Monthly Archives: March 2023

Heer throwbacks

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Today’s German Federal Army, the Deutsches Heer, traces its formal origin to 1956 when it was reformed by the Western Allies in their zones of occupation, soon becoming the most formidable non-U.S. force in NATO within 15 years. While many act as if the West German (and after 1990 that of a reunified Germany) was carved out of whole cloth, it should be remembered that it carried on many of the old traditions of the old Reichsheer/Reichswehr and Wehrmacht-era Heer.

See the torch-lit Großer Zapfenstreich (Grand Tatoo) event of the Army’s elite Wachbataillon— a drill and ceremony battalion that still marches with Mauser 98s.

1987: “Members of the German military carry lit torches in honor of General (GEN) Charles L. Donnelly Jr., departing commander in chief, US Air Force Europe, and Allied Air Forces Central Europe. The Soldiers are participating in the “Grand Tatoo,” one of the West Germany military’s highest honors. Charles L. Donnelly Jr., departing commander in chief, US Air Force Europe, and Allied Air Forces Central Europe.” DF-ST-88-08721

2002: Großer Zapfenstreich auf dem Münchner Platz im ersten Dienstsitz des Bundesministerium der Verteidigung in Bonn.

In another throwback, they still use the same two-part Erkennungsmarke or Hundemarke dog tag discs that date back to 1870.

And, in an episode of “everything old is new again,” the force is fielding the THeMIS Unbemanntes Bodenfahrzeug, an unmanned tracked vehicle that, at least to me, is nothing more than a modernized Leichter Ladungsträger Goliath tracked mine of WWII.

And don’t even get me started on the fact that the Germans are training Ukrainians to fight Russians using German equipment. See the WWII-era Ukrainian Liberation Army for proper irony.

80 Years Ago: Calvertville Mosquito Station

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The U.S. Navy PT Boat Base at Tulagi (Tulaghi) in the British Florida (Solomon) Islands came about after the island was liberated by Allied forces– primarily the 1st Marine Raiders– in August 1942 following a four-month occupation by the Japanese.

U.S. Marines come ashore on Tulagi Island, probably during the landings there on 7-8 August 1942. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-16485

The impressive prewar concrete wharf there, dubbed Government Wharf as it had been constructed and controlled by the local British administration, while too small for proper warships, was thought ideal for a squadron of PT boats.

As detailed in Close Quarters, by Bulkeley, Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Two, in Panama, was reflagged as MTBRon 3 and its brand-new 77-foot Elco-type PTs shipped from the Canal, across the Pacific, in a rather interesting way:

The first division of Squadron 3, PTs 38, 46, 48, and 60, departed Balboa on August 29 aboard the Navy oilers Lackawanna and Tappahannock, two PTs to a ship. They arrived September 19 at Noumea, New Caledonia, were unloaded, and were towed to Espiritu Santo by USS Bellatrix, a cargo ship, and the tender Jamestown, which had sailed from New York early in August to join the PTs in the Solomons. The boats were towed from Espiritu Santo by the fast minesweepers Hovey and Southard, converted four-stack destroyers, to a point 300 miles from Tulagi. There the boats were turned loose to proceed under their own power, arriving at Government Wharf, Tulagi, at daybreak on October 12.

The second division, PTs 37, 39, 45, and 61, was shipped to Noumea on a merchant ship and arrived at Tulagi on October 25.

Soon, Seabees had constructed a 20-bed infirmary, a 1,000-barrel tank farm for 100 Octane mogas with a pipeline to the repaired dock, rudimentary mess and bunk houses, an engine workshop, and a protected torpedo overhaul and storage magazine.

By December, Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla ONE, under command of CDR Allen P. Calvert (USNA 1924)— formerly commander of the destroyer USS Craven— was activated with headquarters at Sesapi, on the northeastern tip of Tulagi.

With that, the base took on the name Calvertville, and continued ongoing operations against the Japanese “Tokyo Express,” being involved not only in the Guadalcanal campaign but also in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea.

Over a main street covered with the pierced steel Marston matting, a crude sign read: Calvertville, Through these portals pass the best MTB Flotilla in the World. NH 44492

MTBRon 3 was soon joined by MTBRon 2, MTBRon 6, MTBRon 8, and MTBRon 1 by July 1943. Among these Elco boats was PT-109, whose skipper was a young Lieutenant (jg) John Fitzgerald Kennedy, USNR.

Later, MTBRon 31, 32, and 37 would arrive and spend their war conducting nightly patrols of the Bougainville and Choiseul coasts long after the “big show” had moved to the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

Ultimately, by the end of the war, over 100 PTs at one time or another had been based there.

The below images, captured in March 1943 by LIFE photographer Frank Scherschel, show Calvertville at its prime.

“The Old Man.” Note the Flotilla pennant. Calvert would remain in command at Tulagi into November 1943, earning the Distinguished Service Medal (Army) from the War Department, then be sent back stateside to eventually take command of the new cruiser USS Oakland.

Note the U.S. Navy Shallow Water Miller-Dunn Divinhood

Riding around in the Goose

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How about this great early 1941 image of a Coast Guard airman hanging out of the hatch observation window of a seaplane, M1928 Thompson at hand.

Official caption: “Inasmuch as the Coast Guard is primarily a maritime law enforcement agency, the Aviation Arm is often called upon to do such jobs as aiding in the location of smuggling vessels or the capturing of escaped convicts.”

National Archives Identifier 205576693

Judging from the rivets and the window pattern of the above image, which is surely posed on the ground, the aircraft seems to be a Grumman JRF-5G (G-38) Goose amphibian, of which the service acquired 24 in early 1941 as a follow-up to the smaller JRF-2/3 (G-21), which did not have the same window in the hatch.

As noted by the CG Aviation History Assoc:

Prior to World War II these aircraft carried out search and rescue as well as aerial mapping flights and participated in the Coast Guard’s contribution to the enforcement of the Neutrality Patrol. During the war, the JRFs conducted search and rescue operations, transported supplies and personnel, and were utilized for ASW operations. Depth Charges or Bombs were carried externally under the wing.

Most of the remaining Coast Guard’s JRF-2/3s were disposed of shortly after the end of World War II while many of the JRF-5Gs remained in service with the Coast Guard until 1954.

USCG JRF-5G No. 4792 aboard Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco, September 1951, via Wikicommons. Note the back hatch and rivet pattern.

Great War Echos along the Copacabana

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When the U.S. entered what was then termed the Great War and is now better known as World War I, the country’s Army went from an oversized border defense force to one capable of taking on the Kaiser. In April 1917, when Congress at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson declared war against Imperial Germany, the U.S. had a standing Army of just 127,500. By the end of the war the following November, this grew to a force of well over 4 million.

All those troops needed weapons, and they needed them fast.

Just as the M1917 “American Enfield” .30-06 manufactured by Remington, Eddystone, and Winchester augmented the standard M1903 Springfield rifle, the Army turned to Colt and Smith & Wesson to produce a revolver capable of firing the same .45 ACP rimless ammo that the standard M1911 Government used. For Colt, that meant a variant of its M1909 New Service chambered in .45 ACP. For Smith, this meant revamping the Hand Ejector 2nd Model from .44 Special or .455 Webley to the shorter .45 ACP.

While only something like 15,000 S&W 1st Model Hand Ejector revolvers – known as the Triple Lock because its cylinder locked up with the frame in three places – were made between 1908 and 1915, the simplified 2nd Model (which deleted the third lockup point) saw a bit more success. This was because the British government had ordered almost 70,000 modified guns chambered in their standard .455 Webley for use in the Great War before America joined the conflict. A quick redesign to allow the 2nd Model to run .45 ACP, and Smith soon had their M1917 revolver in production for the U.S. Army.

Over 160,000 S&W M1917s were delivered before the end of the war, and they were often standard issue for specialist soldiers such as dispatch riders, military police, and machine gunners, while the M1911 automatic was more traditionally issued to officers. (Photos: National Archives)

While over 160,000 were constructed for the U.S. Army, and they served through not only the Great War but also through WWII– making it the first truly popular S&W N-frame on the American market– the Brazilians really loved the big .45 ACP. Ordered as the Modelo 1937, the Exército Brasileiro took possession of 25,000 commercial grade M1917s before WWII, carried them to war in Italy, they bought another 12,000 in 1946– taking all Smith had in stock or could make.

The Brazilians liked the revolver so much that, while the 25,000-strong Brazilian Expeditionary Force that fought in Italy with the Allies in WWII was largely equipped with American small arms, its officers often carried their Modelo 1937s to war. (Photos: National Archives/Exército Brasileiro)

Brazil only fully replaced the Modelo 1937 in the late 1980s with Beretta/Taurus-made Model 92 9mm semi-autos, keeping them in service for some 50 years.

This Model 1917 is from Smith’s second batch sent to Brazil in 1946, as it has a serial number outside the original run, the commercial round bottom U-notch rear sighting notch, and the standard Modelo 1937 national crest. It wears a CAI ST AL VT (Century Arms International St Albans, VT) import mark on the bottom of the barrel, and was likely from the batch of 14,000 surplus guns brought in from Brazil in 1989-1990. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

Speaking of keeping dated small arms in use, the Brazilians still run Great War-era bolt guns behind the scenes.

As a bit of a backgrounder, the Brazilians loved them some Mauser rifles. They started with the M1904 Mauser-Vergueiro rifle then went all-in with the Model 1908 rifle, similar to the Gew.98 with a 29-inch barrel. After WWI, in the 1930s Brazil bought the unlicenced Czech 08/34, a K98k clone with a 22-inch barrel chambered in 7mm as well as genuine Oberndorf-built M1935s.

Supplemented by a homegrown variant of the FAL made by the Itajubá-based IMBEL after 1964 and more recently by the IMBEL IA2 in 5.56, Brazil’s Mausers linger on as the homogenized “Mosquefal” M968, converted to 7.62 NATO, used in both training and parades.

Of Pistachios and the Emperor Ming

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As a child of the early 1980s, the first Bond movie I saw in the theatre was Sir Roger Moore’s For Your Eyes Only, and today I will fight for that film’s reputation. I just thought it was great and it still holds up. Definitely in the top 10 Bond films, maybe even the top five.

It also had one of the best-supporting rouges, the pistachio-munching Greek smuggler Milos Columbo, played by Chaim Topol.

In the film, I noticed Milos carrying his Tokagypt Type 58 in an unusual manner, especially considering Moore’s PPK behind him. 

The grip, even today, still seems unusual but it is clearly keeping in mind both muzzle and trigger awareness.

One reason for that is Topol– whose father was in the Haganah back in the old British Palestine Mandate days– served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a teen, then most of his adult life in the reserves returning to active duty in the Sinai Campaign in 1956, the Six-Day War in 1967 (leaving the cast of Fiddler on the Roof at Her Majesty’s Theatre, London, for that campaign), and the Yom Kippur war of 1973. Yes, he was in an entertainment troop, but he still served and, in Israeli fashion, surely had a good bit of small arms experience.

Of course, Topol is now gone at age 87, having been iconic to most people for being the Fiddler guy, whereas to me he will always be Milos Columbo and Professor Hans Zarkov from that 1980 sci-fi camp classic, Flash Gordon, a movie so great it has never been remade.

Take it out Milos:

My first 5th Variation Walther PP

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So this one came through the GDC warehouse a few weeks ago and I saw it once it hit the site.

After it was on there for a few days, I pulled the trigger (metaphorically) and bought it. The back story was that a guy had it as a truck gun for years (!) and wasn’t feeling it any more so he passed it on to GDC.

Well, it just came in at my local FFL and I have cleaned it up a bit and checked it out.

Walther PP .32ACP 5th Wartime variation, circa very late 1944. Rough “last ditch” frame preparation. Correct dull finish—turning plum– with no slide legend rather than the company’s traditional deep blue finish and scrollwork.

Three Eagle N marked commercial Nitro proofs on slide and barrel.

Early war pinky rest mag with “W” and “m/m” marks rather than the post-war “mm.”

Early war weighted grips along with a fire-blued early war hammer, decocker, and extractor.

No import marks anywhere so this is a bring-back for sure.

Only some 4,000 of these 5th variation PPs were believed made and you saw a lot of mismatch on these as they were “clean-ups” from old parts bins and returned guns, hence the early war weighted grips, blued small parts, and pinky mag on a late war frame, barrel, and slide.

The pistol has no Waffanampts so this one may have been left in the factory waiting for inspection when the GIs came in ‘45 and got quickly snatched up as a souvenir.

The 11th Armored and 90th Infantry Division came into Zella-Mehlis and put the Walther factory under lock and key. Inside, they found something like 1,600 P-38s and 4,600 PPs and PPKs in various stages of manufacture.

Walther’s historic Zella-Mehlis factory was captured first by the U.S. Army who then fell back after a few weeks as the city was in the Soviet occupation zone. By all accounts, the GIs left few pistols behind for Stalin’s Frontoviks.

These guns lead such strange lives. From a Joe’s duffle bag coming back from fighting the Nassis to a dude’s glovebox and now in a safe in Florida.

Super happy to get it. My first 5th V.

The Art of War, 80 Years Ago

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These insignias from the Claude A. Larkin Collection (COLL/791) at the Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, are all for circa 1943-44 USMC tactical aviation units. They are primarily for multi-engine bombing (VMB), single-engine scout bombing (VMSB), and fighter (VMF) squadrons. The artwork, as most are a product of the Walt Disney Studios, is often top notch and it really shines through on the Corsair-themed fighter squadrons.

Formed at Cherry Point on 1 August 1943 as Marine Scout Bombing Squadron 333 (VMSB-333), the logically named “Trip Trey” began their career flying SBD Dauntless dive-bombers from Midway on anti-shipping patrols. They stayed in business through the Korean War, Vietnam, and Desert Storm, only disbanding in 1992.

VMB-613 flew North American PBJ-1s; the navalized equivalent of the Army’s famous B-25 twin-engine Mitchell bomber.

This one is for Marine Photographic Squadron 354 (VMD-354) who flew photo Hellcats (F6F-3Ps) in the Pacific in the final months of WWII.

Marine Night Fighter Squadron 534 (VMF(N)-534) flew the distinctive F6F-3N night fighter before receiving the sleek and powerful new F7F-3N immediately post-war before casing its colors for good in 1947.

My favorite: The Whistling Death of VMF-514.

Commissioned 20 February 1944 at MCAS, Cherry Point, VMF-514 started off flying F4U- 1 and FG-1 Corsairs, then upgraded before the end of the war to F6F-3, F6F-3P, and F6F-5 Hellcats. Interestingly, it was originally intended to ship it to Europe to chase down German V-1 launch sites from escort carriers in the North Sea as part of Project Danny, but Marshall upended all that and instead the unit was sent to the Pacific aboard the jeep carrier USS Salerno Bay (CVE-110) but ultimately saw no combat. It was deactivated on December 9, 1945, and has never been re-established.

Last of the Reno Air Races

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Last September at the Reno Air Race’s Jet Gold Race, Hogue Grips’s president Aaron Hogue, 61, tragically burned in while at the controls of his Czech Aero L-29 Delfín (Maya).

Aaron Hogue, 1961-2022, with his L-29

L-29s have long been a fixture of jet races there, typically clocking in over 500 knots, which is fast as hell, especially at that air level with no afterburners or swept wings.

Now, after 60 years, the final Reno Air Races are set to be held at Reno-Stead Airport this coming September with some 150 planes and pilots in attendance.

The end of an era.

1894 Bolt Gun Aesthetic

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The Museum of Missouri Military History has recently posted an excellent series of line drawings taken from a War Department, Chief of Ordnance book from 1894, showing assorted bolt-action military rifles from around the world.

Drink them in, gents. The detail is great. 

1889 Danish Krag-Jorgensen side loader

Portugese Kropatschek. Note the tubular magazine

Swiss Model 1889 Schmidt Rubin

Modèle 1890 Berthier

Belgian Mauser 1889

German 1888 Commission rifle

Romanian M1893 Mannlicher

Japanese Type 22 Murata, another tube mag

Second CG finishes Modernization Program

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Built at Ingalls in Pascagoula, USS Chosin was ordered in 1986 and delivered in 1991. She has been in modernization since December 2019– but that is soon set to end. Official caption: PEARL HARBOR (March 26, 2012) The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Chosin (CG 65) conducts exercises off the coast of Hawaii following a departure from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Daniel Barker/Released) 120326-N-RI884-150

We reported last week about the old USS Gettysburg getting ready to return to sea after eight years with the completion of her drawn-out CG Phased Modernization Plan.

Well, she is fixing to get some company. Almost like an old home week for the Lehman-era 600-ship Navy.

This, from Seattle-based Vigor on G’burg’s sistership, USS Chosin (CG 65), finished her 1.7 million hour CGMP in just three years (well, technically Chosin was taken offline in 2019, so really like four years but who’s counting), while sister USS Cape St. George (CG 71) is set to follow:

Three-year, highly complex maintenance project was largest in Vigor’s history 

Seattle, WA (February 28, 2023) – Vigor, a Titan company, successfully completed a three-year modernization project on USS Chosin (CG 65) at its Harbor Island shipyard today, sending the U.S. Navy ship back to its homeport of Naval Station Everett. The project, which encompassed more than 1.7 million hours of work for Vigor employees, in addition to work by dozens of subcontractors and the U.S. Navy, was one of the largest, longest and most complex in Vigor’s history.  

“Vigor’s completion of USS Chosin in Seattle represents an incredible success for our skilled workers and the hundreds of people who worked on this project over the last three years,” said Adam Beck, Executive Vice President of Ship Repair for Vigor. “Vigor employees and our many partners successfully managed this very complex project through the COVID-19 pandemic, ultimately returning the ship to the U.S. Navy to continue its service to our nation. We are honored to support the U.S. Navy, and are grateful to all who made this success possible.” 

Vigor employees devoted approximately 1.7 million hours to USS Chosin over the last three years, modernizing weapons, communications, and information systems, as well as upgrading many other areas of the ship. They worked in close partnership with the team from the Northwest Regional Maintenance Center (NWRMC) at Naval Station Everett, where USS Chosin is homeported.    

Work on USS Chosin commenced alongside USS Cape St. George (CG 71), which is also scheduled to be completed this year. Both maintenance projects were awarded to Vigor together in 2019.  

“This project was not only important to the Navy and our national defense, it also supported more than 600 family-wage jobs at the Harbor Island shipyard,” Beck said. “This steady work has allowed Vigor to grow the capacity of our skilled workforce in support of Navy readiness and supported industrial jobs and the local economy.” 

As USS Chosin leaves Harbor Island, two other U.S. Navy ships remain at the facility, including USS Cape St. George and USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53). Vigor’s support for the Navy also extends beyond Seattle, with USS Tulsa (LCS 16) currently undergoing maintenance at Swan Island in Portland, OR, and USS Michael Murphy (DDG 112) nearing the end of its availability in Hawaii.  

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