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Vale, Ricou Browning, Daddy Frogman

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One of Florida’s greats, and the last of the classic 1950s Universal horror film actors, Ricou Browning, has passed this last week, aged 93, at his home in Southwest Ranches, Florida.

Raised on Jensen Beach as a member of a family of fishermen, Ricou could swim before he could walk, or at least that’s what has always been said. In his teens, he worked in the underwater shows at Wakulla Springs, then, after a stint in the Air Force, went to FSU and was a standout on the swim team.

In 1953, after returning to his old job at Wakulla Springs, he did some test dives for Universal, and the rest was history.

As noted by the Marin County News in 2012:

There was a deep cave at Wakulla, where Ricou took them and with a movie camera which had been brought along, they filmed Browning swimming in the spring waters. A few weeks later Ricou was contacted by Arnold, who had been greatly impressed by the youth’s swimming style and offered him a sizable sum of money to play the role of the “gill-man” in Universal-International’s movie “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” Young 23-year-old Ricou replied, “Fine. Let’s have at it.”

Ricou went to California where a special $18,000 outfit was constructed; the “creature” would have gills and a fish-like face. Browning would do all the underwater scenes for the movie, many times holding his breath up to four minutes at a time, not releasing any air bubbles from his mouth or nose! The underwater action was filmed at Wakulla Springs while some of the “above water” segments were done at Rice Creek near Palatka in Florida.

Another heavier gill-man costume was made for all the scenes filmed out of the water and were shot in California. Ben Chapman, a cousin of actor Jon Hall, played the role for these scenes. Other actors included Julie Adams, Richard Denning, and Richard Carlson and the filming was completed in late 1953.

Ricou Browning finishes getting into costume as the Gill-man in “Creature from the Black Lagoon” (with a little help). Filming of underwater scenes took place in Wakulla Springs, Florida, ca. 1953. General Photographic Collection, 1845-2016. State Archives of Florida, Collection M82-5, Image PR10705.

Besides portraying the Creature in the underwater scenes for the film’s two sequels, “Revenge of the Creature” and “The Creature Walks Among Us,” he also was the director for the extremely complicated underwater scenes in “Thunderball” (1965) and “Never Say Never Again” (1983), as well as Flipper.

Who as a kid hasn’t thought they would be involved in more underwater spear gun fights as an adult?

Of course, anyone who has ever attempted BUD/S training with the Navy for the past 60 years has seen the enduring Creature statue, a gift to the Naval Special Warfare Center at Coronado, from BUD/S Class 63. Around his neck is a sign, often replaced, asking, “So, you want to be a frogman?”

The statue is often referred to as Gillman, Swampman, or just “Gilly.” A repro of this statue is on display at the Lt. Michael P. Murphy Navy SEAL Museum on Long Island.

80 Years Ago: Yanks and Ozzies Team Up to Close the Bismarck Sea

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In early March 1943, Japanese RADM Masatomi Kimura was tasked with carrying out Operation 81, a scratch troop convoy running from Simpson Harbour in Rabaul to Lae, New Guinea. The run was short compared to what the Allies were trying to pull off in the Atlantic or even in the Medderterrainan– just 400 miles. Just six months prior, the control of that part of the Southwestern Pacific was firmly undecided but leaned heavily to favor of the Empire. Well, things had certainly changed by the time Operation 81 got underway.

Kimura was given eight destroyers– Asashio, Arashio, Asagumo, Shikinami, Tokitsukaze, Uranami, Yukikaze, and Shirayuki— all veterans of the Tokyo Express days of running fast nighttime convoys through Guadalcanal’s Ironbottom Sound.

However, this speedy force was shackled to eight slower freighters and transports. Besides 400 Imperial marines (of the Yokosuka 5th and Maizuru 2nd Special Naval Landing Party) these vessels were filled with some 6,500 troops of the Imperial Army including LtGen. Hatazō Adachi’s 18th Army Headquarters and half of the 51st Infantry Division (115th Infantry and 14th Artillery Regiments, plus supporting units). Adachi, a battle-hardened officer much-employed in the assorted China campaigns, had been appointed commander of the 18th some three months prior, and two of the Army’s divisions, the 20th and 41st, were already in New Guinea and he hoped to arrive with his fresh 51st, also drawn from the Kwantung Army in China, then kick off a renewed effort in New Guinea.

Well, things didn’t quite turn out that way.

Obstensibly protected by air cover provided by the carrier Zuihō’s fighter group flying from land, two Army flying groups (1st and 11th Hikō Sentai), along with the Navy’s shore-based 252nd and 253rd Air Groups, Kimura’s slow-moving (seven knots!) 16-vessel convoy was quickly spotted by Royal Australian Air Force and U.S. Army Air Force aircraft on 2 March 1942 and havoc ensued.

Over the course of the next two days, five RAAF squadrons (Nos. 6, 22, 30, 75, and 100) and no less than 18 USAAF squadrons of the 35th and 49th FG, 3rd AG, 34th, 43rd, and 90th BGs, would hammer the convoy and annihilate its aircover. The mix of aircraft involved was incredible, with the Ozzies running Hudsons, Bostons (Havocs), Beaufighters, Beauforts, and Kittyhawks (P-40s) and the Americans sending P-38s, P-39s, and P-40s to sweep Zeroes and B-24s, B-25s, B-17s, and A-20s for body blows.

Watch Bismarck convoy smashed! by official war correspondent Damien Parer on 3 March 1943 [courtesy of British Pathé]. Parer filmed the action from a plane cockpit over the shoulder of Flight Lieutenant Ronald Frederick ‘Torchy ‘ Uren, DFC. This film includes shots of air attacks on ships and rafts by Beaufighters of No. 30 Squadron RAAF, the first unit to go in for the attack on the convoy.

The images released of the carnage, some garnered at mast-top level, are still chilling today even in black and white low-rez.

In the end, all eight transports were sent to the bottom along with four of Kimura’s destroyers, with the survivors turning back. While the Japanese would pull 2,734 men from the water— and return them back to Rabul rather than continue on to New Guinea– over 3,000 perished.

Allied casualties were relatively light. Some 13 RAAF and USAAF aircrew were lost in the action, along with 6 Allied aircraft.

As noted by the NHHC, ” As a result of the losses, the Japanese never again risked sending a large convoy into water that was controlled by American aircraft.”

Unleash the Mosquitos!

As a postscript to what later became known as the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, LCDR Barry K. Atkins on the night of 3/4 March led ten boats (77-foot Elcos PT-66, 67, and 68; and the 80-foot Elcos PT-119, 121, 128, 132, 143, 149, and 150) of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron (PTRON) 8out of Milne Bay and Tufi, New Guinea, on a mop-up operation against the flotsam over Kimura’s convoy’s watery graves.

A PT boat patrolling off New Guinea. National Archives photo 80-G-53855 from the collection of Joseph N. Myers

As described by Bulkley in “At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy”:

At 2310 the 143 and 150 saw a fire ahead, to the north. On close approach they saw it was a cargo ship, Oigawa Maru of 6,493 tons, dead in the water, with a large fire in the forward hold and a smaller fire aft. It seemed to be abandoned. At 800 yards the 143 fired a torpedo which exploded near the stern and the ship began to heel to port and settle in the water. Five minutes later the 150 fired a torpedo at 700 yards. This one exploded amidships and the ship sank, stern first, with a brilliant blaze of fire just before she went under.

The second group of boats, PT 149 (Lt. William J. Flittie, USNR), PT 66 (Lt. (jg.) William C. Quinby, USNR), PT 121 (Ens. Edward R. Bergin, Jr.,

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USNR), and PT 68 (Lt. (jg.) Robert L. Childs, USNR), also saw the fire and began to approach it at slow speed. To Lieutenant Flittie, on the 149, the fire appeared as several lights on a stationary ship, and when it blazed up before taking its final plunge he thought the ship had put a searchlight on him. He fired one torpedo, the light went out immediately, and he could not find the target again.

The third group, PT 67 (Ens. James W. Emmons, USNR) and PT 128 (Ens. James W. Herring), also saw the fire. PT 128 fired two torpedoes at long range, 1,500 yards, the second at about the same time the 143 fired. Both of the 128’s torpedoes missed, but, seeing the explosion from the 143’s torpedo, the crew of the 128 thought for a time that their torpedo had hit.

After the sinking Lieutenant Commander Atkins ordered the three groups to search an area further to the west. All boats encountered heavy seas and frequent rain squalls, but found no more ships.

It was learned later that there were only two ships still afloat when the PT’s arrived in the area: the damaged cargo ship which they sank, and a destroyer which was finished off by planes the following morning.

On the 4th of March our planes returned and strafed everything afloat in Huon Gulf. Thousands of Japanese troops from the sunken transports were adrift in collapsible boats. For several days, the PT’s, too, met many of these troop-filled boats and sank them. It was an unpleasant task, but there was no alternative. If the boats were permitted to reach shore, the troops, who were armed with rifles, would constitute a serious menace to our lightly held positions along the coast.

At daylight on March 5, Jack Baylis in PT 143 and Russ Hamachek in PT 150 sighted a large submarine on the surface well out to sea, 25 miles northeast of Cape Ward Hunt. Near it were three boats: a large one with more than 100 Japanese soldiers and two smaller ones with about 20 soldiers in each. The men were survivors of the Bismarck Sea battle; the submarine was taking them aboard. Each PT fired a torpedo. The 143’s ran erratically. The 150’s ran true, but missed as the submarine crash dived. The PT’s strafed the conning tower as it submerged, then sank the three boats with machine-gun fire and depth charges.

Five days later Comdr. Geoffrey C. F. Branson, RN, Naval Officer in Charge, Milne Bay, received intelligence that a lifeboat containing 18 survivors of the battle had drifted ashore on Kiriwina, in the Trobriand Islands, 120 miles to the north of Milne Bay. The Trobriands were then a sort of no-man’s land; the Japanese held New Britain to the north, we held the New

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Guinea coast to the south. The only military installation in the Trobriands was an Allied radar station on Kiriwina, which might be endangered by the new arrivals. Ens. Frank H. Dean, Jr.,12 took Commander Branson to Kiriwina in PT 114, captured the 18 Japanese, who were in a docile mood, and returned to Milne Bay the next day. One of the prisoners, who had been badly wounded a week earlier in the Bismarck Sea and almost certainly would have died had he not been captured, later sent his American-made money belt to “Skipper” Dean as a token of gratitude.

The Battle of the Bismarck Sea, a striking victory for airpower, convinced the enemy that he could no longer run surface ships from Rabaul to Lae. He never tried to again. The Fifth Air Force began operating from Dobodura, near Buna, in April, and thereafter the enemy was unable to send cargo ships or destroyers anywhere on the north coast of New Guinea east of Wewak. He could still move some supplies overland through the Ramu and Markham River Valleys, a slow and arduous undertaking, and he could operate a submarine shuttle service between Rabaul and Lae, but the great bulk of supplies had to be moved by coastal barges. The Air Force was to prevent the barges from operating by day, and the PT’s were to cut down the night traffic to such a thin trickle as literally to starve the enemy out.

Pour One Out for the Scout Snipers…

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Marine Sniper with a Springfield 1903A1 and Unertl 8-power scope. Note the length and size of the objective lens. In 1943, the Marines established the first “Scout and Sniper” schools at Greens Farm in California and New River in North Carolina during World War II, the basis of today’s Scout Sniper program.

The Marine Corps is dismantling its iconic dedicated Scout Sniper platoons – a facet of each infantry battalion for generations – and is doing away with the coveted 0317 Military Occupational Specialty.

The product of a grueling training pipeline that yields field-ready precision marksmen qualified on the M40, M110, and M107 series rifles, the Marine Scout Sniper program is facing permanent disbandment as a result of a shifting focus in the country’s amphibious warfare service.

A leaked Feb. 21 unclassified message from Lt. Gen. D. J. Furness, the deputy commandant for plans, policies, and operations, detailed that the current 18-member Scout Sniper Platoons assigned to the Corps’ infantry battalions will quickly transition to 26-member Scout platoons – in other words, cutting the snipers in favor of a unit that would provide more “continuous all-weather information gathering.”

Spots in the Scout Sniper Basic Course will be zeroed out in the coming fiscal year while a nascent sniper capability will be continued in the Corps’ Reconnaissance and Marine Special Operations units under a new Military Occupational Specialty – 0322 MOS (Reconnaissance Sniper) – via a revamped, shorter training program.

The problem with that is, as these groups typically operate detached from standard infantry units, the highly specialized skill will in effect vanish at the battalion level

which will be left to get by with the current designated marksmen already at the company level. Under current doctrine, DMs typically only have a three-week course under their belt and train to engage targets out to 500 meters, rather than the much longer ranges that Scout Snipers train to achieve. 

The USMC Scout Sniper Association is urging the Commandant of the Marine Corps to reconsider what the group terms an “ill-advised” policy decision that will gut the program that has been tweaked and perfected over the past 80 years.

“This announcement by the Deputy Commandant, Plans, Policy, and Operations on Tuesday is the result of misguided assumptions and decades of neglect of the community of men who are Scout Snipers,” said the Association.

“It’s unlikely that any officer who commanded and employed Scout Snipers in combat agrees that removing a sniper capability from the infantry battalion makes sense. Replacing an 18-man Scout Sniper Platoon with a 26-man Scout Platoon will not solve the ‘all weather information gathering’ problem. Retaining the skill set and the combat capability of Scout Snipers by offering a viable career path to Scout Snipers and providing them with more engaged leadership might.”

The shift away from having dedicated sniper platoons in each infantry battalion comes as the number of battalions themselves is dwindling. 

The Corps’ three active-duty divisions would field a total of 27 infantry battalions between them if they were at full strength, but that hasn’t been the case for a long time. Long reduced to just 24 battalions all told, in 2020 the current commandant unveiled a plan to case the colors of three additional infantry battalions and the 8th Marine Regiment to make room to form a new Marine Littoral Regiment, the latter optimized to leapfrog rapidly across islands and coastal spaces with a smaller footprint when compared to the current force.

The result is a Corps with just 21 active-duty infantry battalions, shortly, in addition to cuts in tiltrotor, attack, and heavy-lift aviation squadrons and disbanding of all of the branch’s tank battalions. 

The big Roman off the Cape

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Image from the Italian-built semi-rigid airship Roma, overflying the bombing of the unmanned ex-German Wiesbaden-class scout cruiser SMS Frankfurt off Cape Henry, Virginia, on 18 July 1921. Note the U.S. Navy Felixstowe F5L flying boats overhead and the white targets painted on the deck of the former Kaiser’s former warship.

The imagery is related to Part of the William Mitchell papers, transferred in 1953 to the Library of Congress, Lot 6079-1. Digitized in 2015.

From the same series is this shot, showing an exploding bomb port mid-ship, about 10:01 a.m., dropped by U.S. Navy F5L.

The big seaplanes, with a 103-foot wingspan, could carry up to 900 pounds of bombs while self-defense was provided by four Lewis guns. However, even with their two big Liberty L12 engines, it could only make about 70 knots at full rpms.

As for Roma, the unusual lighter-than-air aircraft purchased by the U.S. Army for $184,000 from the Italian government just three months prior to the above images. Over-powered by six Liberty engines (which replaced the four original Ansaldo engines), the big 410-foot airship could actually outrun the F5L in terms of speed, not to mention range.

U.S. Army airship Roma in November 1921 over Norfolk, Virginia. – NARA – 518863

However, being hydrogen-filled, Roma was a flying bomb and burst into flames when brushing against powerlines outside of Norfolk on 21 February 1922, killing 34 aboard, and was the worst U.S. aviation accident on record at the time. Following the incident, the U.S. military went with helium for LTA vehicles moving forward.

SIG Making Consumer NGSW Rifle Variant

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SIG Sauer this week officially introduced the version of the military’s new Next Generation rifle that won’t require talking to a recruiter.

Last April, the New Hampshire-based firearms giant made headlines around the globe by pulling down the award for the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons, a series of 6.8mm rifles and light machine guns and their companion suppressors that are planned to replace the current 5.56 NATO small arms in front line service. The rifle, originally introduced as the XM5 and recently renamed the XM7, is based on the company’s gas-piston action MCX platform and uses SIG’s in-house developed SLX suppressor system.

While the as-issued XM7 currently being sent to the Army runs a standard 15.3-inch barrel (as measured over its muzzle device) and SIG released to the public a limited run of suppressed 13-inch barreled commemoratives last year that required two tax stamps, the MCX Spear will be fully NFA-compliant in at least most of its variants.

We were able to get a sneak peek at the consumer MCX Spear late last year while visiting SIG’s plant in New Hampshire but were sworn to secrecy on the program.

I thought it was pretty cool.

Maybe not $4,000 kinda cool, but still pretty neat.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Dragging out that Navy Naming Conventions Soapbox

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It’s like the Navy’s naming conventions are done with the Magic 8-ball or Ouija board over the past few years. Or perhaps are just hyper-political and just flat-out done for optics. Maybe it’s a blend of all of the above.

Trump’s Acting Secretary of the Navy, Thomas B. Modly, in early 2020 announced the next Ford-class supercarrier will be named after USS West Virginia Pearl Harbor hero PO3 Dorie Miller. Now don’t get me wrong, Miller should have a ship named after him– a destroyer (he previously had a Cold War-era Knox-class frigate named after him) as those vessels are named after naval heroes. Carriers should have names of presidents (a tradition established with the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945) or historic ships. Yes, I feel that Nimitz should have gotten a destroyer named after him rather than a flattop and both Carl Vinson and John Stennis should not have had any ships named in their honor, except for possibly to grace the hulls of auxiliaries.

Speaking of Pearl Harbor, Moldy was also responsible for bringing the names of the USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma back to the Navy List for the first time since 1942, with the planned USS Oklahoma (SSN-802) and the USS Arizona (SSN-803). While both are state names, matching the convention for the Virginia class these subs will belong to, I’m not sure if the name “Arizona” should ever be re-issued. After all, would you ever expect to see another HMS Hood?

77th SECNAV Kenneth J. Braithwaite, another of Trump’s guys, got a big win in my book when he returned to traditional “fish” names for fleet submarines (or hunter killers in modern parlance), something the Navy did from 1931 through 1973. Hence, we will soon have USS Barb (SSN 804), Tang (SSN 805), Wahoo (SSN 806), and Silversides (SSN 807), all after the numerous esteemed fleet boats that previously carried those marine creatures’ names, and the country’s next frigate will take the name of one of the country’s original six frigates, USS Constellation. Excellent job. This is how you do it. 

Then the “adults” came back to Washington and SECNAV Carlos Del Toro pointed out that the upcoming first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, USS Columbia (SSBN 826), will not honor the previous 10 Columbias in current and past naval service but will specifically the first-named “District of Columbia,” which some have pointed out that is as another step in the plan to turn DC into the 51st state, but, hey…

Now enter two additional decisions from Del Toro’s office this week.

The aging Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG 62) will be renamed USS Robert Smalls (CG 62), to comply with the new push to strip any perceived salutes to the old Confederacy from the modern military. Now, as with Dorie Miller, Smalls is a legitimate naval hero and, as such, should have a destroyer named after him. You know, a nice shiny new one that is ordered but not yet named. One that will serve for another 30 years or so. Instead, Chancellorsville/Smalls is set to retire in a couple of years, scheduled to enter mothballs in FY2026, and by most accounts, is in rather poor material condition.

Besides the terrible disservice to Smalls, the rest of the Ticos are named after battles, with Chancellorsville named after Robert E. Lee’s “perfect battle” near that Virginia town. Therefore, even if only in service for the next few years and arbitrarily stripped of her name in official disgust, why not name her after a more Union-friendly Civil War clash such as USS The Wilderness, which was importantly the first match-up between Lee and Grant (and took place in Virginia) and has never been characterized as a victory for either side? How about the USS Fort Henry, the first ship on the Navy List to honor the final Patriot victory in the Revolutionary War— and also at the time of the action part of Virginia, like the city of Chancellorsville.

Now the biggest of the grumbles.

Also coming from Del Toro this week is the word that the future Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine SSN-808 will be named USS John H. Dalton (SSN 808), after Clinton’s hatchetman SECNAV. You know, the guy who snuffed out the Sprucans before their time, slaughtered the Navy’s cruiser and frigate force, and canceled the scheduled Service Life Extension Program on USS America (CV-66), forcing the mighty carrier to be decommissioned in 1996 and ultimately scuttled at sea rather than keeping her in the line through 2010 as previously planned.

In short, Dalton was a total ass in my book. 

We all remember what happened to USS America…

The justification for Del Toro naming a sub after Dalton was that he had served briefly (active duty from 1964-69) in submarines and “as Secretary of the Navy, he took strong and principled stands against sexual assault and harassment and oversaw the integration of female Sailors onto combat ships.”

Gonna put that soap box up for now. I’m sure I’ll need to drag it out again.

Warship Wednesday, March 1, 2023: Six in One Trip!

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, March 1, 2023: Six in One Trip!

Imperial War Museum photograph A 21989 by Royal Navy official photographer, LT CH Parnall.

Above we see the modified Black Swan-class sloop HMS Kite (U87), of “Johnnie” Walker’s famed 2nd Support Group, dwarfed by a column of water that rises six times her height during an early 1944 depth charge attack on a suspected German U-boat in the North Atlantic, possibly while sending Oblt. Horst Hepp’s U-238 to the bottom southwest of Ireland on 9 February.

About the Swans

Originally classed as well-armed multi-purpose minesweepers but redesignated almost immediately after WWII started as convoy escorts, the Swans were an improvement of the preceding Bittern-class sloop. Hardy 1,250-ton ships of 299 feet overall and, armed with half-dozen high angle 4-inch guns and some light quad Vickers .50 cal AAA pieces, they carried more than enough depth charges (as many as 110 in late-war refits) to scratch the paint on German U-boats and Japanese I-boats. They weren’t very fast (19 knots) but had long legs (7,000nm@12kts) and proved well-suited to the work.

The Black Swan-class sloop of war HMS Starling (U66) underway in 1943, a good representation of the class in profile, showing the arrangement and her trio of twin QF 4″/45 mounts. This vessel would be a near-constant companion to our sloop, her sister, during the war. IWM FL 19299

The Brits only produced 37 of these useful warships, a number that was far outpaced by the 294-strong Flower (Gladiolus)-class corvette, an even smaller (925-ton, 205-foot) and slower (16ish knots) ASW vessel on a hull derived from a commercial whaler that was equipped with a single 4-incher but could nearly the same quantity of depth charges.

But don’t let the fact that for every 5 Flowers built, there was just a single Swan fool you, as the Swans more than proved their worth, as we shall see.

Meet HMS Kite

Named after the small and agile bird of prey rather than the tethered flying vehicle, our vessel was the seventh– and so far last– HMS Kite in the Royal Navy, with the previous six vessels typically being small cutters, sloops, and gunboats stretching back as far as 1764.

A rather famous piece of art by Montague Dawson c. 1950: “Dawn Suspect” depicting the 12-gun Revenue Cutter HMS Kite giving chase to the ship of notorious smuggler David “Smoker” Browning, 16 July 1788, “finally ensnaring the Kingpin of the North Sea after years of his evading the King’s justice.” Purchased in 1778, this was the second HMS Kite, and she would give coastwise service in the Home Isles through 1793. Via the Vallejo Gallery. For more on the 18th-century cat-and-mouse game between the King’s Revenue Cutters and the North Sea smugglers, click here.

The preceding sixth HMS Kite was a mighty 250-ton/85-foot flat-iron Ant-class gunboat commissioned in 1871 and sold in 1920. Yes, that is a Royal Arsenal RML 10-inch 18-ton gun on her bow, capable of firing 400-pound Palliser shells, thanks for asking.

Laid down at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead as Job No 3467 (Yard No 1102), on 25 September 1941, a fortnight after Allied convoy SC 42 had 16 ships sent to the bottom by a German Wolfpack, our Kite was commissioned 17 months, 5 days later on 1 March 1943– some 80 years ago today.

Ironically, HMS Kite’s career would last just 17 months, and 21 days, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

HMS Kite (U87), as completed, underway in March 1943. Note the barrage balloon over her mast, as if a play on her name. IWM FL 22973

After the completion of her abbreviated workups, the brand-new sloop joined the newly formed 2nd Support Group at Liverpool, the home of the Western Approaches Command, in early April and was supporting Atlantic convoys by mid-month. As a bit of background on 2SG– under the command of Captain Frederic John Walker, DSO with Bar, a hard-charging career officer who served on destroyers in the Great War and had already led the 36th Group in dispatching no less than five U-boats in 1942– the ASW force initially consisted of Kite and five sisterships: HMS Starling, HMS Wren, HMS Woodpecker, HMS Cygnet, and HMS Wild Goose.

HMS STARLING on the inside berth, HMS KITE (center) and HMS WREN.

With the addition of the group to the Western Approaches and the addition of more tin cans and escort carriers from the U.S. Navy to ride close escort on convoys themselves, 2SG was given the role of a fire brigade, standing just over the horizon for convoys then rushing in with a “Tally Ho” spirit to bust up a spotted wolfpack.

“Out With U-boat Killer Number 1; the Second Escort Group’s Success. 26 January To 25 February 1944, on Board HMS Starling. With the 2nd Escort Group, Commanded by Captain F J Walker, CB, DSO and Two Bars, on His Most Recent and Most Successful Patrol. Three of the Group’s Six U-boat “kills” Were Made Within 16 Hours. The sloop WOODPECKER goes into the attack and Captain Walker shouts encouragement to her through the loud hailer.” IWM A 21988

Walker and 2SG perfected several tactics to counter interloping U-boats including the “Creeping Attack,” a sort of rolling barrage method, similar to that used by artillery supporting an infantry attack only substituting a line of sloops and depth charges, and being able to orchestrate an alternating chase handed off between several escorts that would tire out a German boat or force it to the surface while keeping the ‘hounds comparatively rested. For example, in one eight-hour Creeping Attack, at least 266 depth charges were used by Starling, Wild Goose, and Kite to chase down U-238. Such huge expenditures of ASW weapons required depth charge stocks to be replenished from specially-outfitted merchant ships while underway.

Walker was always “maximum effort” when it came to pursuing the attack, and Starling, with him on the bridge, even famously rammed one German, U-119, upon resurfacing after one such pursuit.

A reconstruction of the sloop HMS Starling ramming the re-surfaced German submarine U-119 in June 1943. Another Royal Navy warship is visible on the horizon. HMS Starling is painted in a camouflage scheme. By John Hamilton. IWM ART LD 7411

True to form, Walker played “A Hunting We Will Go” over Starling’s Tannoy (1MC) when returning to Liverpool, a move that would become a tradition for 2SG, and indeed to other hunter-killer teams.

Biscay Barricade

In late June 1943, 2SG was ordered, as part of Operation Musketry and Operation Seaslug, to, with top cover provided by the RAF and some comparatively big guns from the AAA cruiser HMS Scylla, shut down the Bay of Biscay to U-boat traffic– or at least make it hazardous for Doenitz’s boys to travel there. Over the next three months, the ASW group would prove exceptionally good at their job indeed.

HMS Kite, note her extensive depth charge racks and projector fit along with her stern 4″/45 twin mount

Kite would be credited, with her sisters, for participating in the sinking of U-449 and U-504 near Spain’s Cape Ortegal, as well as U-462-– a vitally important Type XIV milch cow, in the Bay of Biscay proper. Notably, the latter two subs were sunk in gun actions after being forced to break for the surface. Kite would also pluck some waterlogged survivors of U-545, sent to Poseidon by a RAAF Sunderland, from the drink.

Between 2SG, other ASW groups, and shore-based patrol aircraft, Musketry/Seaslug operation would account for no less than 20 U-boats in a nine-week campaign.

HMS KITE, BLACK SWAN CLASS SLOOP. OCTOBER 1943. (A 19993) Broadside view. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205152515

Six-in-One

By September, Kite and 2SG were back on convoy duty and she would chalk up two more assisted kills, on U-226 east of Newfoundland in November, and U-238 south-west of Ireland the following February, bringing her count to five boats– an ace. U-238 would be sunk during a sweep that saw 2SG bag no less than a half-dozen U-boats on a single patrol between 26 January and 25 February.

HMS KITE, SLOOP. 26 JANUARY TO 25 FEBRUARY 1944, ON BOARD HMS STARLING, AT SEA. (A 22009) HMS KITE, Sloop of the 2nd Escort Group, at sea. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205154251

HMS KITE, SLOOP. 26 JANUARY TO 25 FEBRUARY 1944, ON BOARD HMS STARLING, AT SEA. (A 22007) HMS KITE of the 2nd Escort Group, at sea. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205154249

This “Six in one trip” exploit by the group earned a star-studded reception when the flock of Swans returned to Liverpool, with thousands of locals including A. V. Alexander, the First Lord of the Admiralty, waiting to greet Walker and his sloops on their return. Old Johnnie would receive a second Bar for his DSO for that one.

Neptune

In May 1944, during the build-up for the Overlord Landings on Normandy, 2SG was detailed to a search and destroy operation during D-Day in the South Western Approaches while Kite was carved away to join the 115th Escort Group for the landings themselves. Teamed up with the destroyers HMS Forester, and HMS Quorn, along with frigates HMS Tyler and HMS Seymour, Kite staged at Portsmouth with the invasion armada and worked off the British beachheads from June 6th through the 27th, and would remain in the Channel in further taskings through July.

Victual & Goodwood

In early August, Kite was assigned to take a small part in the sprawling Operation Victual– the passage of convoys JW 59 and RA 59A between Britain and Murmansk– and the simultaneous Operation Goodwood, with the latter being a series of five carrier air raids on the German battleship Tirpitz in Kaafjord.

Sailing as part of the 34-ship JW 59 from Loch Ewe on 15 August, five days later Kite came across Oblt. Ulrich Pietsch’s U-344, on the sub’s third patrol.

As detailed by Uboat.net:

At 20.45 hours on 20 Aug 1944, HMS Keppel (D 84) got a contact on her starboard quarter, while escorting convoy JW-59. Together with HMS Kite (U 87) and a Swordfish aircraft from HMS Vindex (D 15) the U-boat was attacked with hedgehogs and depth charges. They hunted the U-boat throughout the night with their foxers (Anti Gnat devices) streamed, but the hunt was fruitless.

At 06.04 hours on 21 August, HMS Kite (U 87) (LtCdr A.N.G. Campbell, RN) had slowed down to 6 knots to clear her foxers, which had become twisted around one another. At this vulnerable moment, U-344 fired a spread of three FAT torpedoes [German G7e with a Federapparat zig zag device] at the sloop, misidentified as Dido-class light cruiser by Pietsch. The ship was struck by two torpedoes on the starboard side and heeled over to that side immediately. The stern broke off, floated for a few seconds, then sank. The bow remained afloat for a minute and then sank at a steep angle.

At 07.30 hours, HMS Keppel (D 84) stopped to pick up survivors, while HMS Peacock (U 96) and HMS Mermaid (U 30) screened the rescue operation. Only 14 of the about 60 survivors in the water could be rescued from the ice-cold water, five of them died on board and were later buried at sea.

HMS KEPPEL BACK WITH SURVIVORS. 6 SEPTEMBER 1944, GREENOCK. THE DESTROYER RETURNED WITH NINE SURVIVORS OF THE SLOOP HMS KITE, WHICH WAS TORPEDOED BY A U-BOAT DURING THE PASSAGE OF A RUSSIAN CONVOY. LATER THE KEPPEL HAD THE SATISFACTION OF SENDING THE U-BOAT TO THE BOTTOM. (A 25522) Survivors of the KITE leaving the KEPPEL. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205157229

Kite was U-344‘s only claim during the war and she was sent to the bottom the next day off Bear Island, splashed by depth charges from an 825 Sqn FAA/X Swordfish from the escort carrier HMS Vindex, lost with all hands. Immediate retribution at the hands of the Royal Navy.

In all, Kite had participated in no less than 17 convoys in her brief career, one for every month, and she earned four battle honors: “Biscay 1943,” “Atlantic 1943-44,” “Normandy 1944,” and “Arctic 1944.”

A memorial to her 258 perished crew was eventually established in the Braintree and Bocking Public Gardens— the community that adopted the ship in March 1942.

Sadly, Johnnie Walker had preceded her, having passed of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage on 9 July 1944 at age 48, a death attributed to exhaustion. He was just worn out. Somewhat poetically, the men of 2SG could not pay their respects at his well-attended public funeral, as they were out on patrol, which is something he probably would have preferred anyway.

With 17 German boats to the credit of his ships, Walker is often considered the most successful ASW commander of the war, if not in all of naval history. It would have been interesting to see what his tally would have been had he lived to VE-Day.

Likewise, 2SG was credited with the confirmed destruction of 22 U-boats during the war, earning it a distinction as the most successful ASW unit of the entire conflict.

Epilogue

Besides Kite’s loss, her sisters HMS Ibis, HMS Woodpecker, and HMS Lapwing were likewise lost during the war, the first to Italian bombers off Algiers during the Torch Landings, and the latter to U-boats. Two further sisters, HMS Chanticleer and HMS Lark, were so badly damaged by German torpedoes that they were beyond economical repair. This balance sheet was traded for a minimum of 31 German U-boats accounted for by the class in exchange.

The 25 remaining Swans and modified Swans, post-war, as detailed by the 1946 edition of Janes

Post-war, most of these economical warships would continue to serve the Admiralty into the 1950s and a few even into the early 1960s, while others would be given away as military aid.

Black Swan-class sloop HMS Crane (F123, formerly U23) seen leaving Singapore in December 1961. Note the T-class submarine HMS Teredo (S38). Assigned to the British Pacific Fleet in early 1945 after European service that included the D-Day landings, Crane continued to serve in the Far East until 1962, the last of her class in service with the Royal Navy. She was scrapped in 1965.

The last of these sloops in Commonwealth service, the Indian Navy’s Sutlej (U95), would remain on New Delhi’s naval list as a survey ship until 1983, and was likely the last ship in any fleet that had sunk Japanese I-boats. Only one of the 37 Black Swans, HMS Mermaid (U30)/FGS Scharnhorst, lasted longer than Sutlej, finally going to the scrappers in 1990 after a decade as a damage control training hulk with the West German Bundesmarine. A bit of irony there.

As for Kite, Walker, and the sloops of 2SG, their triumphant return in February 1944 from their “One in Six” patrol was depicted in 1958 by maritime artist Stephen Bone in “Arrival of Second Escort Group of Sloops at Liverpool,” now in the collection of the National Maritime Museum.

Bone, Stephen; Arrival of Second Escort Group of Sloops at Liverpool; National Maritime Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/arrival-of-second-escort-group-of-sloops-at-liverpool-172623

In 1998, an oversized statue of Captain Frederic John Walker, CB, DSO & Three Bars, crafted by sculptor Tom Murphy, was installed at Liverpool’s Pier Head, looking out to sea with his binos and seemingly waiting for his sloops to come home.

Specs:

Plan of HMS ‘Black Swan’ (1939), via RMM Greenwich

Displacement: 1,250 tons
Length: 299 ft 6 in
Beam: 37 ft 6 in
Draught: 11 ft
Propulsion:
Geared turbines, 2 shafts:
3,600 hp
Speed: 19 knots
Range: 7,500 nmi at 12 kn
Complement: 180
Armament:
6 × QF 4″/45 (10.2 cm) QF Mark XVI AA guns (3 × 2)
4 × 2-pounder AA pom-pom
4 × 50 cal Vickers AAA machine guns
40 depth charges

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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Tradecraft

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These images, via the National Archives’s Underwood and Underwood News Service collection, show the “brass tube bomb,” “magazine revolver of German make,” and assorted maps, disguises, and other sabotage gear found in October 1915 in the room occupied by one Robert Fay, “German spy, arrested by the Federal authorities for conspiracy to destroy ammunition ships in New York Harbor.”

Fay, a German national who worked for the Submarine Signal Company (now Raytheon) in Boston prior to the Great War, went back home in August 1914 to serve on the Western Front as a Lieutenant. However, following up on his special set of skills, he was dispatched back to America with a fake British passport under the name of H. A. Kearling, assigned German military attaché Franz von Papen as his handler, and went to work trying to organize acts of sabotage.

German anti-shipping bombs, 1915, including those used by both Fay and developed by Von Rintelen, via the circa 1918 ONI 40

The Fay ring, including brother-in-law Walter E. Scholz, the curious professor Herbert O. Kienzle, and Paul Daeche, would be rounded up within six months and Papen expelled– with the latter soon arriving on the Western Front himself, to take up command of an infantry battalion.

One of Fay’s more interesting attempts at freighter sabotage as detailed by ONI 40 was a 40-pound bomb made to disable a ship’s rudder.

A Carry 22?

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Taurus introduced its newest, most carry-friendly, rimfire pistol earlier this year, and it aims to be both feature-rich and easy on the wallet.

The new TX22 Compact looks to be the hat trick in Taurus’s .22 LR handgun lineup, coming on the heels of the well-received standard and Competition-sized models. Unlike the other formats of the TX22, the new Compact runs a 13+1 round magazine and not the more commonly-used 16+1.

Developed as a handier version of its older brothers, it features a 3.6-inch alloy steel barrel that gives it an overall length of just 6.7 inches. In terms of dimensions, this puts it about the same size as a Glock 43 or Walther PPK but, at just 16.5 ounces, it comes in lighter than either.

This thing is pretty handy…and comes in at 16 ounces as shown.

Note that I compared it not to range plinkers but to carry guns. That’s because of the vibe that the TX22 Compact gives off. Unlike the rest of the TX22 series, which uses a three-dot sight system with a fixed front and two-way adjustable rear, the new TX22 Compact has a blacked-out serrated rear sight with a white dot front. Of note, this is the same sight used on the Taurus G3 series, which goes to say it is a standard Glock pattern. While no slouch on the range, the TX22 Compact was meant to be carried if needed.

While it may not be my particular cup of tea, there has been a move in recent years to produce dedicated self-defense .22LR ammo loads from Federal (Punch Personal Defense) and Winchester (Silvertip Rimfire) that give such guns more of a fighting chance. Plus, when it comes to both recoil and manipulation, those with low hand strength may find such a set-up ideal.

Moreover, and I love this, the TX22 is both suppressor and optics-ready, which is something tough to find in its size with a 13+1 round capacity for $350ish.

As shown, the dot-and-can-equipped TX22 Compact weighs just 20.8 ounces, loaded with 14 rounds of Federal Premium’s Punch Personal Defense rimfire ammo.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Got CETME C Issues?

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The Spanish started liquidating its huge stockpiles of 200,000 assorted CETME Modelo 58 7.62 battle rifles in the early 2000s, as, the Cold War was over and these rifles had been in arsenal reserve since they had adopted the more modern 5.56mm CETME Modelo L a decade prior.

Big fan of the CETME L builds out there, as they are often done very, very right. The CETME C, on the other hand…

Since then, tons of parts kits have flooded ashore and lots of builds made from such kits are available, some bad, some really bad.

Still, they are an easy way for folks to get into HK G3/HK 91 series guns on the cheap. Just be advised you often have to build (or rebuild) your own to get it to run right.

Speaking of which…

One of the neat things that have popped up off and on are full-up company/battalion-level CETME Armorers Kits with Apex having some back in 2018 for $299.

Well, it looks like Centerfire Systems has some that they just listed for the same price. As they include tons of small parts, specialized tools, and even trigger packs and furniture– all in a cool case– these could be well worth it for someone looking to build/rebuild a CETME C.

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