The South Dakota-class battleship USS Indiana (BB-58), seen taking water over the bow, while steaming through a typhoon in the Okinawa area, circa 5 June 1945.
Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-342732
The storm was bad enough to claim one of her floatplanes. From her deck log that day:
The “Hoosier Houseboat” earned nine battlestars for her WWII service and entered the Pacific Reserve Fleet’s Bremerton Group in 1946 alongside her sister, Alabama, and decommissioned the following year for mothballs.
While “Big Al” got a ticket home to Mobile for museum ship service in 1960, Indiana instead went to the scrapyard, although lots of her relics are on display in her home state.
Indiana War Memorial in Indianapolis (Photo: Chris Eger)
For better or worse, the third-hand 360-foot oilfield support vessel M/V Aiviq, acquired in December 2024 from an Edison Chouest Offshore subsidiary, was renamed the future USCGC Storis (WAGB 21) and has spent the past six months in a series of shipyard availabilities along the Gulf Coast.
This week, “following modifications to enhance communications and self-defense capabilities,” the country’s newest “polar icebreaker” departed Bollinger’s yard in Escatawpa (formerly VT Halter) on its “maiden voyage to safeguard U.S. sovereign interests in the Arctic and conduct Coast Guard missions.”
Photos courtesy of Edison Chouest Offshore.
While scheduled to be commissioned in Juneau this August, where she will eventually be based once the service has built the necessary infrastructure for her, in the meantime, Storis will be homeported in Seattle with the agency’s other icebreakers. The cutter’s new skipper is the former captain of the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB 10), so at least he is used to working with a mixed bill of goods.
To be clear, Storis will be used as a bridging strategy to “expand U.S. operational presence in the Arctic and support Coast Guard missions.”
At the same time, the service awaits the delivery of the delayed, and much more capable (potentially to include anti-ship missiles) 460-foot, 19,000-ton (launch weight) icebreaking multi-mission Polar Security Cutter class.
If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”
Warship Wednesday, June 4, 2025: Tiny Hull, Heart of Oak
“Goliath Wins,” painting by former RN FAA veteran and well-known marine and aviation artist, the late Jim Rae.
Above we see the Tree-class Admiralty type minesweeping trawler, HMT Juniper (T123), as she engages in a one-sided artillery duel with the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper in the Norwegian Sea on 8 June 1940, some 85 years ago this week.
The Trees
The British, with thousands of hardy blue water fishing boats and generations of crews along their coast in the 20th Century, were quickly able to mobilize these home-grown assets as sort of a “pirate fleet” with little effort, much akin to how the USCG almost overnight was able to deploy their 2,000-boat so-called Hooligan Navy or Corsair Fleet during WWII.
The concept in the Great War was simple: take a boat, add a deck gun, radio set, and searchlight; crew it largely with experienced trawlermen in uniform led by a reserve officer or two, and then specialize it into either anti-submarine work with listening gear and depth charges or minesweeping with sweep gear, sort said “battle trawlers” into flotillas, and turn them loose.
When 1935’s Italian invasion of Ethiopia, followed by Hitler’s abrogation of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles with the reoccupation of the Rhineland by German troops and rearmament to include U-boats, signaled a new war on the horizon, the Royal Navy dusted off its trawler plan as a quick way to boost coastal forces.
This led to the prototype for the British ASW/minesweeping trawlers of the next decade, with HMT Basset (T68) built by Robb in Leith, being launched before the end of 1935.
Coal-burning with a single boiler and VTE engine good for a humble 12.5 knots, Basset ran 160 feet oal, could float in just 10 feet of seawater, and displaced 521 tons. Armament was a 3″/40 12pdr 12cwt QF Mk I/II/V taken from a WWI-era destroyer and mounted on a “bandstand” on the bow, along with weight and space saved for as many as 30 depth charges and mechanical minesweeping gear.
Basset led to a series of nearly two dozen vessels for the Royal Indian Navy and a few for the Canadians, while the design was tweaked for the follow-on Gem and Tree classes.
The first WWII-era Admiralty standard minesweeping trawler type was the 20-member Tree class, so dubbed as all its members were named after trees. These were just barely larger than the Basset (Dog) class, hitting 545 tons standard (770 full) and running some 164 feet long.
Armament, like Basset, relied on a single old 12-pounder forward, a twin 50-cal Vickers rear (sometimes replaced with a second 12-pounder) a pair of Vickers .303s, two depth charge throwers and two depth charge racks with provision for 30 ash cans, along with the novel new Oropesa Mk II mechanical mine sweep or LL-type magnetic mine sweep.
A trawler’s gun crew manning the 12-pounder on the fo’castle. Photographer LT FA Hudson IWM (A 17176)
A trawler’s crew manning a 12-pounder. Photographer LT FA Davies IWM (A 12317)
Ordered from nine small yards around Britain, all were laid down on the eve of the war, augmented by 67 other trawlers purchased from trade.
HMT Birch, a Tree-class trawler
British Tree class naval trawler HMT Rowan, Pennant No T119 FL18332
British Tree-class naval trawler HMT Walnut, Pennant No T103
British Tree class naval trawler HMT Acacia, Pennant No T02, IWM FL 46
HMT Bay, Tree class Trawler, IWM A 6694
HM Trawler Pine – a “Tree” class minesweeper, she was torpedoed and sunk off Beachy Head by a Kriegsmarine Schnellboot with the loss of 10 of her crew.
HMT Walnut, Tree tree-class trawler
Crews were up to 40 souls, but typically more like 35, relying on a skipper and two junior officers, a couple of ratings from the RN or RNR, and the rest members of the newly stood up Royal Naval Patrol Service (RNPS).
Trained at the “stone frigate” HMS Europa, the commandeered Sparrows Nest Gardens in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the ad-hoc nature of the enterprise soon led to the force being known as “Harry Tate’s Navy” after a popular comedian of the era who had problems getting his car started and soon found it falling apart all around him but carried on with confidence nonetheless. In short, something akin to the “Rodney Dangerfield Navy.”
Meet Juniper
Our subject was the second warship to carry the name in the Royal Navy, with the first being an 8-gun Napoleonic-era Shamrock-class schooner that distinguished herself on Sir Arthur Wellesley’s campaigns in Portugal and Spain.
Ordered along with her future sister, HMT Mangrove from Ferguson Brothers (now Ferguson Marine) in Glasgow, Juniper was laid down as Yard No. 344 in August 1939 while Mangrove, built side-by-side, was No. 345. Their hull numbers would be T123 and T112, characteristically out of sequence, a class trait.
Juniper launched on 15 December 1939, as the Germans were digesting newly conquered western Poland, and commissioned in March 1940, as they prepped to turn West. She was modified while under construction and fitted with a more comprehensive AAA suite: three 20mm Oerlikons in place of the twin .50 cal Vickers.
20mm Oerlikon mounting on a British trawler. LT FA Davies IWM (A 12318)
Juniper’s first (and only) skipper was 42-year-old LCDR (Emergency) Geoffrey Seymour Grenfell, RN. An 18-year-old midshipman of impeccable background during the Great War (grandson of ADM John Pascoe Grenfell, grandnephew of Field Marshal Francis Grenfell, and the nephew of a VC holder killed with the 9th Lancers in 1914) he fought at Jutland on the famous HMS Warspite, a vessel holed 150 times in the sea clash by five German battleships. Leaving active service in 1920 as a lieutenant, after nine years with the colors, he was moved to the Emergency List, where he was made a LCDR in 1928 and remained there until activated in 1939.
Grenfell was a little bit famous at the time, having married the high-profile Countess of Carnarvon in 1938, an American heiress and descendant of the Lee Family of Virginia who had just divorced the 6th Earl of Carnarvon, leaving her son to inherit the title. Of note, the family home was the real Victorian Highclere Castle, the setting of the fictional Downton Abbey. Grenfell and the Countess’s marriage was important enough to be carried across the Atlantic in the NYT’s society pages.
The rest of Juniper’s tiny wardroom was made up of Probationary Temporary (Acting) Sub-Lieutenant Neville L. Smith, RNVR, and Probationary Temporary Lieutenant Ronald Campbell Blair Arnold Daniel, RNVR. Daniel, 40, was an architect in the Richmond practice of Partridge and a proud member of the Petersham Horticultural Society, having just joined the colors in April 1940.
War!
Rushed northward in June 1940 to take part in Operation Alphabet, the Allied evacuation of Norway, on the morning of 8 June, having departed Tromso the day before as the sole escort for the Aberdeen-bound 5,600-ton tanker SS Oil Pioneer, Juniper spotted a large cruiser on the horizon off Harstad.
It turned out to be the 14,000-ton Admiral Hipper, which at the time flew the signals of the British cruiser HMS Southampton.
Hipper off Norway, 1940
Realizing the ruse too late and being too slow to make a getaway, Juniper put the “battle” in battle trawler and made ready for a surface action. Signaling her merchantmen to evade as best they could, she began a cat-and-mouse artillery action with Hipper.
Some reports state that it took 90 minutes. Others are just 15. No matter how long it took to play out, the outcome was certain, and Juniper was smashed below the waves by Hipper’s secondary 4.1-inch SK C/33 battery, the bruiser saving its big 8-inch guns for more worthy prey. Any of Hipper’s four escorting destroyers, Z7 Hermann Schoemann, Z10 Hans Lody, Z15 Erich Steinbrinck, and Z20 Karl Galster, would have been more than a match for our trawler.
An on-board camera crew captured the event.
Shortly after, the nearby KM Gneisenau caught Oil Pioneer and sank her with a combination of gunfire and a torpedo from the destroyer Schoemann, leaving one reported survivor.
The bulk of Juniper’s crew were listed simply as missing or “Missing Presumed Killed” (MPK).
ALEXANDER, Ivor, Ordinary Seaman, LT/JX 179311, MPK
AUSTWICK, Clarence H, Engineman, RNR (PS), LT/X 59952 ES, missing
BARGEWELL, Arthur, Stoker, RNPS, LT/KX 106123, missing
BROWNJOHN, Denis E, Telegraphist, C/WRX 1246, missing
CHAPMAN, Charles, Seaman, RNR (PS), LT/X 20188 A, missing
COOPER, Robert, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 183134, MPK
DANIEL, Ronald C B A, Py/Ty/Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
GEORGE, William, Stoker 2c, RNPS, LT/KX 104599, MPK
GRENFELL, Geoffrey S, Lieutenant Commander, MPK
HIND, Wilson K, Leading Seaman, RNR, D/X 10320 B, missing
JILLINGS, Henry A, Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 177687, missing
MARSHALL, William D, Stoker, RNPS, LT/KX 104048, missing
NEWELL, George W, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 172789, MPK
PENTON, Thomas S, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 176379, missing
PERKINS, James K, Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 177711, missing
PHILLIPS, Peter R S, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 183136, MPK
SAWKINS, Eric W, Ordinary Signalman, RNVR, P/SDX 1535, missing
SEABROOK, William H, Telegraphist, RNW(W)R, C/WRX 124, missing
SMITH, Neville L, Py/Ty/Act/Sub Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
SUMMERS, George, Engineman, RNR (PS), LT/X 318 EU, missing
TIMMS, Ernest S, Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 180470, missing
VENTRY, Vincent, Seaman Cook, RNPS, LT/JX 185635, missing
WEAVER, Edgar A, 2nd Hand, RNPS, LT/KX 181715, missing
Those survivors picked up by the Germans were taken to Trondheim and eventually made their way to the Stalag IID Stargard in Pomerania. One of these survivors, Telegraphist Charles Roy Batchelor (499/X4624), though grievously wounded, survived the war and left a detailed account of his post-Juniper experience. He was repatriated home in October 1943 due to his wounds and would endure a series of skin and bone grafts for another 18 months. He went on to make a life for himself in to the 1980s and had a family, but walked with a limp, carried facial scars, and had difficulty chewing until the very end.
Soon after sending Juniper and Oil Pioneer to the bottom, Hipper found the empty troopship SS Orama (19,840 GRT) and made it a hat-trick.
German destroyer Z10 Hans Lody picking up survivors from British troop transport SS Orama, June 8, 1940
On the same afternoon as Juniper was lost and only a few miles away, the German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst would meet up and sink the carrier HMS Glorious, including her defending destroyers HMS Acasta and Ardent, with the loss of over 1,500 lives. That much larger disaster overshadowed our trawler’s ride to Valhalla.
Epilogue
Despite the heroic charge of Juniper, I cannot find where the vessel or her crew were decorated. British LCDR Gerard Broadmead Roope, skipper of the G-class destroyer, HMS Glowworm, sunk by Hipper under very similar circumstances in April 1940, earned a VC.
The only post-war mention I can find of the good LCDR Grenfell is a notice of the settlement of his estate, published in October 1941.
His wife, the former Countess of Carnarvon, mourned for a decade before taking her third husband in 1950, and passed in 1977.
The Trees had a tough war. Besides Juniper, five of her 19 sisters were lost in action: HMT Almond (T 14), Ash (T 39), Chestnut (T 110), Hickory (T 116), and Pine (T 101).
The British lost an amazing 122minesweeping trawlers during the war.
The Royal Naval Patrol Service numbered some 66,000 men during WWII, manning 6,000 assorted small vessels. At least 14,500 of these “Sparrows” lost their lives, and no less than 2,385 RNPS seamen “have no known grave but the sea.”
Today, the Lowestoft War Memorial Museum at Sparrow’s Nest remembers their sacrifices. Bronze panels at the Museum hold the names of the 2,385 MPK, including those lost on Juniper, recorded on Panels No. 1 and No. 2.
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.
The commercial variant of the short-lived G49. Note the “chopped” dust cover leaving an exposed chin on the slide, the standard fixed polymer sights, and the optics plate. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Word is circulating far and wide that a ton of Glockmodels, some that have been around for decades, could be headed for that great big polymer pasture in the sky.
Between posts on gun forums, videos from giant Glock retailers, and a list on Glock’s European website, it would appear that as many as 26 models and 100 SKUs may soon be removed from the company’s catalog.
Sifting through the tea leaves, most models appear to be guns in arcane or aging calibers such as .357 SIG, .40 S&W (even in Gen 5 models), and .45 GAP. Also gone are the company’s few remaining production Gen 3s and most of the Gen 4s, anything with upgraded sights such as Ameriglo Bolds or Glock Night Sights, and the new G49. This heavily impacts guns that were grandfathered on California’s approved handgun roster, which sucks for folks out there.
Keep in mind that none of this should be that shocking, as the G49 was billed from the beginning as a limited run. Glock was really the only company trying to make the .45 GAP happen, and many handgun makers have long ago stepped away from .357 SIG and .40 S&W. Case in point: SIG has not produced pistols in those latter two calibers for several years. Plus, it is common for gunmakers to clean up their catalogs and discontinue certain configurations wholesale, something that Glock hasn’t done in a long time.
Enjoyers of .45 ACP and 10mm Auto, as well as .380 ACP fans, will still have lots to choose from – at least in Gen 5 models – as will folks who stock 9mm in deep quantity.
What does this mean for the bigger picture? It’s clear from offerings like the new Glock/Aimpoint A-Cut/COA line introduced earlier this year that optics-ready models will likely be front and center moving forward, and most of the models mentioned for deletion simply are not capable of accepting a dot right out of the box.
Is Glock clearing the way for the inevitable Gen 6? Maybe.
In the meantime, you can bet that new old stock specimens of these discontinued guns – now instant collectibles to die-hard Glock fans – will be hot commodities soon offered (while available) at below minimum advertised prices, since MAP will likely be suspended on these “clearance” guns.
It could be a good time to shop Glock.
Per Glock:
Discontinued Commercial Pistol Models
G17 – Gen4
G17 MOS – Gen4 | Gen5
G17L – Classic | Gen3
G17L MOS – Gen5
G19 – Gen4
G19 MOS – Gen4
G20 – Gen3 | Gen4
G21 – Gen3 | Gen4
G21SF
G22 – Gen3 | Gen4 | Gen5
G22 MOS – Gen5
G23 – Gen4 | Gen5
G23 MOS – Gen5
G24
G26 – Gen4
G27 – Gen3 | Gen 4 | Gen5
G29 – Gen3 | Gen 4 | Gen5
G29SF
G30 – Gen3 | Gen 4 | Gen5
G31 – Gen3 | Gen4
G32 – Gen3 | Gen4
G33 – Gen3 | Gen4
G34 – Gen3 | Gen4
G34 MOS – Gen4 | Gen5
G35 – Gen3 | Gen4
G35 MOS – Gen4
G36
G36 FGR
G37 – Gen3 | Gen4
G38
G39
G40 MOS – Gen4
G41 – Gen4
G41 MOS – Gen4
G49
Why is GLOCK discontinuing so many models?
In order to focus on the products that will drive future innovation and growth, we are making a strategic decision to reduce our current commercial portfolio. This streamlined approach allows us to concentrate on continuing to deliver the highest-quality and most relevant solutions for the market.
What does this mean for me as a customer?
You’ll still have access to the most popular GLOCK models you know and love, just with a more focused selection.
Will discontinued models still be supported?
Yes! Just like we do with previous generations. We will continue to service discontinued models.
Do these portfolio changes affect law enforcement agencies?
GLOCK remains fully committed to supporting the varying needs of our law enforcement partners. While IOP programs may be affected, GLOCK is prepared to work closely with LE partners to make sure officer and agency needs are met. For more questions, contact your LE District Manager.
Official period caption, June 1945: “Italy — Historic meeting at Vesuvius; crusty old jet looks down on bright new jets during the Lockheed P-80s’ visit to Italy.”
U.S. Army Air Force Photo Number 57638AC. Print received June 1945 from Publications Section, AC/AS Intelligence. Used in an issue of “Impact”, June 1945. Copied 12 June 1945. CONFIDENTIAL Classification cancelled by WD Circular #24, para. National Archives Identifier 204908286
Equipped with a General Electric I-40/J33 engine, the P-80 Shooting Star became the first U.S. aircraft to exceed 500 miles per hour in level flight, and was the best Allied jet fighter of WWII, albeit it only came into it at the very end. Note that the above aircraft lack the type’s iconic “tip tanks.”
Two of the aircraft shown in the above image have visible tail numbers: 44-83028 (MSN 080-1007) and 44-83029 (MSN 080-1008), denoting them as among the first 13 YP-80A test aircraft. They were from a group of just four aircraft that were rushed to Europe as part of Project Extraversion.
The Lockheed YP-80A Shooting Star, one of just two in Italy, had a nose packing six 50 cals. “Print received June 1945 from Publications Section, AC/AS Intelligence. Used in an issue of “IMPACT”, June 1945. Copied 12 June 1945. CONFIDENTIAL. Classification cancelled by WD Circular #24, Para. USAAF 57639AC”
Flown by Wright Field test personnel, they were the first “combat” Shooting Stars, assigned to the 1st Fighter Group at Lesina Airfield in December 1944, from where they reportedly were tasked with shooting down passing Luftwaffe Arado Ar 234 reconnaissance jet aircraft. Returned stateside after the war, 44-83028 became a drone while 44-83029 crashed on 2 August 1945 near Brandenburg, Kentucky, taking her pilot with her.
Two other early YP-80s had been sent to Britain at the same time, where one, 44-83026, killed test pilot Major Frederic Borsodi in a crash at RAF Burtonwood. The second YP-80A sent to England, 44-83027, was transferred to Rolls-Royce and fitted with a prototype Rolls-Royce RB.41 Nene engine, then cracked up on 14 November 1945.
The first 20 or so production P-80As, starting with serial 44-84992, were shipped to the USAAF’s 31st FS (412th FG) (4th AF) at March Field and Muroc Field (now Edwards AFB), California, starting in mid-1945, replacing the troubled Bell P-59 Airacomet jet fighter.
You have to be under a rock to have not seen the news that Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) recently hit the button on an operation– dubbed “Pavutyna” (Spideweb)– some 18 months in the making.
The complex logistics involved smuggling nearly 200 FPV drones and their mobile storage hangars into Russia.
The drones, likely fiber-optic controlled (hence “Spider Web”) so as to counteract EW defenses, were hidden inside 20-foot ISO shipping containers with roofs rigged to slide open via remote control to allow their UAV cargoes to lift off toward their targets– Russian strategic aircraft, often nuclear-capable.
The trucks were staged very near bases and controlled via datalink back in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the drivers were already well on their way to exfiltrating.
Check this out for a great nuts and bolts on how the raid happened.
While one strike– on the Ukrainka air base near Seryshevo in far-off Amur oblast– failed when the truck exploded, four other strikes, using 117 drones, were more successful.
The strikes hit:
Belaya Air Base in the Irkutsk Region of the Russian Far East, some 2,600 miles from Ukraine, damaging at least one Tu-95MS Bear and two Tu-22M3 Blackjacks. TASS reports it is the first strike into Siberia during the war.
Near Murmansk, the Ukrainians hit Olenya Air Base, some 1,100 miles north of their border, damaging at least 4 Tu-95s, allegedly a Tu-160 Swan, and an An-12.
At Ivanono Air Base, some 620 miles north of Ukraine and only 150 miles from Moscow, they hit an A-50 Mainstay (Russki AWACS).
Closest to home, at Dyaglievo near Ryazan, some 320 miles north of Ukraine and some 120 miles from Moscow, they hit “more than 10” aircraft.
The damage assessments and claims are all over the place. Whereas Ukraine says they damaged/destroyed 41 strategic Russian airframes, according to the OSINT project AviVector, only 13 were hit on camera.
The Russians themselves are tight-lipped as to any losses.
It was dramatic, for sure, but it took 18 months to set up, and surely benefited from Western intelligence as to targeting packages.
Did it reallyaccomplish a lot?
Probably not on a strategic scale, other than the fact that it will now stress the Russians into sanitizing their bases, far from the front lines, for random trucks and curious buildings anywhere within a few kilometers of their flight lines, as the fiber-optic controlled battery-powered drones have a very short range. This ties down troops. Lots of them. All for the cost of some cheap drones, some converted trucks, and the risk to some drivers who were already headed home before the button was pressed.
The big thing is the precedent.
‘Taranto Harbour, Swordfish from Illustrious Cripple the Italian Fleet, 11 November 1940′ by Charles David Cobb. Painting in the collection of the National Museum
Much how the nighttime raid on the Italian port of Taranto by 21 Fleet Air Arm Fairly Swordfish on 11/12 November 1940 left three Italian battleships and a heavy cruiser damaged, but paved the way for a much more successful and much larger strike by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor 13 months later, Pavutyna could be the rough blueprint for a first strike in the next big war.
USS SHAW exploding at Pearl Harbor. NARA 80-G-16871
What if China had 2,000 such drones set to attack 50 strategic bases and communication nodes in the U.S. on D1? What if they had another 2,000 set to go after infrastructure such as nuclear power plants, dams, and the like?
At the same time, the five Marine Corps bases will host drone competitions to test Marine teams from across the fleet on “hunter-killer” drone employment, speed, and agility, with the first event occurring at Quantico, Virginia, in November.
Perhaps one of the best jazz album covers ever: Underground by Thelonious Monk (Columbia, May 1968). Where else are you going to find Lugers, an MP40, an M1911, M1 pineapple grenades, demo gear, a field telephone, and multiple radio sets, as well as a Morse key?
The album cover is an ode to the young British-born Baroness Kathleen Annie Pannonica ‘Nica’ de Koenigswarter (née Rothschild), who, at the time of the initial German occupation of Northern France some 85 years ago this month, opened her Château d’Abondant to displaced refugees and evacuees. She later managed to escape the country and joined her husband, Jules de Koenigswarter, who was abroad with De Gaulle’s Free French forces. She pitched in herself as a codebreaker for Gaullist intelligence and served as an on-air host at Radio Brazzaville(the Free French England-based Radio Europe). She finally became an ambulance driver for the 1st Free French Division during the North African Campaign in 1942-43.
The Baroness, who moved to New York after the war, later became a noted patron of the arts, particularly jazz musicians, including Monk (who was 4F during WWII), personally. This is why several jazzmen have songs about “Nica” (Kenny Drew: Blues for Nica, Horace Silver: Nica’s Dream, Gigi Gryce: Nica’s Tempo, Sonny Clark: Nica, Tommy Flanagan: Thelonica, et.al)
Her image is reportedly hidden in the cover as well, perhaps mocked up with a STEN gun.
Here we see the submarine Bars (Snow Leopard), the first of a class of 24 planned boats for the Imperial Russian Navy, after being launched on 2 June 1915 at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg (then Petrograd).
Note her Romanov eagle bow crest and four port topside “drop collar” torpedo launcher positions. Designed by a Polish-Russian submarine engineer, Prof. Stefan Karlovich Dzhevetskiy, the launchers were a cost-effective and easy way of carrying torpedoes and were used by both the French and Tsarist navies. However, the design proved an issue in winter months, especially in ice, and greatly shortened the lifespan of the weapons carried.
On 25 July 1915, the boat, under the command of LT V. F. Dudkin, entered service and became part of the 1st Division of the Baltic Sea Submarine Force, and would be operational for the next 22 months.
Russia. Baltic. Submarine Bars 1915-1917. Note: torpedoes carried in the Dzhevetsky drop collars
Designed by Maj. Gen. (Russian admiralty officers in non-line billets were listed as colonels and generals, not admirals) Ivan Grigorievich Bubnov, the head of the GUK (Main Directorate of Shipbuilding), the Bars class was probably the most advanced and effective Russian submarines until the late mid-1930s when the Malyutka (type M) class boats began entering service.
Russian submarines Volk and Bars (center), iced in over a Baltic Winter. 1915-1917.
At 223-feet oal, they had a displacement of 650 tons (780 submerged) and could operate down to 300 feet. This made them almost ideal for the Baltic. Keep in mind that today’s Sweden’s Blekinge (A26)-class SSKs under construction right now run just 216 feet overall.
Diesel electric (with German Krupp or Russian Ludwig Nobel Kolomna plant diesels, later augmented by some American-made engines sent from New London) powering twin screws, they could make 9 knots submerged (13 on the surface) and carried enough fuel and food for 14 days of operations.
Heavily armed, they had eight 18-inch torpedos carried on the deck in Dzhevetsky drop collar trapeeze systems, and another eight fish in fore and aft torpedo rooms with two tubes in each. A small deck gun or two and a light machine gun were added. Mines could also be carried.
The Russians were able to complete 20 Bars-type boats, of which four were lost during the Great War (including Bars) while three others sank in peacetime operations. Four, as well as two of the unfinished hulls, were captured by the Germans in 1917-18. Post-war, the Soviets kept a dozen of the class in operation into the 1930s, with at least two surviving until the 1950s in use as training ships and battery charging barges.
The Soviets considered them the first “modern” submarines in Russian service.
Evolution of Soviet subs from 1914-1955 with Bars-class at top
In 1993, in the Baltic Sea, in the area of Gotska Sandön Island, the Swedish minesweeper Landsort discovered a Bars-type submarine (most likely Bars herself, which went missing in May 1917) at a depth of 127 meters.
Cap ribbon and model of the Russian submarine Bars at Vladivostok
As for her father, designer Bubnov died of typhus during the Russian Civil War in 1919, aged just 47.
MG Bubnov, in front of the building Tsarist submarine Akula, in happier days
Operation Sea Orbit: On 31 July 1964, USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) (bottom), USS Long Beach (CGN-9) (center) and USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25) (top) formed “Task Force One,” the first nuclear-powered task force, and sailed 26,540 nmi (49,190 km) around the world in 65 days. Accomplished without a single refueling or replenishment, “Operation Sea Orbit” demonstrated the capability of nuclear-powered surface ships.
The world’s first nuclear powered flattop and the longest carrier ever constructed (at 1,088 feet oal, later pushed to 1,123 feet, some 31 feet longer than a Nimitz and 17 feet longer than a Ford) will be deconstructed slowly in Mobile Bay through the end of the decade, under the oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She will disappear while docked at Modern American Recycling and Radiological Services, LLC (MARRS), where the former SS United States is now tied up.
The ex-USS Enterprise (CVN-65), formerly CVA(N)-65, was ordered on 15 November 1957 during the Eisenhower administration and commissioned on 25 November 1961, somehow just four years later. She left on her inaugural deployment just seven months later in June 1962. In all, she would complete 25 overseas deployments in her career.
Keep that in mind when you note that Ford took nine years from ordering (2008) through commissioning (2017) and only deployed for the first time six years later (2023).
Big E’s original cost, in 1961 dollars, was $451.3 million. Her recycling, after over 55 years of service, will be more expensive until you consider inflation.
Per DOD’s contract announcements last Friday:
NorthStar Maritime Dismantlement Services LLC, Vernon, Vermont, is awarded a $536,749,731 firm-fixed-price contract (N00024-25-C-4135) for the dismantling, recycling, and disposal of Ex-Enterprise (CVN 65). Under this contract CVN 65 will be dismantled in its entirety, and all resulting materials will be properly recycled or disposed of. Specifically, hazardous materials, including low-level radioactive waste, will be packaged and safely transported for disposal at authorized licensed sites. Work will be performed in Mobile, Alabama, and is expected to be completed by November 2029. Fiscal 2025 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $533,749,731 will be obligated at the time of award, all of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment solicitation module, with three offers received. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
We would be remiss if we let May escape without observing the 250th birthday of Antoine-Charles-Louis, Comte de Lasalle.
Born on 10 May 1775 in Metz, the son of an officer in the French Royal Army and knight of the Order of Saint Louis, as well as a great grand nephew of a Marshal of France from the 30 Years’ War (Abraham de Fabert, marquis d’Esternay), it was no surprise that Lasalle joined he Army at the tender age of 11 and became an officer by 14.
Sadly, he was a leg in the Alsace Regiment of the Baron de Esbecke, a unit composed mainly of Germans, and only managed to upgrade to the cavalry after the Revolution. Accepted as a lieutenant in the 24e Régiment de Cavalerie on 25 May 1791, he soon had to resign over the controversy that he was a petit noble.
However, with the enemies of France pressing in from every direction, the young Lasalle was able to convince the Comité de Salut public to allow him a spot with the 23e Régiment de Chasseurs à Cheval in February 1794, and the rest is history. The 19-year-old had a horse and knew how to use it. His first notable combat was capturing a British artillery battery at Landrecies that same July.
Fighting in the Italian campaign as an ADC for Gen. Kellermann, by 1796, he was a captain. He led an 18-man troop of the 1er Régiment de Cavalerie on a mission behind enemy lines that soon matched it against a 36-strong group of Austrian hussars, which he bested. Then came a squadron command in the 22e Chasseurs à Cheval, and a trip to Egypt with the 7e Régiment bis de Hussards. There, amid the pyramids, he led 150 sabers against several times that amount of Mamelukes in swirling battles, pistols in hand.
Returning to France in 1800, he was decorated by Napoleon himself. He made a colonel at the tender age of 25, famously remarking, “Tout hussard qui n’est pas mort à trente ans est un jean-foutre, (Any hussar who isn’t dead by the age of thirty is a jerk.).”
Commanding the 10th Hussars at Vilnadella, the young colonel was in the thick of it, reportedly having three horses killed under him and breaking seven sabers, earning the Legion of Honour.
By 1803, he was a brigadier general in command of a brigade of dragoons that he would lead at Austerlitz.
His legendary moment was in the Prussian and Polish campaigns. Leading his “brigade infernale” of the 5th and 7th Hussars, he captured the King of Prussia’s Guard and the Stettin fortress, then forced the Prince of Hohenlohe to surrender at Prenzlau. The Stettin fortress, with 5,000 Prussians inside, surrendered after a threatened “siege” by Lasalle and his 500 worn cavalrymen using wooden cannon as a ruse.
He bested Blücher at Lübeck, and the Russians at Golymin before solidifying his living legend at Jena and being made a major general of division on 30 December 1806 at 31.
“The Comte de Lasalle at the head of his brigade at the Battle of Jena – October 14th, 1806.” – Alphonse Lalauze, 1928
Murat & Hussar General Antoine Charles Louis de Lasalle at the Battle of Heilsberg, June 10 1807 Breville
Fighting at Heilsberg and then serving brilliantly in the Spanish campaign, by 1809 he was with the Grande Armée again, once more fighting against the Austrians, but this time with the Germans on the side of the French.
Capping nearly 40 hours of epic fighting at Wagram, Lasalle’s last charge ended with his death, struck in the head by a bullet while facing Hungarian grenadiers.
Général Lasalle charging at Wagram on June 6th, in the afternoon, just before he was killed.” – Édouard Detaille, 1912
“The Charge of Général Lasalle at Wagram.” – Guido Sigriste, 1906
He bested his “dead by age 30” boast by four years.
