Bearing Strait in July 1943, the Japanese swiftly withdrew their troops and when the 34,000-man Allied force hit the beaches the next month, they found nothing but a ghost town– and three wrecked Japanese midget submarines.

These subs remain to this day.

The Japanese used Kiska as a base for Type A Kō-hyōteki-class submarines. The same type of boat that helped attack Pearl Harbor (where USS Ward splashed the first American kill of the Pacific War on one trying to penetrate the harbor), the 47-ton Type A was just 78-feet long and was electric-only, with a 600hp motor and 224 Type D batteries.

They were actually pretty fast– 19 knots submerged– but due to not being able to recharge their batteries, had a very short range (about a half-hour at full speed, 24-hours if barely spinning the contra-rotating propellers). The two-man crew of these boats carried a pair of 17.7-inch Type 98 (Type 97 “Special”) torps in a pair of blackpowder-fired tubes forward (each with a 772-pound warhead and a 3.4-mile range), and a 300-lb scuttling charge for when things went wrong.

Interior of a Type A Japanese midget submarine. Copyright Newspix/News Limited, via NWS.gov.au.

The IJN completed about 105 of these vessels in four slightly different variants, of which a few were based at Kiska for coastal defense against encroaching U.S./Canadian vessels, and others lost in raids on Australia and Madagascar.

As noted by Combined Fleet.com, on 28 June the seaplane/submarine tender Chiyoda left Yokosuka with six Type A’s (HA-28, HA-29, HA-31, HA-32, HA-33 and HA-34) as well as the 150-man crew of the future midget submarine base, a detachment of the 12th Construction Battalion and 200-tons of cement.

The submarines on Kiska were launched to and from their base via a beaching railway with four sets of launch rails in the Western part of Kiska Harbor, and all the structures around the bases, when abandoned, were rigged with 155mm IEDs, sulphuric acid cans set to explode via live grenade, and other booby traps, making souvenir hunting hazardous to a GI’s health.

Arriving 5 July, the submarine force joined the 5th Guard Unit, Special Purpose Unit and was under command of Lt ( j.g.) Otozaka Shoichi. With Chiyoda leaving, the aging L-class submarine RO-61 (1,000-tons, completed 1920 to a British design) arrived in August to serve as a pier-side battery charger for the midgets, three of which were afloat in the harbor at a mooring buoy and three more retained on land.

By November 1942, with the submarine base built and the vessels operational, they begin taking regular personnel casualties in air raids from American bombers. Larger subs stopped coming as often.

Losses mount, with HA-33 sunk in a heavy storm in early April 1943 and on the 14th P-40 Warhawks from Amchitka strafe HA-29 and HA-34, leading to the cannibalization of  HA-29 and HA-34 for spare parts, but as a result of continuing air attacks and storms repair cannot be completed.

This led Vice Admiral Kawase Shiro in May to order the midgets redeployed to nearby Attu but when two fleet submarines arrive to accomplish this, the news that Attu has fallen leads the midget crews to instead embark on I-31 and I-35 for the Kuriles.

On June 8, the two remaining midget submarines in the harbor are scuttled with demolition charges and one midget submarine is blown up using two Type 98 torpedo warheads, ending in watery graves. The three partially cannibalized midget submarines in the maintenance shed (including HA-32 and HA-34) are also demolished and the cache of some 20 remaining torpedoes are thrown in the harbor.

The sheds and buildings are burned with the stored fuel.

When the Americans arrived in August all they found were ruins.

Entrance to tunnel near Japanese sub base on Kiska, August 1943. Tunnels gave protection to the Japanese against bombs and provided sleeping quarters; image and caption Alaska State Library/Alaska’s Digital Archives (as with three following images).

Inside view, looking seaward, of covered, Japanese submarine beaching railway, tracks leading to waterfront; a soldier passes large submarine handling cradles on left; warships are visible through opening.

Japanese winches used to pull submarines into work shed on Kiska, August 1943.

Two-person submarines, damaged by internal explosions, on Kiska, August 1943. Fleet Air Wing Four military personnel remove incapacitated submarines from marine railway track leading to waterfront; lumber is scattered along one side; sandbags line top of hillside; winches for hauling subs are at right. All of the submarines, as with other equipment left on the island by the Japanese, were captured in thoroughly disabled condition as to be expected.

Submarines converted into scrap on Kiska Island, August 1943. Fleet Air Wing Four military personnel use torches to cut up submarines for scrap

Today these boats are still there to some degree

These images from Brian Hoffman, cc-nc-sa-4.0, via Flickr:

Kiska is federally owned and forms part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, which is administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service, though the National Park Service and others are also stakeholders.

YouTube gun reviewer Mr.Guns N Gear visited the mecca of full-auto publicly accessible weapons at Battlefield Vegas (if you are ever in Vegas, check it out, I go there every time I am in town) and came across a Japanese Type 99 light machine gun captured from the Imperial Army during WWII.

The very Bren Gun like Type 99 was chambered in 7.7x58mm Arisaka, an upgrade from the traditional 6.5x50mm Arisaka used in the previous Type 11 and Type 96 LMGs. Capable of 700 rpms, it was limited by its 30-round magazine in practical rate of fire. Still, the Nambu-designed LMG weighed just 23-pounds and as over 50,000 were produced, they were very frequently encountered in the war in the Pacific. Going past 1945, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Indonesian communists used inherited Type 99s well into the 1960s and likely would have continued to use them even longer if their ammo caches had lingered.

And of course, many were brought back to the States by the men from the U.S. in herringbone and OD who captured them.

Still carved in the buttstock of the captured gun in Vegas is the name of the Marine who laid hands on it: PFC Anderson, 4th Platoon, Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 21st Marines, 3rd Marine Division.

Alan Seeger was born in New York City on June 22, 1888, and received a BA from Harvard University in 1910 where he edited and wrote for the Harvard Monthly– alongside future 10 Days that Shook the World author John Reed and had  T.S. Eliot and Walter Lippmann in his classes.

A poet and idealist of sorts, he moved to Paris and was a resident of the City of Lights when the Germans came in 1914. A foreigner in France, he did what many both before and after did– joined up in the Foreign Legion. Fighting at the time in metropolitan France, a rarity for the unit, Seeger was killed at Belloy-en-Santerre in the Somme, riddled by a Boche Spandau while cheering on a charge of his fellow legionnaires, age 28.

He gave his last full measure on July 4, 1916 along with 900 other legionaries, including fellow poet, Camil Campanya. Able to seize the battlefield, the Germans withdrew from the ruined village on July 8.

The Legion remembered him in a ceremony on the 100th anniversary last month, and unveiled a marker.

Seeger is perhaps best remembered for his poem, I have a rendezvous with Death.

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ‘twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear…
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.