The U.S. loaned 312,430 M1 rifles to NATO-allied Turkey, beginning in 1953 and ending with the final shipment of 5,000 in 1972. A few years ago, several thousand were returned from the Turkish Navy and now, over 13,000 have come back from the Turkish Air Force and are filtering out through the CMP as testing and grading are being completed.
The good news is, as many as a quarter could be rare IHC models.
The neat news is, they also sometimes have Turkish dope charts (marked Nisangah Tanzi) affixed to them.
Here we see two senior officers who once fought across from each other, then were blended back into the same service, and are now buried in the same rows.
They are a group of U.S. officers in the Spanish American War, including Maj. Gen. (of Volunteers) Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler (3rd from left, seated) next to U.S. Army Maj. Gen.Nelson Appleton Miles, MOH, (4th), along with their respective staff, in front of officers quarters on Picnic Island: Port Tampa City, Fla (Camp Tampa) May 1898.
Note the mix of Union blue and early khaki uniforms, truly an Army on the divide of the 19th and 20th Centuries…
As for the men:
Massachusetts-born Miles was working as a clerk when he volunteered in Sept. 1861 for Mr. Lincoln’s new and greatly expanded Army. Commissioned first a 2nd Lt. in the 22nd Massachusetts, by early 1862 he was a 23-year-old Lt. Col. in the 60th New York. After picking up four wounds and fighting like a lion at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville (where he earned the Medal of Honor), and later in the Appomattox Campaign, Miles finished the Civil War as a brevet Maj. Gen. of Volunteers, which by 1866 translated into a full colonel in the regular peacetime Army. During the Indian Wars, he fought the Apache, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, Lakota and Nez Pierce Perce (thanks, Sam). His legacy was tarnished by commanding the overall department of forces that “fought” at Wounded Knee in 1890, though he was critical of the actions of the ground commander on the scene that day–Col. James W. Forsyth. One of the most senior officers in the Army, Miles led the Puerto Rican Campaign during the Span-Am War, for which the later President Teddy Roosevelt would refer to the Civil War veteran as a “brave peacock.” He retired from the Army in 1903 after 42 years on active duty and later ran for president as a Democrat, though he did not win his party’s nomination, then volunteered for service in WWI, which was declined. He is buried at Arlington.
Wheeler, like myself an Augusta, Ga boy, graduated from West Point in 1859 (19 of 22) and served in the Regiment of Mounted Rifles as a somewhat noted cavalryman on the Frontier. Resigning his commission in 1861 and casting his lot with the South, he joined the 19th Alabama Infantry and fought at Shiloh and Corinth before (logically) being given command of a body of horsemen. He wrote the Confederate cavalry tactics manual and soon proved his worth. His cavalry corps later grew into a fire brigade of sorts that roamed around the Western Theater and, though he could not stop Sherman, it wasn’t for lack of trying. Wheeler had no less than 16 of his horses shot out from under him and picked up three wounds during the war. The former Confederate Lt. Gen. and U.S. Army 2nd Lt. finished the conflict as a Union prisoner, captured just outside of Atlanta. At age 61 in 1898, he volunteered for the Span-Am War and was subsequently made a Maj. Gen then placed in charge of the V Corps cavalry– including TR’s “Rough Riders” as a subordinate unit. Following the war, he went on to fight in the Philippines and retired a Brig. Gen. in the regular Army. He was one of only three ex-Confederate generals to go on to serve as a general in the U.S. Army, along with Fitzhugh Lee and Thomas Lafayette “Tex” Rosser, who likewise sought volunteer commissions in 1898 that were granted by President William McKinley (who ironically was a Union officer during the Civil War). Wheeler later attended the 100th anniversary of West Point in 1902 in a Union blue uniform. Like Miles, he is buried at Arlington, is of course the former home of Robert E. Lee. Wheeler is only one of two former greycoat generals, the other being Brig. Gen. Marcus Joseph Wright, buried at the National Cemetery.
With the U.S. Navy just three weeks ago fronting cash ($15 million each) for five different frigate designs for the new FFG(X) Guided Missile Frigate concept, one of the companies, Lockheed, just pulled down a big bonus that could help.
You see, LM just picked up a plump $481 million contract for long lead work on four of what they term Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC) ships for the Royal Saudi Navy. The MMSC? An uparmed version of the company’s Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship which is very similar to one of the five proposals greenlighted for the USN’s FFG(X) contract.
Lockheed-Martin’s Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC) ship, just really what LCS should have been
MMSC has a range of 5,000 nautical miles and can reach speeds in excess of 30 knots, packs the basic armament of the LCS (57mm Mk110 deck gun, MH-60 Seahawk, UAVs, and SeaRAM) but adds Over-The-Horizon surface-to-surface missiles (8 Harpoons are shown on the sketch), port and starboard 20 mm remote guns (Mk.38 25mms could be substituted), a new fire control radar and a forward centerline 8 cell MK 41 Vertical Launch System equipped with 32 quad-packed RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles. The MMSC is also equipped with the AN/SLQ-25 Torpedo Defense system.
The Freedom-variant FFG(X) uses the same hull as the LCS and the MMSC but includes a mini-SPY style phased array, a set of Mk.32 ASW torpedo tubes and upto a 32-cell VLS. But who’s to say the company won’t leverage the work going on simultaneously on MMSC when it comes to the cut for the FFG(X) winner…
“Fighter and Freighter – Kodiak, Alaska.” Painting, Oil on Board; by William F. Draper; 1942; Framed Dimensions 24H X 28W.
NHHC 88-189-B
The warship looks to be a Northampton or Pensacola-class heavy cruiser. Of those, just one, USS Louisville (CA-28), was in the Aleutians throughout the summer of 1942. As part of TF 8, she plastered Japanese defenses on Kiska Island. She also likely posed for Draper’s brush.
USS Louisville (CA-28) Steams out of Kulak Bay, Adak, the Aleutian Islands, bound for operations against Attu, 25 April 1943. The photograph looks toward Sweepers Cove. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-72060
Commissioned 15 January 1931, she earned an impressive 13 battle stars in the Pacific, was laid up in 1946, and sold for scrap in 1959.
Ever wondered how the old Vietnam-era Starlight scopes worked? Ask no more, here is “Night Vision” 1974 US Army; Research & Development Progress Report No. 53
Photographer Catherine Leroy about to jump with the 173rd Airborne during operation “Junction City”, Vietnam, 1967 (Photograph taken by a GI and sent recently to Catherine Leroy)
Catherine Leroy was just 21 when she arrived in Vietnam with little more than a Leica and $100 to her name. She went on to take some of the conflict’s most striking photographs. Born in Paris in 1945, her childhood had been permeated by the reports from France’s war in Indochina and, when the war again escalated with American intervention, she decided to travel to Vietnam, arriving in 1966.
Speaking little English she managed to meet Horst Faas, the Associated Press’ bureau chief in Saigon; he offered her $15 a picture. She would spend the next decade periodically covering the war in Vietnam until the fall of Saigon in 1975. Under five feet tall and sporting blonde pigtails she didn’t fit the conventional image of a war correspondent.
Leroy, however, was determined to capture the human aspect of the war. A qualified parachutist, Leroy became the first female war correspondent to take part in a combat jump with the 173rd Airborne Brigade when they launched Operation Junction City in February 1967.
Sometimes, an idea sounds so good that it just won’t go away no matter how bad it is.
Below, I give you a pair of overshoes designed for Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents operating in South East Asia during the Second World War. They were intended to disguise footprints to fool the Japanese as, if they saw a big ole European bootprint in the jungles of Burma, Indochina etc, it would give away the fact that the Allies were poking around in the rear. The soles did not work very well in practice, however, as they were still very big, and awkward to use, akin to snowshoes.
IWM EQU 12207
Fast forward to the MAC-V-SOG groups of U.S. Army SF guys working behind the lines in VC country in the 1960s and I give you boots designed to leave traces that look like footprints of peasants and to hide the movements of the teams. They proved instantly unpopular because they provided no heel support and made walking a jungle trail on your tip toes very awkward, especially when you are trying to avoid contact with unfriendlies.
The Royal Australian Navy has been in the submarine business since 1914 when they took a pair of British E-class boats (HMAS AE-1 and AE-2) under local operation. Since then, they operated a dozen different J, K and O-class vessels in WWII, picked up six Oberon-class boats in the 1960s– which were used extensively over 30+ years– and finally, built their own subs, the Swedish Kockums’-designed Collins-class submarines built in the 1990s. One big facet of the RAN’s sub operations going back to the 1940s is the carry of commando units from M& Z Special Forces, Beach Commandos and today combat diver-trained members of 2 Cdo Regt and the SAS.
However, the Collins are tight boats, just 254-feet oal, with many of the 50~ man crew already forced to hot bunk.
Enter new collapsible Submarine Accommodation Capsules, which can be stored in the same way as torpedos. Of course, you give up steel fish to accommodate a few frogmen or other transients, but hey, it’s a small boat.
Of course, historically, anything is better than sleeping onan actual torpedo, which is a longstanding historical trend…
Slumber Deep by Thomas Hart Benton
USS Bullhead (SS-332 )crewman reading in his bunk, atop a torpedo loading rack in one of the submarine’s torpedo rooms. Taken during a Pacific war patrol, circa Spring 1945 80-G-49457
“167th Infantry, 2nd Battalion, Co. F. –Cpl Howard Thompson holding pistol of German whom Sgt James W. White killed in No Man’s Land with the butt of his pistol. A patrol of 5 men met 10 Germans in No Man’s Land on March 7, 1918. Cpl. Thompson went into No Man’s Land in the daytime and found the pistol of the dead German, Ancerville France”
U.S. Army Signal Corps photo 7748-H via NARA #55176278
An Alabama National Guard Unit, the 167th Infantry Rgt was part of the 42nd “Rainbow” Division during the Great War after being involved in the expedition to chase Pancho Villa across Chihuahua and Sonora in 1916. During WWII, the 167th again served, as part of the 31st “Dixie” Division in the Pacific.
Tracing its origin to the old 4th Alabama of Civil War fame, 1-167th INF today is still part of the Alabama Guard and has deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan several times in recent years, where their soldiers are no doubt still eagerly on the lookout for trophies in No Man’s Land.
Warship Wednesday, March 7, 2018: The ‘most fightingest ship’ of the Great North
Here we see the British-built Tribal (Afridi)-class destroyer Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Haida (G63) of the Royal Canadian Navy, as she appeared during WWII. One of Canada’s most celebrated vessels, this “little tin can that could” has an impressive record and is still around today taking the “Queen’s shilling” so to speak.
The Afridi‘s were a new type of destroyer designed for the Royal Navy in the late 1920s off experience both in the Great War and to match the large, modern escorts on the drawing boards of contemporary naval rivals of the time.
The Royal Canadian Navy’s HMCS Huron (G24), in dazzle camouflage, sailing out to sea during the Second World War during one of her countless trans-Atlantic escorting runs. The Tribal-class destroyer, commissioned on July 28,1943, also served in the Pacific theatre during the Korean War under the new pennant number 216.
These 378-foot vessels could make 36+ knots on a pair of geared steam turbines and a trio of Admiralty three-drum boilers while an impressive battery of up to eight 4.7″/45 (12 cm) QF Mark XII guns in four twin CPXIX mountings gave them the same firepower as early WWI light cruisers (though typically just three turrets were mounted).
Gun crew on Tribal-class destroyer HMCS Algonquin cleaning up their 4.7″/45 (12 cm) Mark XII guns after firing at the Normandy Beaches on 7 June 1944. Note that the crewman kneeling in the rear is holding a 4.7″ (12 cm) projectile. Library and Archives Canada Photograph MIKAN no. 3223884
Some 32 Afridi‘s were planned in eight-ship flights: 16 for the RN (named after tribal warriors: HMS Cossack, HMS Eskimo, HMS Sikh, HMS Zulu, et. al), eight for the Royal Australian Navy, and eight for the Canadians. Of the Canadian ships, four were to be built by Vickers in the UK and the other four by Halifax shipyards in Nova Scotia. All the Canadian ships were to be named after First Nations tribes (Iroquois, Athabaskan, Huron, Haida, Micmac, Nootka, Cayuga, etc.)
An unidentified Tribal class destroyer in profile
The subject of our tale, HMCS Haida, was the last of the Canadian Tribals built in the UK, laid down at Vickers 29 September 1941. She commissioned during the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, on 18 September 1943.
HMCS Haida
As noted by Gordon Smith, Naval-History.Net, Haida immediately began working up with the Home Fleet based at Scapa Flow and just a scant two weeks later was operational, heading on a mission to reinforce the icy Spitzbergen garrison and provide a covering force for Lend-Lease minesweepers headed to the Soviets past heavily defended German-occupied Norway.
Then between Nov. 1943 and Jan 1944, Haida would be part of no less than five dangerous runs through U-boat and Scharnhorst-infested waters between the UK and Kola Pen, shepherding freighters to fuel Uncle Joe’s war machine. Speaking of Scharnhorst, Haida was present just over the horizon at the Battle of North Cape when the mighty German capital ship was sent to the bottom.
Next, she was assigned to escort a raiding force to Norwegian waters consisting of the Free French battleship Richelieu, the battlewagon HMS Anson and several fast cruisers. Once that went off uneventfully, Haida was tasked to Operation Neptune, the Normandy Landings, and transferred to the English Channel.
Filling her time escorting forays into mine and E/S-boat infested coastal waters along the French coast, Haida traded naval gunfire and torpedoes with German shore batteries and torpedo boats, coming away unscathed but leaving the Elbing-class torpedo boat T29dead in the water in a sharp nighttime action in April 1944. One of her sisters, HMCS Athabaskan, was not so lucky and sank in the same action.
When the D-Day balloon went up, she spent her time on the patrol line between Ile de Bas and Ile de Vierge and, on 9 June, with three of her sisterships, engaged four German T-boats and destroyers. The action left one German sunk, another hard aground, and the final pair limping away to lick their wounds.
On 24 June 1944, Haida racked up a confirmed kill on the German U-971 (ObrLt. Zeplien) off Brest in conjunction with the RN destroyer (and sistership) HMS Eskimo and a B-24 Liberator flown by the Free Czechs (Sqdn. 311). The event, as chronicled by Haida, included nine attacks by the destroyers and ended with a surface action in the English Channel as the stricken sub crashed to the surface and men started to abandon ship.
It was decided to attack without waiting for ESKIMO to regain contact and pattern “G” had been ordered when at 1921 the submarine surfaced about 800 yards ahead at an inclination of about 100 left. Fire was opened from “B” gun and a hit obtained on the conning tower, with the second salvo. High Explosive was used and penetrated the conning tower, starting a fire, the flames being clearly visible through the hole made. No further hits were obtained with main armament and fire was checked as soon as it was apparent that the enemy did not intend to fight. Close range weapons were used during the same period.
Lost was one German submariner, while Haida and Eskimo picked up 52 survivors (including six were injured, three seriously) and brought them to Falmouth in the predawn hours of 25 June.
August saw Haida maul a convoy of small German coasters off Ile d’Yeu. In a single wild action on the night of 9 August 1944, she is credited with assisting in the sinking of at least nine Axis ships including two destroyers, two T-boats, a U-boat, a minesweeper, patrol boat, and two armed trawlers.
Canadian Tribal-class destroyers in action, 6 August 1944 against German convoy, 9 enemy ships sunk by RCN CDR Anthony Law, 1946, showing HMCS Haida, HMCS Iroquois and HMS Bellona in their famous night action. Canadian War Museum Photo 19710261-4057
By September, the Canadian war baby headed for her home country for the first time, to get a badly needed refit at Halifax. Early 1945 saw her sortie back to Europe where she was engaged off Norway again, escorted some more convoys to Russia, and was among the first Allied ships to enter the key Norwegian port of Trondheim post-VE-Day. Returning to Canada, she was to be made ready to fight in the Pacific against the Japanese but never made it that far before the A-bombs ended the war unexpectedly.
Laid up in reserve, by 1947 she was reactivated and soon put to effective use.
In November 1949, Haida again showed her worth to an ally by standing seaward and plucking the surviving crew of a USAF Boeing B-29 Superfortress of the 2nd BS, 27th BG on its way to RAF Sculthorpe. The aircraft, 42-65289, flew as Dina Midget in WWII over Japan and went down some 385 miles North East of Hamilton, Bermuda. Following the accident, 18 crewmen took refuge in dinghies while two others were drowned. Spotted by SAR aircraft, Haida picked the men up after 76 hours adrift.
HMCS Haida in November 1949 after rescuing 18 members of the crew of a USAF B-29 bomber that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean From the LIFE Magazine Archives – Michael Rougier Photographer
By 1950, she served off Korea as part of the Canadian contribution to the UN forces in that conflict, completing two tours in those far-off waters.
In 1952, an extensive refit saw her reconfigured as a destroyer-escort (pennant DDE-215) which saw her WWII sensors replaced by a more modern SPS-6C air search radar and SQS-10 sonar. Her main armament, those six beautiful 4.7-inch rapid fires, was swapped out for a more conservative pair of twin 4-inch Mk16s. Her depth charges replaced with a Squid ASW mortar. This would be her final configuration for her last decade in active service, and the one she would carry into her later days.
This photo shows the ship’s company in Hong Kong in 1953 (Parks Canada)
Rescued from the streets of Japan, Pom Pom served as Haida’s mascot during the ship’s first tour of duty in Korea (Parks Canada)
A 1930s design in the jet age, Haida was decommissioned in October 1963 after 20 years of hard service.
HMCS HAIDA (DDE215) makes her way towards Lock 4 on the Welland Canal during her farewell Great Lakes tour in 1963
Overall, when compared to her sisters, she was a lucky ship and outlived her family. No less than 12 of the 16 Tribals in British service were lost during WWII and the remaining quartet were all paid off by 1949. All the Tribals in Canadian service were sold to the breakers by 1969. The three Australian ships that were completed (five were canceled) likewise were turned to razor blades.
Tribal-class sister HMCS Huron (DDE-216), port bow view while off Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives 80-G-646914:
Haida was the last of her class remaining in any ocean and, after an effort by concerned citizens, she was towed to Toronto and opened as a museum ship in 1965. Over the next three decades, she still hosted sea cadet camps and Canadian Forces events in addition to her work a floating memorial, known as “Canada’s most fightingest ship”.
Earlier this year, she was named ceremonial Flagship of the Royal Canadian Navy with an honorary commanding officer chosen from the Navy, is authorized to fly the Canadian Naval Ensign, and the ship will observe traditional sunrise and sunset ceremonies as well as arrival announcements on the gangway.
(Parks Canada)
Specs:
Displacement:1,959 long tons (1,990 t) tons standard, 2,519 long tons (2,559 t) deep load
Length: 377 ft (114.9 m)
Beam: 37 ft 6 in (11.4 m)
Draught: 13 ft (4.0 m)
Propulsion:
2 shafts; 3-Admiralty 3 drum type boilers
2 × Parsons Marine geared steam turbines, 44,000 shp (33,000 kW);
Speed: 36.5 knots (67.6 km/h; 42.0 mph) (maximum), 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph) (service)
Complement: 259 (14 officers, 245 ratings)
Sensors and processing systems:
As G63 (1943–1952):
1 type 268 radar
1 type 271 radar
1 type 291 radar
1 × Mk.III fire control director with Type 285 fire control radar
1 type 144 sonar
1 type 144Q sonar
1 type 147F sonar
As DDE 215 (1952–1963):
1 SPS-6C air search radar
1 Sperry Mk.2 navigation radar
1 × Mk.63 fire control director with SPG-34 fire control radar
1 type 164B sonar
1 type 162 (SQS 501) sonar
SQS 10 sonar
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.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
