New Ships of the Navy poster
RTX has their newest Ships of the Navy poster available for free download. Printed out, it is something like 26×31. Enjoy!
laststandonzombieisland
Rock and Roll
A U.S. Navy Patrol Boat, Riverine (PBR) crewman mans his twin M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun mount as the craft patrols the Vung Tau River in Vietnam on 14 April 1966, “in anticipation of trouble with the Vietcong.” Note the alternating mix of M20 red-over-silver-tipped armor-piercing incendiary tracer (API-T), silver-tipped M8 AP-I, and M1 incendiary (light-blue tipped) ammo in his belts.
Journalist First Class Ernest Filtz Photographer, NARA – K-31263
While the war of a million sorties from Yankee Station gets the most attention from Navy historians, the “Brown Water Navy” of the River Patrol Force and Mobile Riverine Force on Operation Market Time and Operation Game Warden involved the efforts of more than 30,000 Bluejackets and deserves to be remembered.
City of Music at the foot of Uncle Joe, courtesy of Lend Lease
The 6th Guards (Order of Red Banner) Tank Army of Colonel General of Tank Troops Andrei Grigorievich Kravchenko– who had earned a Hero of the Soviet Union title after Kursk as head of the 5th Guards Tank Corps– was formed in Ukraine in early 1944 and, earning its “Guards” title after suppressing the the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket and smashing West during the follow-on Iassy-Kishinev Offensive, entered Hungary on the Debrecen Offensive on the 2nd Ukrainian Front by the end of that year. Still pushing as part of Stalin’s steamroller, it helped smash the last German offensive in the East (Frühlingserwachen under Sepp Dietrich’s 6th SS Panzer Army) along the shores of Lake Balaton in March 1945 and, after brutal street-to-street fighting, by 11 April had outflanked and entered Vienna, which was fully captured by the 15th.
There, in all its majesty, the great 6th Tank Army showed off all of its fine Detroit muscle, courtesy of Lend Lease, M4A2(76)W Shermans in the lead.
Going on to capture Prague by 12 May, the 6th Tank Army was pulled from Central Europe and shipped 11,000 km across Siberia to the Transbaikal. There, the 1,100 armored vehicles of the 6th Tank Army were ready to take on the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria by 9 August 1945 and would fight the last armored battle of WWII, famously racing 150km across the Gobi Desert in the first day of the offensive against the Japanese, seizing the passes of the Greater Khingan mountains and effectively bottling up toughest remaining Japanese units in its wake on the Manchurian plain.
Soviet Japanese Defeat of the Kwantung Army, 1945
Kravchenko was made a Twice Hero of the Soviet Union and, surviving Stalin, would retire from the military in 1955 and pass in 1963.
Rolling Bones
80 years ago. Awaiting removal of a roadblock on the road to Eisfeld, Germany, a 90mm GMC M36 tank destroyer crew whiles away the time shooting craps. 28th Infantry Division (“Keystone”), U.S. Third Army, 12 April 1945.
Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-204555, National Archives Identifier 6927819
The men are likely “Cossacks” of the 630th TD Battalion, Battle of the Bulge vets who passed from temporary XVIII Airborne Corps control back to the 28th near Wolfstein around this time.
Among the camp gear accumulated on the back of the M36 is a case of “10-in-1” rations, Menu 3, which would include bulk-packed K rations in two 5-serving packs, the first in packages and the second in cans. Of key importance, a 10-in-1 also held ten packages of cigarettes– each holding 10 Chesterfields, Luckies, or Pall Malls– along with ten GI matchbooks and 250 sheets of GI toilet paper. Tough but fair.
Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force
In the mood for some light reading on lessons learned in blood and treasure from the war in Ukraine. Well, here are 359 pages courtesy of the U.S. Army War College.
Written by John A. Nagl and Katie Crombe, A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force explores the changing character of war through the lens of the Russia- Ukraine War. The authors analyze the conflict’s history, each side’s warfighting functions, the role of multidomain operations, and more. The radical changes in the character of war suggest the United States is at a strategic inflection point.
The authors draw lessons from both the Ukrainians and the Russians to suggest improvements for the United States. Advances in drone technology, cyber warfare, and electromagnetic warfare pose new technological vulnerabilities and possibilities. In addition, the war has highlighted the roles of allies in deterrence and training, as well as how leadership styles within the military—specifically, in the implementation of mission command—can be a decisive factor. As the Russia- Ukraine War has demonstrated, modern conflict touches a plethora of domains; thus, having sufficient personnel who are ready to fill a variety of capacities will be critical in the future.
Finally, the war has shown that history and justice are critical aspects of going to war and achieving peace, so crafting a narrative and satisfying stakeholders will be necessary for establishing a stable world order. The Russia- Ukraine War foreshadows the challenges the United States will face in future conflict and highlights the keys to adapting to modern warfare.
Download here.
Ruger Goes Carbon Fiber for the…10/22?
Ruger changed the rimfire world with the 10/22 semi-auto series over 60 years ago, and its new Carbon Fiber model shows that the company is ready to keep innovating. We’ve been evaluating one of these interesting new carbines around for the past few months.
Ruger debuted our review model just before SHOT Show as the more affordable ($600-ish) companion to a series of $1,100 10/22 Competition rifles from the company’s Custom Shop featuring a Grey Birch chassis.
So, what do you get for the price?
For starters, a 16.1-inch cold-hammer-forged stainless-steel barrel tensioned inside a carbon fiber sleeve along with a lightweight Magpul MOE X-22 stock that carries a textured white speckle pattern. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
All up weight out of the box? Just 3.5 pounds, as verified by our postal scales with the standard 10-round rotary magazine installed. That’s light. By comparison, the Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun is listed as 3.35 pounds. Â
We added some extras while keeping the weight factor in mind, such as a Burris FastFire 4 micro red dot optic and a SilencerCo Switchback suppressor. In this configuration, with a loaded magazine, the 10/22 Carbon Fiber hit the scales at 65.7 ounces, or a hair over 4 pounds of pure joy, ready to go.Â
The 10/22 is always fun in any format. Deliver it in a carbon fiber format that allows you to have an outfitted 4-pound carbine that is accurate and dependable, and you have a solid winner. It is a mood changer.
When it comes to price, the $600 asking price on the 10/22 Carbon Fiber makes a lot of sense when you break it down. The basic plain Jane 10/22 with a pencil barrel and synthetic stock has an MSRP of $379. The Magpul MOE-X 22 stock runs $70, and the BX trigger is $96. With that in mind, you basically get the carbon fiber upgrade for free. The closest competitor would be the semi-auto (and very 10/22-ish) Bergara BXR, which is heavier at 4.7 pounds and has an MSRP of $719.
What’s not to like?
The full review is over in my column at Guns.com.
Harpoons Away!
Some 80 years ago today, “somewhere in the Western Aleutians,” 10 April 1945, we get a good look at the bristling nose of the new Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon maritime patrol bomber of the “Vee-Gees” of VPB-139 as it gets ready for a sortie, showing off five forward-firing M2 .50 caliber Brownings. The type had another two .50 cals in a dorsal turret and two in the tail.
Official caption: “Loading machine gun ammunition in Lockheed Harpoon PV in their strikes against the Northern Kuril Islands. Inside the plane. R.W. Medlock, AOMM2, receives a load of ammunition from D.A. Tarkington, AOM2, as they prepare one of the bombers for a strike.”
U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-32266
Just over 500 PV-2s were built in 1944-45 and were rushed out as replacements for war-weary PV-1 Venturas.
As noted in Curacao-based VPB-147’s official history for April 1945: “All of the squadron pilots were checked out in the aircraft before bringing in PV-2s from the States to replace the worn-out Venturas. The old PV-1s were self-destructing as time went on. In May, one Ventura was written off when its landing gear collapsed on landing. A second Ventura lost power on takeoff, settling back onto the runway with its gear up.”
Here is another Aleutians’ Harpoon snap, from the same day and place, showing off not only her gun armament but her underwing rocket hardpoints for 5-inch HVARs as well. They could also carry as many as six 1,000-pound bombs.
Lockheed Harpoon PVs at an advanced Aleutian air base waiting for action against the Kuril Islands, April 10, 1945. Note the caterpillar tractor as it tows a Harpoon medium bomber along a taxiway. U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-322695
The above photos are from VPB-139, who were on their second tour on the Alaskan front, the first being with Venturas in 1943. Now, the first Harpoon squadron to see combat, they were flying out of Casco Field, NAS Attu, and had just gone aloft on the type’s inaugural attack sorties.
Detailed by DANS:
6 Apr–Jun 1945: Four VPB-139 Harpoons attacked Kokutan Zaki, Kuriles, with rockets and machine guns. On 6 May, attacks against ground targets were stopped on the order of BuAer. Problems with the strength of the wings and stabilizers on high-G pullouts over the targets confined Harpoon squadrons thereafter to patrols and occasional attacks on surface vessels until the HEDRONs and PATSUs made repairs. Throughout May, searches and photographic runs were made over Minami Zaki and the Okhotsk areas in the Kuriles. Little enemy fighter opposition was ever encountered on these missions. AA fire, however, was always present.
On 22 April, Lieutenant William D. See and his crew of five failed to return from a patrol and were listed as missing in action.
On 10 May, a group of eight aircraft attacked radar installations at Minami Zaki, Shimushu, and five of the eight were hit by AA fire. All returned to base with no casualties. In June, the squadron made several strikes on Shimushu and numerous ships in the harbors. Although fighter opposition was often present, few attacks were ever pressed home.
“Returning from a mission, Lieutenant R.E. Garnett found that the port engine of his Harpoon was losing oil rapidly, possibly because of damage from debris thrown up by his rockets in an attack on a Japanese installation. The oil loss became so heavy that he had to feather the prop on this engine and depend on the other to bring him back 400 miles across the North Pacific to his advanced Aleutian base. He got back – as seen here making a successful one-engine landing, April 10, 1945. U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-322668
According to the Dictionary of American Naval Aviation Squadrons, Harpoons only shipped out with 24 units (VPB-100, VPB-130, VPB-131, VPB-135, VPB-136, VB-138, VPB-139, VPB-142, VPB-144, VPB-146, VPB-147, VPB-148, VPB-150, VPB-153, VPB-198, VP-199, VP-900, VP-905, VP-906, VP-911, VP-907, VP-914, VP-916, and VP-917) mostly in 1945-46. With many of these squadrons soon afterward being disestablished as part of the peacetime drawdown, and the new and much superior Lockheed P-2 Neptune entering service in 1947, the lifespan of the Harpoon was limited indeed.
The final squadron to report the PV-2 in inventory was VP-ML-3 (formerly VP-136, soon after VP-3) in August 1948.
Lockheed Harpoon with Radar Guided ‘Bat’ Bombs
Warship Wednesday, April 9, 2025: First of a Long Line
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 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
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, April 9, 2025: First of a Long Line
Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 310
Above, we see the unique U.S. Revenue Cutter Windom circa 1900. She had already fought in one war under Navy orders, would go on to carry a “USS” during WWI, bust rum-runners, and chart a course for the modern Coast Guard.
Not bad for a 170-foot ship.
A New Era
In 1890, the Revenue Cutter Service– the forerunner of the USCG– was celebrating its centennial, having been authorized as part of the Treasury Department in 1790. Having fought during the Quasi War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War, the USRCS had a long history of suiting up for combat when needed.
It was a busy force.
In 1890, the 36 assorted cutters of the service had cruised a total of 301,416 nautical miles, boarded and examined 26,962 vessels for revenue purposes, and assisted 123 distressed vessels, saving a value of $2,806,056 in ships and cargoes on the sea. They did everything that year from chasing down seal poachers in the Bering Sea to breaking up smuggling rings along the Florida Keys and arresting murderers on the high seas.
However, it was stuck in the 19th century while pointing towards the 20th and was obsolete. Most of the 36 cutters were small (under 100 foot) sloops, luggers, and tugs, capable of harbor and coastal patrols at best. The more blue water of the fleet were typically iron-hulled topsail steam schooners (USRC Gallatin, Hamilton, Boutwell, Dallas, Dexter, Rush, Corwin, and Forward) of about 140 feet in length. Two big steamers with auxiliary rigs, the 165-foot USRC Perry and the 198-foot USRC Bear, were dedicated to the far-off Alaska patrol. A couple of more modern twin-screwed steam cutters, the 145-foot USRC Morrill and the 190-foot USRC Galveston, were just coming online.
Armament in many cases was simply whatever could be scrounged from the Navy’ that was small enough to carry and service without lifts, typically 3-pounder 47mm or 6-pounder 57mm breechloading mounts, while smaller cutters usually just carried small arms. Speaking of which, trapdoor Springfield conversions and S&W cartridge revolvers were the norm. Some older cutters carried breechloading 3-inch Ordnance conversions of Civil War-era cannon.
USRC Corwin departing for Alaska in 1887. She was a 140-foot topsail schooner-rigged iron-hulled steamer that exemplified the cutter service in 1890. She carried a single 6-pounder.
As noted by the SECNAV at the time, Benjamin Franklin Tracy, “At present this large fleet of small vessels is constructed without any reference to the necessities of modern warfare.”
Pioneering a new age of steel cruising cutters for the service, capable of serving as a gunboat for the Navy in times of war, would be our USRC Windom.
Modern for her era, she was the first cutter constructed with a fully watertight hull, longitudinal and transverse bulkheads, and a triple expansion steam plant capable of 15 knots sustained speed.
She would carry a twin schooner auxiliary rig, at least at first
Designed to service Chesapeake Bay, Windom would displace 412 tons, have a length of 170 feet, eight inches overall, and an extreme beam of 27 feet. Her normal draught, carrying 50 tons of coal aboard, would be 6.5 fee,t while her hold was 13.5 deep.
Her twin inverted cylinder, direct-acting, triple-expansion steam engines (11 3-4, 16 1-2, and 26 1-2Â cylinders with a 24-inch stroke) were designed by the Navy’s Bureau of Steam Engineering under orders of Commodore George Melville and were “regarded in engineering circles as more advanced in type than any in the Revenue Cutter Service. They drove twin cast-iron propellers and could generate 800 hp at 175 rpm. They drew steam via a single tubular double-ended horizontal 16×12 foot boiler.
Her battery was one installed 6-pounder RF Hotchkiss with weight and space for a 3-inch or 4-inch BL and a second 6-pounder as well. Small arms of a “modern type” would be provided for the 45-member crew.
Revenue Cutter Windom, Port Arthur, Texas
The design of Windom would lead the service to order five so-called Propeller class cutters, which were larger and faster (as well as costing about twice as much per hull) at 18 knots. These vessels, to the same overall concept but each slightly different in design, were built to carry a bow-mounted torpedo tube for 15-inch Bliss-Whitehead type torpedoes (although they appeared to have not been fitted with the weapons) and as many as four modern quick-firing 3-inch guns (though they typically used just two 6-pounder, 57mm popguns in peacetime).
These ships included:
–McCulloch, a barquentine-rigged, composite-hulled, 219-foot, 1,280-ton steamer ordered from William Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia for $196,000. She was the longest of the type as she was intended for Pacific service and so was designed with larger coal bunkers.
–Gresham, a brigantine-rigged 206-foot, 1,090-ton steel-hulled steamer built by the Globe Iron Works Company of Cleveland, OH for $147,800.
–Manning, a brigantine-rigged 205-foot, 1,150-ton steamer ordered from the Atlantic Works Company of East Boston, MA, for a cost of $159,951.
–Algonquin, brigantine-rigged 205.5-foot, 1,180-ton steel-hulled steamer ordered from the Globe Iron Works Company of Cleveland, OH for $193,000.
–Onondaga, brigantine-rigged 206-foot, 1,190-ton steel-hulled steamer ordered from the Globe Iron Works Company of Cleveland, OH for $193,800.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Meet Windom
Our subject, in frequent USRC/USCG practice, was named for a past secretary of the U.S. Treasury, in this case, William Windom. A long-term U.S. Congressman (1859-1869) and Senator (1870-1881, 81-83) from Minnesota, he served as the Treasury boss under James A. Garfield for nine months in 1881 and then again under Benjamin Harrison from 1889 through 1891, passing in office at age 63. He successfully helped defeat a push to transfer the Cutter Service to the Navy
The Honorable William Windom, of Minnesota, left, while in Congress compared to his official portrait as Secretary of the Treasury in the Garfield administration. NARA 165-A-3716 & LOC LC-DIG-cwpbh-03920
Honoring the late Mr. Windom, the Treasury Department carried his engraved portrait on the $2 U.S. Silver Certificate from 1891 to 1896, while the USRCS named its groundbreaking new cutter after him.
Ordered from the Iowa Iron Works, Dubuque, for $98,500, with delivery to be made down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico and then to Key West. The plates, frames, angle irons, and castings employed in the hull were furnished by the West Superior Steel Works of Wisconsin, while William Cramp built her engines.
Accepted by the Treasury Department on 11 May 1896, she was moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she completed fitting out and was placed in commission on 30 June 1896.
Her initial skipper was Capt. Samuel Edmondson Maguire, a 54-year-old Marylander who had joined the Revenue Cutter Service in 1871 as a third lieutenant after carpetbagging in Louisiana during Reconstruction. Maguire had volunteered during the Civil War as a private in Company C of the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, the famed Zouaves d ‘Afrique, and was wounded at Fredericksburg.
In October 1896, Windom was tasked with keeping guard over the notorious gun-running steamer Dauntless.
Impounded at sea by the cruiser USS Raleigh off Florida after a run to arm rebels fighting against the Spanish in Cuba, Windom guarded the filibuster mothership until the Collector of Customs released the libeled Dauntless, after paying a $200 fine for lying to off the coast with no lights, to resume her illicit activities. Windom joined the cutters, Boutwell and Colfax, through the end of the year in Florida waters, based on the St. John River, to run interference against other filibuster boats headed for Cuba, impounding the steamers Kate Spencer and Three Friends in November.
Besides filibuster-busting, Windom spent the first 17 months of her career in quiet operations on the Chesapeake and patrolling the fishing grounds between the Virginia capes and Cape Hatteras.
Then came…
War with Spain!
On 24 March 1898, with the drums of war beating with Spain, President McKinley ordered the cutters Gresham, Manning, Windom, Woodbury, Hamilton, Morrill, Hudson, Guthrie, and Calumet, “with their officers and crews, be placed under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy.” This was later augmented by the Corwin, Grant, Perry, McCulloch, and Rush in the Pacific, as well as the McLane, Onondaga, and Winona, with at least 20 cutters on Navy and Army (Coastal Artillery) orders during the short conflict.
As noted by the Secretary of the Treasury after the conflict from the USRCS’s thin volume on the war:
There were in cooperation with the Navy 13 revenue cutters, carrying 61 guns, 98 officers, and 562 enlisted men. Of these, 8 cutters (43 guns), 58 officers, and 339 men were in Admiral Sampson’s fleet and on the Havana blockade; 1 cutter (6 guns), 10 officers, and 95 men were in Admiral Dewey’s fleet at Manila, and 4 cutters (12 guns), 30 officers, and 128 men cooperated with the Navy on the Pacific coast.
In addition to services rendered by vessels with the naval forces, there were 7 others, carrying 10 guns, 33 officers, and 163 men, with the Army, engaged in patrolling and guarding mine fields in various harbors, from Boston to Mobile and New Orleans.
Two days after the transfer order from McKinley, Windom, at Hampton Roads at the time, received orders to report at Norfolk and was there on 25 April when Congress passed the resolution recognizing that a state of war existed between the United States and Spain. She was painted gray and fitted with a four-inch main gun and a second 6-pounder.
USRC Windom in drydock at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 9 April 1898. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. 19-N-19-21-12
Windom’s wardroom during the war, in addition to Maguire, included:
- First Lieutenant F. G. F. Wadsworth, executive officer
- Second Lieutenant Richard Owens Crisp, navigator
- Second Lieutenant S. P. Edmunds
- Third Lieutenant J. V. Wild
- Chief Engineer C. F. Coffin
- First Assistant Engineer C. W. Zastrow
- Second Assistant Engineer Edwin W. Davis
- Surgeon John C. Travis (March 29 to August 1, 1898)
- Surgeon W. E. Handy (August 2 to August 29, 1898)
On 30 April, Windom departed Hampton Roads on her way to the blockade off Cuba, stopping at Key West briefly before arriving off Cuba on 8 May.
Assigned to Commodore Howell’s 1st Squadron, she patrolled the southern coast of Cuba near Cienfuegos until the 13 May, cutting the two Cienfuegos cables. She also helped cover the withdrawal of the Navy small boat raid to the cable house ashore (the Battle at Punta de la Colorados), closing with a Spanish battery and plastering it with 4-inch fire, scattering assembled local infantry. She also reportedly destroyed the lighthouse there, which was being used as an observation post by the Spanish, with her 6-pounders.
In all, Windom’s battery fired 85 rounds that day.
Her efforts helped allow 51 of the 53 Sailors and Marines dispatched from the cruiser USS Marblehead and gunboat USS Nashville to return to their vessels alive, and the cutter afterward evacuated several of the more seriously wounded bluejackets to Key West.
From her official report of the incident:
Windom then, after a respite at Key West, assumed station off Havana on 28 May, holding the line through August, chasing four Spanish blockade runners in June.
Hostilities ended on 13 August, and Windom reverted to Treasury Department control four days later. Arriving at Norfolk, she soon transferred newly installed guns to the USRC Gresham, returning to her pre-war appearance by October.
Maguire, the former Pennsylvania Zouave, remained in the service until 1906, when he retired as a senior captain, closing out 35 years of service to the Treasury Department. He passed in Patchogue, New York, in 1916, aged 73.
Return to Peace
Following the end of the Spanish-American War, Windom was soon back on her normal beat along the Chesapeake, including patrolling the America’s Cup Races in 1903.
In 1906, she transferred to Galveston to replace the cutter of the same name.
January 27, 1908. Photograph of the canal in Port Arthur, Texas. People stand along the shore. Boats are pulled over to the shore. The Revenue Cutter Windom is in the background. Heritage House Museum Local Control No: hhm_01293.
Working the length of the Gulf of Mexico from Key West to Brownsville, she returned to Maryland in September 1911 for a refit that saw her placed in ordinary for six weeks.
Back in Galveston, she was the first vessel to transit the newly opened Houston Ship Channel on 10 November 1914. President Wilson fired a cannon via remote control to officially mark the channel as open for operations. A band played the National Anthem from a barge in the center of the Turning Basin while Sue Campbell, daughter of Houston Mayor Ben Campbell, sprinkled white roses into the water from Windom’s top deck and decreed, “I christen thee Port of Houston; hither the boats of all nations may come and receive hearty welcome.”
USRC Windom in the Houston Ship Channel
In January 1915, Windom again entered ordinary in Maryland for an extensive one-year rebuild that saw her coal-fired boilers replaced by more efficient Babcock & Wilcox oil-fired models and her bunkers converted. This mid-life service extension saw her emerge with a new name: the USRC Comanche, soon to be the USCGC Comanche.
Recommissioned on 8 January 1916, Windom/Comanche returned to the Gulf and was deemed the Krewe of Rex’s royal yacht for Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Windom as USCGC Comanche
View of the royal yacht “Comanche” as it prepares to dock at the foot of Canal Street on the Monday before Mardi Gras 1916
War with Germany!
With the U.S. entry into the Great War, Comanche was transferred from the Coast Guard to the Navy on 6 April 1917. She soon picked up another large deck gun, this time a 3″/50 Mk II. Her crew was bumped from 49 to 76 to allow for more watch standers and gun crew.
Commissioned as USS Comanche on 11 April 1917, she performed patrol duties in the New Orleans area under the command of LT Robert Ferriday Spangenberg, USNRF, until the summer of 1919.
Comanche was stricken from the Navy List on 1 August 1919 and returned to the Treasury Department on 28 August 1919.
Twilight
Wearing her white scheme once again, Comanche continued her patrols of the Gulf for another seven months and then headed for Key West where she was decommissioned on 17 April 1920 for repairs.
USRC Windom Gulf of Mexico NARA 56-AR-049
Recommissioned in July 1920, the ship relieved the USCGC Tallapoosa at Mobile and rejoined the Gulf Division. There, she was active in the campaign against bootleggers bringing contraband liquor up from the Caribbean during Prohibition.
Comanche Commonwealth Lib 2002-013-002-029
Comanche Commonwealth Lib 2002-013-002-048
Arthur S. Graham – Ralph A. Dett – Albert T. Chase – Brady S. Lindsay with barrels of confiscated 195% liquor while serving on the U.S. Revenue Cutter Comanche off Texas, circa 1920. Digital Commonwealth 2002.013.002.039.
Serving successively at Mobile, Key West, and Galveston, she patrolled coastal waters constantly until June of 1930. During that period, she left the Gulf of Mexico only once, in 1923, for repairs at Baltimore and Norfolk.
In July 1927, while at sea 170 miles southeast of Galveston, she suffered a blaze in her fireroom that left her adrift and her radio room silent, the ship’s generators offline. Towed into port by a tug a week later, she was apparently never restored to her pre-blaze condition.
On 2 June 1930, she was detached from the Gulf Division and was ordered back to Arundel Cove for the final time.
She arrived at her destination on 1 July and was placed out of commission on the 31st. She was sold to Weiss Motor Lines of Baltimore on 13 November 1930 for a paltry $4,501.
While Weiss possibly kept her in service for a time longer, I cannot find her mentioned in Lloyds from the era. Odds are, with the downturn in the economy in the early 1930s leading to the Depression, and the aftermath of the 1927 fire never addressed, she was probably just scrapped.
Epilogue
Little remains of Winston/Comanche that I can find.
Some of her plans and papers are digitized in the National Archives.
The Coast Guard recycled the name “Comanche” for two subsequent cutters (served 1934-48 and 1959-1980) that we have profiled in the past.
Comanche seen on 26 November 1934, post-delivery but before commissioning in a rare period color photo. Note she does not have her Navy-owned main and secondary batteries fitted yet but does have her gleaming white hull, buff stack and masts, and black cap.
During WWII, a Maritime Commission Liberty ship (MC hull no. 516, 7194 GRT) was named SS William Windom. Entering service in early 1943, she dodged Scharnhorst on Arctic convoys, landed cargo at Normandy, and survived the war to be scrapped in 1964.
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
***
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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Iowa, Arriving
The fourth U.S. Navy vessel named for the state of Iowa, the future USS Iowa (SSN-797), was delivered to the Navy on 22 December 2024 and, as the Hawkeye State is slim on blue water ports, was commissioned at her homeport of Groton over the weekend.
The last Iowa, the famed class-leading fast battleship BB-61, which was christened on 27 August 1942, was only stricken from the NVR on 17 March 2006 and endures as a floating museum at Los Angeles, the only West Coast battlewagon.
SSN-797 is the 24th Virginia class hunter killer delivered since 2004 and is the sixth advanced Block IV variant, which includes the big new LAB sonar array and 12 VLS cells.
She will join Submarine Squadron (SUBRON) 4 at Groton, which will include the USS Virginia (SSN 774), the USS South Dakota (SSN 790), the USS Hyman G Rickover (SSN 795), and the future PCU Idaho (SSN 799) and PCU Tang (SSN 805).
Keepers of the Sparks
Original caption: “Signal Corps activities at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Field telephone and switchboard operators in action during maneuvers, 1930.” Note the badge of the 51st Signal Battalion on the men’s campaign hats.
Signal Corps photo 111-SC-100576. National Archives Identifier 329585448
Before the days of Fort Eisenhower (Gordon), the U.S. Army Signal School from 1924-1947, tasked with all land forces’ meteorological, photographic, and communications training, as well as running the Signal Corps Laboratory, was in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
The post’s two tactical units in the 1930s, the 16 officers and 437 enlisted men (authorized billets) of the 51st Signal Battalion and the 1st Signal Company, provided enlisted instructors for the school while at the same time preserving the Army’s sole provisional GHQ signals group and signals intelligence company. The 51st, which had served the role in the AEF in 1918 as the 55th Telegraph Battalion, had some experience with the matter.
They often took their show on the road.
Original Caption: National Rifle Matches, Camp Perry, Ohio, Aug. 25 – Sept. 14, 1930 Signal Corps Detachment Lt Lubbe, S.C. National Archives Identifier 405231336. Local Identifier 111-SC-95390-128
Note the badge of the 51st Signal Battalion in the above photo.
Original caption: Signal Corps activities at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Telephone Operator at message center, in operation during maneuvers. Night scene. National Archives Identifier 329585451. Local Identifier 111-SC-100577
Field Printer. Fort Monmouth, NJ, December 1932 111-SC-098285
Fort Monmouth Signal Corps field radio set in operation during maneuvers 1930. 111-SC-100578
Fort Monmouth Telephone Linemen in action during maneuvers. 1930 111-SC-100574
Fort Monmouth Message Center in operation during maneuvers 1930 111-SC-100575
Fort Monmouth Field telephone switchboard in operation during maneuvers. 1930 111-SC-100573
Original Caption: A One-Horse Power Radio Set. A mobile transmitter and receiver for mounting on horseback has been developed at the Signal Corps radio laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. The hand generator shown at the left furnishes the power for the set, which is SCR-189. October, 1932. National Archives Identifier 329578433, Local Identifier 111-SC-98102
In 1935, the battalion took part in the Pine Camp Maneuvers in New York, which at the time were the largest peacetime exercises, with some 35,000 Army and National Guard personnel. The 51st was solely responsible for the installation of all communications during this exercise; in this capacity, it employed 177 miles of bare copper wire, 126 miles of twisted pair field wire, and 8,260 feet of lead-covered overhead cable. This set the stage for the larger Louisiana Maneuvers in 1941, which began the lessons learned for the Army in WWII.
The 51st shipped out for its second World War in 1943 and would earn a Meritorious Unit Commendation and five campaign streamers supporting the invasion of Sicily and the Italian Campaign.
Following post-war operations in Korea and the Sandbox, the 51st earned three additional MUCs and the Presidential Unit Citation. Today, as the oldest continuously serving active-duty signal unit (formed in 1916 and often renamed but never disbanded), the now 51st Expeditionary Signal Battalion is part of the 22nd Corps Signal Brigade and is based at Joint Base Lewis McChord, tasked with distributing enhanced comms throughout the Pacific.
Their motto is Semper Constans (Always Constant).