Monthly Archives: September 2023

Mardet White-Glove

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80 Years Ago Today. Aboard the Iowa-class fast super dreadnought USS New Jersey (BB-62). Official caption:

“Looking over a Marine’s pack, during an inspection, 5 September 1943. Officers include Captain Carl F. Holden (third from left); Admiral Donald B. Beary (sixth form left, hands on hips); Captain K. D. Christian (seventh from left, crossed arms). Note expressions of all concerned.”

Of note, this was one of the first Marine Detachments to hit the fleet with M1 Garands. Catalog #: 80-G-82699

A close-up of those concerned faces:

As detailed by DANFS, New Jersey had been commissioned three months prior at Philadelphia on 23 May 1943 and was in the midst of her workups and shakedowns in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean. On 7 January 1944 she passed through the Panama Canal war-bound for duty with the Fifth Fleet and in the next 20 months would earn nine battle stars for her World War II service.

Of note, the sour-looking ADM Beary (USNA 1910) had earned a Navy Cross in the Great War in command of a patrol yacht and destroyer engaged in convoy duty and anti-submarine warfare and early in WWII, as skipper of the troop transport Mount Vernon (AP 22), was credited with landing desperately needed reinforcements at Singapore and the evacuation of refugees from that city despite repeated air raids in the area just prior to the fall of the city. During 1944-45, he was credited with being a sort of logistics genius behind the scenes that helped win the Pacific War. He would become President of the Naval War College post-war and is buried at Annapolis.

Cheeseburger N48550 and N43320

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Just prior to his death, the late flip-flop-clad crooner Jimmy Buffett– a Pascagoula boy like myself–  passed on a pair of his treasured aircraft to live on in posterity to the USS Alabama museum in Mobile.

They included his circa 1941 Boeing E75 Stearman (N43320) which flew with the USAAF in WWII, and his ex-RCAF circa 1939 Grumman Goose G21 amphibian (N48550), both of which he acquired in the early 2000s. Importantly for fans, the Stearman was flown by Buffett in his 2004 video for Trip Around The Sun.

Buffett, who requested that the donation be anonymous, was honored by the USS Alabama museum over the weekend by installing flowers and a Hawaiian-styled shirt on the aircraft, who finally disclosed their provenance.

The Goose has been restored to its RCAF WWII livery from Buffett’s more, um, colorful, paint job

More from the local CBS affiliate.

And with that, I’ll leave you with Son of a Son of a Sailor.

50 Years Ago: A Productive Labor Day Weekend

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Dr. Bradford Parkinson (USNA 1957) is a well-respective professor at Colorado State University and Stanford University, as well as the holder of multiple former president and CEO positions in the private sector, including with PlantStar and Trimble Navigation.

However, over Labor Day weekend 1973, he was a career officer with the U.S. Air Force, a colonel at the time, and, as detailed in “From the Sea to the Stars: A Chronicle of the U.S. Navy’s Space and Space-related Activities, 1944-2009,” got a lot of work done over the BBQ.

On Labor Day weekend, 1973, Colonel Parkinson met with Aerospace engineers, together with Mr. Roger Easton of the Naval Research Laboratory and Navy Captain Daniel Holmes, to “synthesize” details of the GPS constellation. At one point, Colonel Parkinson reportedly came into the room and said, “Well, we’ve got a problem: our system is too expensive,” and Captain Holmes replied, “Why don’t you take our Timation] system and manage it?” That, in effect, is essentially what happened; the concept settled on was the one designed and demonstrated in Easton’s Timationsatellites.*

*With approved funding from the Joint GPS Program, Roger Easton and his team at the Naval Research Laboratory continued the Timation satellite program – renamed Navigation Technology Satellites (NTS). As NTS-1, the Navy-built Timation-IIIA satellite was launched in July 1974. In addition to further demonstrating the validity of the passive-ranging concept for position determining, NTS-1 carried NRL’s new rubidium time standard into space. NTS-2, launched into the GPS-constellation orbit in June 1977, had as objectives: (1) to demonstrate the feasibility of using a cesium atomic-clock standard developed by NRL in future GPS satellites; (2) to demonstrate the GPS navigation payload, and (3) to function as one of the satellites in the GPS Phase I constellation. NtS-2 achieved the JCS-required three-dimensional accuracy of “less than 60 feet” against aircraft flying over a calibrated test range. The success of NTS-2 helped keep support for the GPS program alive in 1977, when it had serious cost and schedule problems.

Less than five years later, in February 1978, the first Block I developmental Navstar/GPS satellite, Navstar 1, launched, with Parkinson as the head of the program. Three more Navstar satellites launched by the end of the year.

And, the rest, as they say, is GPS history, with Parkinson remembered today as the Chief Architect of GPS.

CMP Opens Round 4 of 1911 Orders, Changes Limits

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Starting in 2018, the Civilian Marksmanship Program kicked off a milsurp M1911 pistol program. This came as a result of a literal act of Congress signed by President Obama (not kidding) that allowed the CMP to begin processing some 100,000 vintage 1911s in the Army’s “attic”– the Anniston Army Depot.

The crux of the argument was that the Army was spending $2 per year, per gun to store and inventory these guns– the newest of which was made in 1945– that essentially no one outside of the Army’s museum system was still using.

The first 10,000 guns were transferred from the Army to CMP that year. Then another 10,000. Then another 10,000. Now, the non-profit government-chartered corporation that uses such sales to fund marksmanship activities across the country is opening the fourth round of guns.

The mail order process seems daunting but is fairly easy. The user simply fills out a packet including copies of proof of U.S. Citizenship, proof of membership in a CMP-affiliated club (groups like the Garand Collector’s Association count), and proof of participation in a marksmanship activity (a CCW counts). Once accepted, you get an random generated number (RGN), then you wait for the call, pay, and pick it up from your FFL. The current price range of the CMP 1911s runs from $1,100 to $1,250 in four different grades.

There is good news with CMP 1911 Round 4:

Beginning September 1, 2023 through September 30, 2023, the CMP will be accepting Round 4 M1911 Pistol orders. The CMP is increasing the lifetime purchase limit of 1911 pistols to two (2). The yearly limit is one per calendar year until you have met your lifetime limit. If you have never purchased a 1911 pistol from CMP, you may only purchase one at this time. If you have purchased a 1911 pistol in 2023, you CANNOT purchase a second 1911 at this time. If you previously purchased a 1911 through the RGN process or auction in 2018-2022, you are eligible to purchase a second 1911 pistol. You must submit a complete order packet. Incomplete orders will not be accepted. View details on the CMP 1911 Pistol Program on our website.

Also, the CMP has changed the number or rifles you can get.

Yearly Rifle Limit Decrease & Rifle Case Update:

Effective October 1, 2023, the CMP’s new yearly limit on M1 Garands will be 6 per calendar year. If you have already purchased 6-8 M1 Garands in calendar year 2023, you will not be allowed to purchase more M1 Garands until January 2024.

Due to supply issues and customer feedback, CMP will no longer offer a free rifle case with every rifle purchase. Customers will receive one free rifle case per calendar year with their first purchase of an M1 Garand in each calendar year. Rifles not shipped in a rifle case, will be shipped in a custom (made for specifically for CMP) corrugated cardboard box with convoluted foam. Rifle cases will be eligible for purchase when quantity permits. This does not apply to pistol orders. All CMP 1911 pistols will be shipped in a pistol case.

To comply with all firearm regulations, each rifle and pistol purchased from CMP will include a gun lock.

Honneur à l’Ancien

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40 years ago: A throwback to the old Le Poilu (“the hairy one”) of Great War frame is this portrait of a Légionnaire of the 1er Régiment Etranger de Cavalerie (1 REC) at the French military’s Biltine camp in the Wadi Fira region of Chad in September 1983.

Contrast him to the spit and polished white kepi-clad legionnaires in the recruiting poster behind him, which, in a place like Chad, was probably put there with some irony in mind. Réf. F 83-382 LC308 Photo by Bernard Sidler/ECPAD/Défense

The Légionnaire, whose hand is bandaged, is possibly a sapper, which, as with the Canadian army and some other forces, in the French army are traditionally allowed to grow out their whiskers, even in field conditions. The unit was deployed to Chad during the lead-up to the so-called “Toyota Wars” between Gaddafi’s Libya and the French ally over the disputed Aouzou Strip. A Cold War flashpoint of which Africa was full of in the 1970s and 80s. 

Judging from the age of the hard-bitten campaigner in the above image, he may have been a veteran of African combat going back to the French in Algeria and the Kolwezi intervention.

As for the 1st REC, the Legion’s cavalry unit was formed in North Africa just over a century ago and stood up at Sousse in French colonial Tunisia on 8 March 1921. Of the regiment’s inaugural draft of 156 troopers, 128 were exiled White Russians, most former officers and nobles of the deposed Tsar’s cossacks and guards cavalry units, a feature that earned the 1 REC the nickname of “Royal Etranger” for a generation.

I have a vintage 1 REC badge in my collection– part of my regular New Orleans rounds-– made by Arthus-Bertrand and carrying the unit’s motto: Honneur Courage Fidélité.

 

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