A young sailor is given a large hook and binoculars, fitted with a harness and safety line and stationed on the weather decks to seek out that oh so important piece of nautical equipment– the mail buoy.
Recruit of Indianapolis on ‘mail buoy watch’, 10 Mar 1943
Without it, entire generations of bluejackets would miss out on the joke.
Or worse, be sent looking for a bucket of prop-wash.
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, June 24, 2015: The Cursed Lion from Brazil
Photo colorized by irootoko_jr http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/ Note the huge Brazilian ensign
Here we see the ironclad warship Aquidabã (also spelled Aquidaban) of the Marinha do Brasil as she looked in 1893 while on a visit to the U.S. The largest country in Latin America, Brazil had by the 1870s perhaps the strongest Navy south of the Equator and our subject was its pride and joy for some two decades.
Built by Samuda Brothers at Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs in London, the firm had much experience with crafting ships for foreign navies. They had built the Mahroussa for Egypt, Prussia’s SMS Kornpirnz, Japan’s Fuso, Argentina’s ARA Almirante Brown, and the Independcia for Peru. It was no surprise that buoyed by wins in the Platine & Paraguayan wars (1849–70) and looking to expand the Empire, the Brazilian Navy went to Samuda for the 5,550-ton ironclad Riachuelo ( 4 × 9.2″ guns) in 1881 and her slightly smaller one-off half-sister Aquidabã in 1883.
Some 280 feet long, this early battleship tipped the scales at 4,950 tons on a full load and could make nearly 16-knots when all of her eight cylindrical boilers lit. Armed with the same main battery as Riachuelo, she carried a pair of Whitworth 9.2-inch guns in two turrets set off the center line, en echelon, with the forward turret offset to port and the aft turret to starboard. A battery of smaller 5.5-inch breech-loaders, Nordenfelt 1-pounders, and impressive five 18-inch Whitehead torpedo tubes rounded her out.
She was sheathed in up to 11-inches of good English compound armor.
Aquidabã at Hampton Roads 1893 Click to big up
Named after the Aquidabã River system in the country (and the scene of the last battle of the War of Paraguay), she was called the aço Lion (Steel Lion) as she replaced older wooden ships in the line.
Arriving in Brazil on 29 January 1886 to much fanfare, she was placed into commission. By 1890, the Navy had become comfortable enough with their showboat to take the Lion to the high seas, embarking on an 11,000-mile cruise around the Americans, stopping at the U.S. and elsewhere.
Then came a rebellion.
In November 1891, Aquidabã played a decisive role in response to the attempted coup against Deodoro da Fonseca. She fired a 9.2-inch shell at the Police Station of São Bento, damaging the steeple of the Church of Nossa Senhora da Lapa Merchant in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the process– shooting off the cross.
The fuze didn’t go off and the shell is still on display there, but many of the more religious members of her crew felt her cursed after that. For good reason, it turned out…
Click to big up
She returned to the states in April 1893, taking part in the Colombian Exhibition in Hampton Roads along with the international fleet– where several of the larger images were taken in this post.
LOC picture 4615×2625 of Aquidaba that is colorized above. Click to very much big up
Then, upon return to Brazil, she was promptly caught up in another rebellion, this time on the side of the rebels. This naval rebellion, the Revolta da Armada, occurred when the former Minister of Marine took the ship as his flag and led a yearlong campaign that involved the mutinous ships exchanging gunfire on a near-daily basis with coastal defense batteries ashore.
By the end of it, Aquidabã‘s machinery was in such a poor state of repair due to lack of access to port facilities and spares that she could only limp along at 4-knots, had almost no shells left, and was burning the crummiest grade of coal that could be imagined. Her armament was beefed up by a number of 3-pounder Garnder and Hotchkiss field pieces shipped aboard, but they were more pop-guns than anything.
If our Lion was Goliath, then the torpedo boat Gustavo Sampaio, above, was her David
Then, on 16 April 1894, the government-controlled torpedo boat Gustavo Sampaio managed to pump a fish into the bow of the once-proud Aquidabã and, her front compartments open to the sea, she settled in the mud as her crew fled after thoroughly wrecking her.
Aquidabã in drydock at Cobras Island note torpedo hole
The result of the torpedo hit on the Brazilian battleship Aquidabã on April 16th, 1894. Battleship sank in shallow water and was later refloated. Note the 2 thickness of teakwood sandwiched over the iron hull in a composite. Via http://brasilianafotografica.bn.br/brasiliana/discover?query=Aquidab%C3%A3+&submit=Ir
Bow damage on the Brazilian Rebel Turret Ironclad Battleship Aquidaban, 1894
She was refloated, renamed Vinte e Quatro de Maio (you can’t have the name of a mutinous ship on the naval list to inspire others), and sent to the Vulcan yard at Stettin Germany for repair then Elswik in New Castle, on the River Tyne in England, for modernization.
There she picked up 15 Nordenfelt machineguns (as a defense against torpedo boats!) two large fighting towers to replace her auxiliary sail rig, new engines, and a new topside structure.
Now that’s a different look. Click to big up
All was forgiven by 1896 and she was back to her original name and representing Brazil at the Chicago International Expedition in the U.S. where President Grover Cleveland reviewed her. Then followed uneventful peacetime service that ended for the mighty Lion a decade later.
At 22: 45hs on 21 January 1906, while at anchor four miles southeast of Angra do Reis at Jacuacanga Cove, Aquidabã suffered a magazine explosion similar to that of many of the predreadnought steel ships of the era.
She was utter wrecked in an explosion that was described as a disintegration by many who witnessed it and sank quickly in 60 feet of water with only 96 survivors from a crew of over 400 that was fleshed out by some 81 visiting midshipmen– the flower of the Brazilian officer corps which included at least one son of the sitting Naval Minister. Those lost included Rear Admiral Rodrigo José da Rocha and Rear Admiral John Candido Brazil.
News of the loss was carried far and wide, even if it was only a footnote among the other news of the day.
A memorial was erected to her in 1913.
Specs:
Displacement: 4950 tons
Length: 280.2 ft. (85.4 m)
Beam: 52.03 ft. (15.86 m)
Draft: 18.04 ft.
Propulsion: Mixed; sailing with three bark-rigged masts, 8 cylindrical coal boilers linked to three steam engines generating 4,500 hp on two props.
Speed: 15.6 knots
Range; 6000 miles at 10 knots.
Crew: 303
Armament:
Four × 9.2 in (230 mm) guns (2 × 2)
Four × 5.5 in (140 mm) 70-pounder guns (4 × 1)
13 × 1 pounder guns (13 × 1) (removed 1895)
15 Nordenfelt machineguns fitted 1895
Five × 18-inch torpedo tubes (through “portholes”)
Armor: 178 to 280 mm on the sides of the hull; 254 mm in the main turret and 254 mm in the superstructure.
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!
The below sold for $72,000 at auction last weekend in the UK.
Which is actually a bargain as it is one of the last surviving WWI-era British Matchless motorcycles complete with a Vickers machine gun sidecar.
The motorbike, a Matchless-Vickers 8B2/M Russian Military model, is one of a contract of some 250 of the vehicles made for the last Tsar of Russia in 1916, then a key British ally in World War One. However, before these war chariots could be shipped to the Eastern Front the Tsar got kicked off his throne by the Revolution, stranding the bikes in England.
If you have heard it once, you have head it a thousand times: squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it-nobody likes a jerk. The reason for this is simple. If you slap that trigger, you are going to pull your muzzle off target. At close range, you won’t notice it, but at distances 7 yards and further, the slap of a trigger can lead to throwing off your shot by several inches.
Further back and you won’t even hit the target at all.
One sure way to fix this is to train your brain to have a slow and steady trigger squeeze. A trick that has worked for generations of shooters is the old quarter trick.
What’s that, you ask? Keep reading.
With this simply place a coin, the larger the better (quarters and similar tend to work best), on the top of the slide of an *unloaded semi-auto near the front sight, or the top strap of a similarly empty revolver and dry fire it. If you have a good, smooth trigger squeeze, the coin won’t fall off. If not, then the result will be obvious.
*(check it twice, drop the mag, work the slide three times and point in safe direction at all times)
Keep working on this slowly until you can keep the coin on there for one or two clicks of the hammer. Most modern centerfire handguns can be dry fired without causing any damage to the hammer or firing pin, however, snap caps (they are cheap and never wear out) can be used to make sure. Once you can keep that coin up there and on target through a solid 100 trigger squeezes, you should be in business with a nice, smooth pull.
Note, each model firearm is different so you need to work on this to train your brain where the trigger breaks at, and therefore helping you aim point stay true. This also works on rifles by putting the coin or washer on the muzzle behind the front sight.
Read the rest in my column at Springfield forum
A UH-60-A Blackhawk helicopter used by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Air and Marine Operations takes off on a demonstration flight from the Bellingham International Airport Friday, Aug. 20, 2004 in Bellingham, Wash. Helicopters similar to this one will be based at the Department of Homeland Security Air and Marine facility based in Bellingham which began operations Friday along the U.S. – Canadian border. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
In case you missed it, on a podcast this week President Obama disclosed that, yes, “black helicopters” the scion of conspiracy theorists since the late 1990s, do, in fact, exist (to a degree).
Well William M. Arkin over at Gawker’s Phasezer column went into pretty decent details:
We’ve know for decades that the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) which supports JSOC and these types of operations, flies black helicopters. And since 9/11, that Regiment has doubled in size, with the addition of a 3rd and 4th Battalion.
1st and 2nd battalions, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.
3rd Battalion, 160th SOAR, Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia
4th Battalion, 160th SOAR, Ft. Lewis, WashingtonJSOC also has a unit called the Aviation Tactical and Evaluation Group at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, which flies the most secret helicopters in support of clandestine missions.
And then there’s the FBI Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) at Quantico, Virginia, which has its own helicopter unit doing most of its work inside the United States. That’s the Department of Justice, but it is about as military as military could be.
And what about the apparatus of something called JEEP, the Joint Emergency Evacuation Plan for whisking away presidential successors and VIPs? The helicopters for these missions belong to the Army (at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia), the Marine Corps (at Anacostia Naval Station), and the Air Force (at Andrews AFB, Maryland). And additional helicopters from naval bases in southern Maryland augment that force when middle-of-the-night missions are required.
And that’s not to mention other agencies and departments suspected of having their own black helicopters, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Air and Marine Operations, U.S. Marshals Services, the U.S. Park Police…
In a nod to the advancement of technology in regards to operational security these days, and harkening to the old 1940s campaign…
The Navy has recast the slogan:
This week Sturm, Ruger announced that their popular Redhawk line, which from its inception 35 years ago has defined large-bore wheelguns, has resumed production of the popular six shooter in .45 Long Colt– and it accepts .45ACP as well.
Redhawk background
Introduced in 1980, the Redhawk built on Bill Ruger’s proven Security Six and Single Six, popular military and police style revolvers with standard 4-inch barrels chambered in .38/.357, but supersized them to come in .41 and above.
As a one up on the competition, the frame is a one-piece investment casting to which the trigger group, swing out cylinder, and hammer was affixed to. Not only did this simplify production, but also it gave a more solid feel to the gun. A unique single spring mechanism that used a music wire coil spring for both hammer and trigger allowed for a smooth, light trigger pull. The cylinder double locked to the frame at the rear, and bottom at set up to help keep the timing regular shot after shot. A transfer bar safety system kept the gun from going off when the hammer was carried down on a loaded chamber, which is always nice to have. On top of this, a crane latch held the cylinder rock-steady to the frame, giving it a triple-locking cylinder.
Originally just offered in .44 Spl/Magnum, within a few years it was also offered in .41 (1984-91) and .45 LC (98-2005) while the Super Redhawk, introduced later came in bear-busting .454 Casul and .480 Ruger.
However, its been a decade since there has been a .45 caliber Redhawk. Until this weekend, anyway, and this, one is somewhat unique.
U.S. Marines, grouped in fours and fives in outboard motor boats, approach the beach in an amphibious assault in the Rung Sat Zone, 35 miles from Saigon. Rung Sat, infested with Viet Cong, is the target of Operation Jackstay, involving 1,200 Marines. Photo taken 03/26/1966.
P.S. Dig those M14’s, baby.
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 de Neuville
Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville was born in 1835 at Saint-Omer, Pas-de-Calais and, growing up on the coast, entered naval school at age 21. However, he always had an eye for the pencil and the brush and by 1860 was completing military-themed paintings and sketches that soon became widely received.
He illustrated several books including one that was very far-reaching for its time.
Although submersible were more fiction than fact at the time, de Neuville was able to combine his nautical background with his art to craft haunting illustrations of life under the ocean in a modern attack submarine in 1870 for the Hetzel editions of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The 111 drawings in that work (!) by de Neuville even today harken to adventure, naval warfare, and sci-fi from the true steampunk era.
Nautilus engines
In 1871, France was defeated (handily) by the Prussians and that lost war provided de Neuville steady work in immortalizing the lost armies and battles of that conflict.
Le cimetière de Saint-Privat, le 18 août 1870.
Défense de la porte de Longboyau, 21 octobre 1870
“Uhlan et cuirassier de la brigade Von Bredow, morts, ” Showing a Dead Prussian Uhlan and Cuirassier, Franco-Prussian war. “Von Bredow’s Death Ride” in which some 800~ Prussian horsemen charged the French lines with surprising results was one of the last effective use of Napoleonic-style cavalry in modern warfare. On exhibit at the Musée des Invalides, Paris.
Bataille de Champigny (1870). Note the dead Prussian officer in the foreground, sword in hand
Alphonse de Neuville – The Attack at Dawn
Alphonse de Neuville – In the Trenches. Note the broken rifle. The desperation. You feel the cold of that 1870 winter.
Perhaps his most famous painting of this war was Les dernières cartouches (The Last Cartridges) which immortalize the stand by a group of French Marines of the Blue Division at Bazeilles on 31 August and 1 September 1870 during the Battle of Sedan.
“The Last Cartridges” by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville note the Tunisian Zouave and shattered rifle
That imagery became famous in France and has been both widely imitated and reproduced in the past century and change.
One of the few Georges Méliès films (he made more than 500) that remains in existence is based on the painting and was created in 1897.
Alphonse de Neuville also did an extensive study of the French army uniforms of the era, which serve as a reference and a window into that era to this day.
Sergent of the 9th
Dragoons, mounted
Sapper
French Cuirassiers
Dragons – Alphonse de Neuville
A French Combat Engineer by Alphonse Marie Adolphe de Neuville. Note the detail on the Chassepot 1866 Needle rifle and how the officer in charge of the detail has his eyes glued on the engineer standing sentry with a cigarette in his hand and not on the work party. In the below sketch, that background detail is different
A French Military Engineer by Alphonse Marie Adolphe de Neuville in pencil– and with the officer minding the work and not the smoker
Our artist also tried his hands at other conflicts of the era.
Alphonse de Neuville – The defence of Rorke’s Drift 1879
Neuville died in Paris on May 18, 1885 at the untimely age of 49. His work is widely exhibited.
The artist
Thank you for your work, sir.
During WWII, the Coast Guard bloomed from under 20,000 to more than a quarter million at its height in June 1944. At that time, the service contained 9,874 commissioned officers, 3,291 warrant officers and 164,560 enlisted personnel, augmented by another 125,000 Temporary Members of the Coast Guard Reserve who were conducting beach and harbor patrols back in the U.S. which in turn were augmented further by nearly 70,000 volunteers of the Coast Guard Auxiliary.
Coast Guard crew dressed to keep warm while on patrol aboard aboard a USCG schooner in 1943 while on coastal patrol in the U.S.
Dog Beach Patrol’, (possibly on Parramore Beach, Virginia, US. October 1943). (Source – United States Coast Guard – Photo No.726. Colorized by Royston Leonard from the UK)
With so many men and (over 13,000 women) under arms and in uniform, what was the service doing in 1944?
Well, a little known fact is that a tremendous number of small naval surface combatants on the Naval List were manned entirely by USCG/USCGR crews to include a number of patrol craft and submarine chasers (PC/SC) and at least 75 303-foot/1,300-ton Tacoma-class patrol frigates (PF) while a legion of the Coast Guard’s own cutters also served the same duty in ASW and amphibious warfare support.
Coast Guard cutter USS Spencer on convoy duty in the North Atlantic, March 1943
Speaking of the ‘phibs, when FDR gave away 10 250-foot Lake-class cutters to the Brits as Lend Lease in 1940, this left over 3,000 Coasties without a ship– and the Navy promptly took them to man 53 cargo ships and attack transports (APs & APAs)– armed freighters stuffed with bunks for troops.
As the war expanded, the Navy, acknowledging the Coasties’ knowledge of working in the shallows and surfline, soon tasked them with other assignments closer to enemy beaches. As such many of the landing craft taking troops ashore from Guadalcanal to Normandy and Iwo Jima, were manned by Coastguardsmen.
Marines crouched in a Coast Guard-manned LCVP on the way in on the first wave to hit the beach at Iwo Jima, 19 Feb 1945
US Coast Guard LCVP landing craft carried invasion troops toward Luzon in Lingayen Gulf, 9 Jan 1945
United States Coast Guard-manned LST beaching at Cape Gloucester, New Britain, Bismarck Islands, Dec 1943
Famous picture of an LCVP from the USCG-manned USS Samuel Chase disembarking troops of the 29th Infantry Division at Omaha Beach June 6, 1944. Clic to big up
USCG-six US Coast Guard patrol boat near the coasts of Normandy, D-day 1944. Dig the M1 steel pots…
US Coast Guardsmen assisting a wounded Marine into an LCVP after the Marine’s LVT sustained a direct hit while heading to the landing beaches on Iwo Jima, Feb 18, 1945.
LCI landing craft in the wake of a USCG-manned LST en route to Cape Sansapor, New Guinea, mid-1944
U.S. Navy/USCG invasion fleet off Iwo Jima, with LVTs and LCIs maneuvering near the battleship USS Tennessee (BB-43). 1945
Charles Tyner, Fireman First Class (USCG), inspects his helmet hit by shrapnel during the Allied landings in southern France. 1944.
By the end of the war, the service manned at least 77 LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank), 28 LCIs (Landing Craft Infantry, Large) and an amazing 288 vessels for the Army Transportation Corps that consisted of AMRS (Army Marine Repair Ship), TY (tankers), LT (large tugs), FS (freight and supply vessels), and F (Freight vessels) that shuttled around and carried the logistics of war that are so often overlooked.
83 foot patrol boat CG-624, later renamed CG-14 as part of Rescue Flotilla One, Normandy
On Normandy Beach during D-Day, a fleet of 60 USCG 83-foot patrol boats, dubbed Rescue Flotilla One, pulled over 400 soldiers from the water on June 6th alone. This “Matchbox Fleet” lost four of their own vessels that day to submerged German mines and coastal artillery. Four LCI(L)’s manned by the USCG were also lost at Normandy.
USCGC Alexander Hamilton (WPG-34) remains 28 miles off the coast of Iceland where she was sunk by German Type VIIC submarine U-132, just seven weeks into the war.
In all some 37 USCG vessels or USCG-manned Naval vessels were lost during the war including the Treasury-class cutter Alexander Hamilton who was torpedoed 29 January 1942 by a U-boat in the North Atlantic.
The highest cost in terms of lives came when the 14,000-ton USS Serpens (AK-97) a USCG-manned Crater-class cargo ship was destroyed by explosion, 29 January 1945 off Laguna Beach in the Solomons.
She was packed full of depth charges and artillery shells.
An eyewitness to the disaster stated:
As we headed our personnel boat shoreward the sound and concussion of the explosion suddenly reached us, and, as we turned, we witnessed the awe-inspiring death drams unfold before us. As the report of screeching shells filled the air and the flash of tracers continued, the water splashed throughout the harbor as the shells hit. We headed our boat in the direction of the smoke and as we came into closer view of what had once been a ship, the water was filled only with floating debris, dead fish, torn life jackets, lumber and other unidentifiable objects. The smell of death, and fire, and gasoline, and oil was evident and nauseating. This was sudden death, and horror, unwanted and unasked for, but complete.”
In all, Serpens lost 198 members of her crew and 57 members of an Army stevedore unit that were on board the ship in an explosion whose cause has never been determined but remains the largest single disaster ever suffered by the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard-manned attack cargo vessel USS Serpens (AK-97) exploded off Guadalcanal due to unknown causes. Only two men aboard survived. A memorial service is held every year at Arlington National Cemetery at the Serpens Memorial on Jan 29. Image via USCG
The Coast Guard lost a total of 1,917 persons during the war with 574 losing their life in action, died of wounds received in action, or perishing as a Prisoner of War. Almost 2,000 Coast Guardsmen were decorated, one receiving the Medal of Honor (the only one issued to the Coast Guard), six the Navy Cross, and one the Distinguished Service Cross.
The MOH went to SM1c Douglas A. Munro, USCG, who, appropriately enough, was killed trying to rescue men off the beach as officer-in-charge of a group of landing craft at Point Cruz on September 27, 1942, during the Matanikau action in the Guadalcanal campaign.
Douglas A. Munro Covers the Withdrawal of the 7th Marines at Guadalcanal by Bernard D’Andrea. Click to big up. Note the Lewis guns
Munro’s Citation:
“For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty as Officer-in-Charge of a group of Higgins boats, engaged in the evacuation of a Battalion of Marines trapped by enemy Japanese forces at Point Cruz, Guadalcanal, on September 27, 1942. After making preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly 500 beleaguered Marines, Munro, under constant risk of his life, daringly led five of his small craft toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signaled the others to land, and then in order to draw the enemy’s fire and protect the heavily loaded boats, he valiantly placed his craft with its two small guns as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese. When the perilous task of evacuation was nearly completed, Munro was killed by enemy fire, but his crew, two of whom were wounded, carried on until the last boat had loaded and cleared the beach. By his outstanding leadership, expert planning, and dauntless devotion to duty, he and his courageous comrades undoubtedly saved the lives of many who otherwise would have perished. He gallantly gave up his life in defense of his country.”
A display containing Petty Officer First Class Douglas Munro’s Medal of Honor and accompanying citation hangs in Munro Hall at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May, N.J., (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Warrant Officer John Edwards)
“Upon regaining consciousness his [Munro’s] only question was ‘Did they get off?’, and so died with a smile on his face and the full knowledge that he had successfully accomplished a dangerous mission.”
For more on the USCG in WWII, click here and dig in
