Last week, the Canadian-led Operation Latitude and the U.S. Coast Guard-led Operation Frontier Sentinel overlapped in what was termed Operation Tundra Merlin in the Bering Sea.
It saw the U.S. Coast Guard Cutters Storis (WAGB 21), Fir (WLB 213), and Munro (WMSL 755) team up with the Royal Canadian Navy’s HMCS Max Bernays (AOPV 432) for a steaming evolution and photo ex conducted by an HC-130J out of Kodiak.
For reference, the red-hulled 13,000-ton Storis (formerly the polar tug Aiviq) is the country’s newest icebreaker, the black-hulled Fir is a 225-foot Juniper-class ocean-going buoy tender, and the white-hulled Munro is a 418-foot National Security Cutter. Meanwhile, Bernays is a 6,600-ton Harry DeWolf-class Arctic OPV.
The event was a five-day, 800-mile combined sail through the Bering Sea and Bering Strait to strengthen Arctic security, Jul. 20-24.
This came as the USCG monitored the Chinese research ship Xue Long, which transited north through the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and over the U.S. extended continental shelf in the Bering Sea with a declared destination of the Arctic, and the Xue Long 2, another China-flagged research vessel transiting to the Arctic.
(U.S. Coast Guard photos by Petty Officer 3rd Class Cameron Snell)
As noted by the USCG PAO:
The combined transit demonstrated seamless binational defense in the Arctic. This collaborative effort under Operation Tundra Merlin strengthened tactical integration and validated the collective ability to secure maritime approaches within the Alaskan theater of operations.
Some 85 years ago, official period caption: “An air infantry mortar squadron loads a Navy Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina patrol bombing plane, 18 March 1941.”
Via the National Museum of the U.S. Navy, 80-G-2156
Now, fast forward to this week, and news comes that a Hong Kong company intends to operate the turboprop-powered Catalina IIs with Pan American World Airways’ “Winged Globe” logo.
Catalina Aircraft Trust, the Florida holder of the original Catalina amphibious flying boat’s type certificate, has taken another step toward bringing a modernised turboprop-powered variant of the aircraft to market.
The company has secured a letter of intent from Hong Kong-based Pan American Airways System covering purchases of up to 46 of the planned NGAA “Next Generation Amphibious Aircraft” Catalina II.
Catalina Aircraft is now evaluating engines, avionics and other systems needed to develop the aircraft, which founder and president Lawrence Reece notes will be the only Western-certificated transport-category flying boat.
He envisions demand for up to 600 Catalina IIs of several configurations.
Of course, with Hong Kong officially part of Red China, whether they want to be or not, the prospect that these 46 shiny new flying boats could be used to shuttle around small detachments of PLAN naval infantry around the Nine-Dash Line is real.
Some 85 years ago this week, the 10,000-ton Dutch Java-Pacific Lijn/VNS passenger steamer SS Jaegersfontaine pulled out of San Francisco on 10 July and, steaming West across a wide and nervous ocean, arrived a little over 8,000 miles away at Rangoon in British Burma on the 28th, making it in a handy 18-knot average.
Built in 1934 at Nederlandsche Scheepsbouw Mij NV, Amsterdam, Jagersfontein means “Hunter’s fountain.” She was a lucky ship, but it was a quirky kind of luck.
Among the accumulated cargo and passengers aboard Jagersfontein on her July 1941 trip to Rangoon were 300 young American men, most slim with sharp eyes and short hair, all civilian employees of the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company, or CAMCO. Among them were 99 pilots and 201 assorted ground crewmen and support personnel. Nine of the latter were Chinese-American mechanics specifically recruited from New York and San Francisco’s Chinatowns and rushed through a quick school at Allison Engine Works in Indianapolis on one particular powerplant: Allison’s liquid-cooled V-1710-33 twelve-cylinder V-type 1,040 hp piston engine.
You know, the one in the P-40B Warhawk/Tomahawk IIA
Soon after making Burma, Claire Chennault’s 1st American Volunteer Group, better known as the Flying Tigers, was becoming the stuff of legend.
Claire Chennault Flying Tiger P-40 Artist Darrell Lum USAF DF-SC-84-04112
However, as it is with every irregular group on the fringes of institutionalized military logic, they soon were disbanded and absorbed by the regulars, and on 4 July 1942 the crumbs that were left became the USAAF’s 14th Air Force’s brand new 23rd Fighter Group, which, all these years later, is still around as part of the now USAF.
Based at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, they have flown the A-10 Warthog since 1992, and recently painted one of their birds in the livery of White 48, the Panda Squadron P-40B flown by Army Air Corps Brig. Gen. David Lee “Tex” Hill, an original Flying Tiger (originally a Naval Aviator) who rolled over to the 23rd as a major in 1942 and would finish WWII with 18.25 confirmed victories, 12.25 of those carried over from the AVG.
The A-10C includes the iconic shark teeth nose art and a literal flying tiger over olive drab, a big departure from the rest of the 23rd’s gray-on-gray Compass Ghost schemes.
A heritage A-10C Thunderbolt II is positioned on the flight line at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., April 28, 2026. The aircraft now displays the distinctive Flying Tigers-inspired paint scheme applied by airmen assigned to the 23rd Maintenance Squadron. (Air Force Senior Airman Savannah Carpenter)
A heritage A-10C Thunderbolt II is positioned on the flight line at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., April 28, 2026. The aircraft now displays the distinctive Flying Tigers-inspired paint scheme applied by airmen assigned to the 23rd Maintenance Squadron. (Air Force Senior Airman Savannah Carpenter)
Ever heard a for real strafing run from a P-40?
In related news, the Soaring by the Sea Foundation jumped through a year’s worth of FAA and ATF hoops required to re-install six working M2 .50 cal machine guns into a restored Curtiss P-40N Warhawk in Flying Tigers’ Adam & Eve Squadron livery and, well, did the thing with live ammo, expending approximately 7,000 rounds across ground testing and two days of airborne firing while under the control of Lt. Col. Ray “Hollywood” Fowler, an F-16 pilot with combat tours in the sandbox.
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Warship Wednesday 1 July 2026: The Klinker Dinker
Above we see a great period Kodachrome of the well-armed Crosley-class high-speed transport USS Kleinsmith (APD-134)moored next to the Chicago Sun Times building in July 1959 during the celebration of the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Laid down in WWII as a destroyer escort but completed as a frogman delivery vehicle, she starred in an iconic movie released some 75 years ago this week on Uncle Sam’s “fin-footed, goggle-eyed, beach-blasting heroes,” before heading off to hold the line in the South China Sea for another 30 years.
The Crosley class
During the early days of WWII, with a dire need for small and fast amphibious warfare vessels, especially in the South Pacific, the Navy quickly converted 32 old flush-deck destroyers left over from the Great War.
Dubbed “Green Dragons,” such conversions meant landing their 4-inch guns, which went on to equip armed merchant ships, as well as their torpedo tubes. Also left behind were half of their boilers, which dropped their speed down to 25 knots. These high-speed transports (APDs) were given a trio of newer high-angle 3-inch/50 guns, one 40 mm AA gun, and five 20 mm AA guns, and the capability to carry up to 300 Marines or soldiers for a brief period. Where torpedo tubes once were, they now carried four 36-foot LCVP landing craft on large davits.
USS Colhoun (APD-2) February 1942. In her Green Dragon configuration 80-G-464374
These converted flush-deckers saw very hard service, with one three out of the four Dragons of TransDiv 12, USS Colhoun (DD-85/APD-2), Gregory (DD-82/APD-3), and Little (DD-79/APD-4), all lost in the Guadalcanal Campaign within a week of each other. The surviving fourth, USS McKean (DD-90/APD-5), was later sunk by a Japanese bomber.
With the concept of destroyer-sized transports vetted and with replacements needed, the Navy soon ordered 99 Buckley– and Rudderow-class destroyer escorts converted as APDs (though five were canceled).
Just under 1,800 tons and 306 feet long, the Rudderows were hardy 23-knot ships that would be classified as sloops or corvettes in other navies, but the term destroyer escort seemed a better fit for the USN and their pair of 5 inch /38 dual purpose mounts, four 40 mm Bofors, ten 20 mm single mount Oerlikons, torpedo tubes and depth charges allowed them to punch out of their weight class. Plus, they could float in just 11 feet of seawater, which meant they could get pretty close into old Hirohito’s backyard.
To maximize their usefulness, these ships were redesigned from the stack back, with the aft 5-incher and torpedo tubes never fitted. This left them with six Bofors in a 3×2 arrangement and six single 20mm mounts along with two stern racks for depth charges. Surface search radar (SA, SF, SL or SU) and a QGA sonar set were standard.
The first Rudderrow APD conversion was USS Crosley (APD-87, ex-DE226) which entered service in October 1944, the leader of what would become a 51-vessel class.
Drink in these images of Crosley-class member USS Joseph M. Auman (APD-117).
Auman carried UDT-7 to the Pacific in late 1945, then was laid up in 1946. In 1963, she was transferred to the Mexican Navy and served as ARM Tehuantupec (H05) until 1989
Their reason for existing was to carry a company-sized element of Marines, UDT teams, Army Rangers, etc., and bring them to the three-fathom line out from the surf, where landing craft would take over and do the rest of the job to get them over-the-beach.
To get their Marines in the water, the Crosleys had four 36-foot LCVP landing craft, each capable of holding 36 men in marching order, able to theoretically land 144 men in a single lift.
A 26-foot whale boat was shoe-horned in to serve as a gig/control vessel. Six 25-man floater nets and eight 25-man balsa wood floats provided emergency accommodations for 350 men should the APD have to be vacated in an emergency, and the boats were not available.
Ship’s crew included a skipper and 10 wardroom officers, 15 CPOs, and 164 crew, all with their own personal gear lockers. Less than luxurious accommodations were provided for 12 “greenside” officers and 150 enlisted, without the aforementioned lockers, as they were supposed to be short-term riders. Total berthing was for 346 souls (24 in officers’ country and 322 assorted enlisted), leaving only six to hot bunk if all the billets were full.
There was also a series of small storage compartments and allotted deck space, designed to carry six 1/4 ton trucks (jeep/GPW equivalent), two M-2-4 1 ton trucks, four ammunition carts, four 75mm M1 pack howitzers, 6,000 cu. ft. of ammo, 3,500 cu. ft. of general cargo (C-rats, etc.), as well as bunker space for 7,000 gallons of mo-gas. With no vehicle deck to speak of and her landing craft in davits, the only way to load these was via the crane on the stern once the Higgins boats were in the water.
The Bethlehem-built Crosley-class high-speed transport USS Scribner (APD-122) underway off Boston on 20 October 1944. She is painted in Camouflage Measure 31, Design 20L. U.S. National Archives photo BS 76150
Crosley-class high-speed transport USS Scribner (APD-122) underway. She earned a single battle star running UDT divers during the Okinawa campaign, was laid up in 1946, then sold for scrap in 1966. NHHC 19-N-76151
Meet Kleinsmith
Our subject was named after Water Tender First Class Charles Kleinsmith (NSN: 2428775), a regular who enlisted in the Navy just after his 18th birthday in 1922. After service as an engineering rate on the battleships USS Wyoming (BB-32) and Maryland (BB-46), cruisers Milwaukee (CL-5), Cincinnati (CL-6), Portland (CA-33), and Honolulu (CL-48), and the carrier Saratoga (CV-3), he transferred to the new flattop Yorktown (CV-5) on Halloween 1940.
He earned a Navy Cross, the kind they give your family after, during the Battle of Midway aboard Yorktown, giving his last to fight a fire in Boiler Room No. 1 and assisted in keeping the boiler under steam to keep the ship’s auxiliary power in operation after a Japanese attack that “enabled the fighting carrier to attain the speed necessary for launching planes to oppose a Japanese aerial attack.” Lost in the battle, he is still listed as missing, presumed dead, promoted to Chief Water Tender, posthumously.
Watertender First Class Charles Kleinsmith
The 25th of the 37 destroyer escorts (Yard Nos. 266-303) ordered from the Defoe Shipbuilding Co of Bay City, Michigan, starting in October 1942, the future USS Kleinsmith was laid down as Defoe Hull No. 291 on 30 August 1944, a Rudderow-class destroyer escort (DE-718).
She was launched 27 January 1945, sponsored by Mrs. Mary Agnes Kleinsmith, Charles’s widow.
Note the fella holding on to the bow!
Towed down the Mississippi to New Orleans via the Illinois River and Lakes Michigan and Huron, she finished outfitting there and was commissioned as USS Crosley (APD-87), 12 June 1945, just before what would have been her namesake’s 41st birthday.
The future USS Kleinsmith (APD-134) in the tow of tug John W. Weeks passing downstream on the Illinois River under the Morris Highway Bridge, 23 May 1945. Kleinsmith was in tow down the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans for commissioning. War Department US Engineers Office, Chicago, IL. Photo #556 from the collections of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, Home of the SS Cobia. Via Navsource
Making future Kleinsmith (APD-134) fast to the Towboat John W. Weeks at the Marseilles Lock on the Illinois River, 23 May 1945. Kleinsmith was in tow down the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans for commissioning. War Department US Engineers Office, Chicago, IL. Photo #564 from the collections of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, Home of the SS Cobia. Via Navsource
Her plankowner c/o was LCDR Alden James “Doc” Laborde (USNA 1938). It was the young Louisianan’s third command after being called back from the reserve list in 1942, having been skipper of USS PC-560 and USS Blair (DE 147) on Atlantic duty.
Of note, just two other tin cans were completed by Defoe past Kleinsmith, Hull 292 USS Weiss (DE 719/APD 135) and Hull 293 Carpellotti (DE 720/APD 136), with Hull Nos. 294-303 canceled by the Navy.
War!
Commissioned in the twilight period between VE-Day and VJ-Day, Kleinsmith’s war was short but she still served.
Leaving New Orleans for a shakedown cruise to Guantanamo Bay and post-shakedown availability at Norfolk, she departed the East Coast on 4 August 1945 for the Pacific via the Panama Canal. In post-war interviews with Laborde, he was advised the little APD would be used as a UDT ship for the Operation Olympic Landings in Southern Japan in November, but VJ-Day scrubbed that plan.
After calls at San Diego and Pearl Harbor, she reached Buckner Bay, Okinawa on 1 October and spent the next five months on Occupation duty in Japanese and Chinese waters with Task Group 59.2.
Leaving Sasebo on 21 February 1946, she arrived at San Francisco six weeks later with 118 returning veterans embarked.
With a one-page War History, her crew was eligible for the Navy Occupation Service Medal and China Service Medal (for period 28 September 1945 to 22 February 1946), but Kleinsmith did not rate any battle stars.
None of the 51 Crosley-class APDs were lost in the war, with 34 mothballed in gently used condition by 1947.
One of just 17 Crosleys retained on active duty post-war, Kleinsmith departed the West Coast on 10 April 1946 for the East Coast via the Panama Canal, arriving in Norfolk on 1 May, where she would call home for the rest of her U.S. Navy career.
The 1954 Jane’s entry for the 92 remaining DE-APD conversions still in the U.S. fleet, with the Crosleys (converted Rudderows) lumped in with the Lawrences (converted Buckleys). Most of the ships in both classes were in mothballs at this time:
Cold War
Operating with the UDT frogmen out of Little Creek and assorted East Coast Marine units, Kleinsmith spent the next 14 years on a series of exercises ranging from Puerto Rico (amphibious training at Vieques Island) to Maine (submarine shakedown support), with ship-to-shore, gunfire support, ASW, and antiaircraft drills alternating with seven very real deployments to the Mediterranean during an era where the Soviets were always over the horizon.
USS Kleinsmith (APD-134) during the 1950s with her boats launched. NHHC L45-158.05.02
It was while in the Caribbean on one such exercise that Kleinsmith was tasked with what would be referred to these days as a Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) on 24 October 1958 when she rescued 56 U.S. citizens and 3 foreign nationals at Nicaro, Cuba, where they were endangered by military operations ashore between Batista’s Army and Castro’s rebels.
In the summer of 1959 (27 May to 3 August), Kleinsmith became one of the few active duty U.S. warships in modern history to conduct an extended operation on the Great Lakes, transiting the newly opened St. Lawrence Seaway.
In doing so, she was the first naval vessel in several Lake ports in a century or more.
USS Kleinsmith (APD-134) first warship in Ashtabula since 1812. Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 25, 1959
Several images exist of her in Chicago that summer.
USS Kleinsmith (APD-134) moored next to the Sun Time Building at Chicago in July 1959. Kleinsmith was part of the task force that was in Chicago for the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Same as the above
Movie Star
For three weeks in 1951 (15 January to 6 February) the old “Klinker Dinker” stood by at Naval Station Key West to serve as a floating movie set for the Richard Widmark vehicle, The Frogmen.
Highlighting the efforts of Navy UDT men during WWII, many of the extras on the “set” were real UDT men, brought down by Kleinsmith from Little Creek for the occasion, and the film shows some very realistic depictions of period tactics and methods used by these men.
Our little APD shows up in scene after scene.
The film was a major box-office success, ranking 37th among that year’s top earners.
Distributed by 20th Century Fox, it became a cultural phenomenon and is still widely recognized for bringing scuba diving and underwater action to mainstream audiences, clearing the way for a generation of follow-on “dive suit” movies and no doubt driving eager volunteers to The Teams for decades.
The film also enjoyed a wide overseas release.
Under a New Ensign
Several of the Crosleys that had been laid up in 1946 were held in mothballs for 15 years, then transferred aboard to overseas allies looking for a cheap-to-run escort with low mileage.
Crosley herself was stricken from the Naval Register on 1 June 1960, pulled from her rusty berth at Green Cove Springs, and transferred to Ecuador. Likewise, ex-USS Brock, Tollberg, and Ruchamkin were transferred to Colombia in the 1960s. Ex-USS Rednour went to Mexico in 1969 along with Auman. Four others went to South Korea.
In that vein, Kleinsmith was tapped in late 1959 for transfer to the Republic of China (Taiwan) under the Military Assistance Program.
To support the handover, in early 1960, the ROCN sent a 20-person team led by LCDR Chen Zhenmin to San Diego or on-board training. Subsequently, her hybrid U.S./ROCN crew sailed the ship to Taiwan in March, arriving at Tsoying on 16 May for a combined decommissioning/handover/commissioning ceremony.
She was named ROCS Tien Shan, which translates to “Heavenly Mountain,” and given pennant APD-815. Assigned to the 212th Destroyer Squadron, she engaged in regular patrol and amphibious warfare exercises for the next seven years.
The 1960 Jane’s entry:
By 1967, the ROCN had seven active ex-USN APDs, all dubbed the Mountain class after Tien Shah (Kleinsmith).
Jane’s for that year:
Others left unclaimed in U.S. service were soon scrapped, while a handful were given an extension to continue to serve a few more years, reclassified as LPRs (amphibious transport, small).
In May 1967, Tien Shah (Kleinsmith) was sent on the fourth Dunmu (Goodwill) voyage under RADM Guo Xunjing. Carrying 4th year naval cadets, she steamed to South Korea, Guam, Okinawa, and the Philippines, returning in August. It was the longest and best-traveled of the ROCN’s Dunmu cruises at the time.
In December 1967, Tien Shah had her pennant changed to APD-215, and she was assigned to the amphibious fleet.
Before 1974, she and most of her sisters picked up a second 5″/38 Mk 12 mount on their stern, taken from a similarly modernized Fletcher-class destroyer which had been given other armament, as well as six 324mm ASW torpedo tubes.
As described in that year’s Jane’s:
She was also later given some modern AA defenses in the form of a RIM-72C Sea Chaparral launcher.
By April 1978, pushing 33 years old, Tien Shah was then reclassed as a patrol frigate (PF-615, later PF-815) and transferred to the 131st Fleet, a coastal defense force tasked with counter-smuggling and fisheries protection.
That saw her armament reduced to just her forward twin 40mm Bofors.
Late in her career as an OPV, with just her forward Bofors.
She would soldier on for another 14 years, carrying pennant LPR-815 for most of that era, and still using the same checkerboard and seahorse crest as Kleinsmith, kept for good luck.
Via Baker, circa 1995 on the class:
Her final skipper passed on an extensive video in English to the APD Association/Kleinsmith Association in 1995 on the occasion of the tin can’s 50th anniversary reunion, including a walk-through of how the vessel looked at the time.
Decommissioned in October 1995 after 50 years of service, she was sold for scrap.
The ROCN ultimately operated 13 Mountain-class frigates/transports, and the last in service, ROCS Shou Shan (PF-837), the ex-Crosley-class USS Kline (APD-120), was put to pasture in May 1997. She was sunk as a target three years later.
Epilogue
Our subject had a remarkable 36 skippers, 25 of those Taiwanese.
Perhaps the most famous of Kleinsmith’s American captains was “Doc” Laborde, her plankowner wartime commander. After leaving the Navy, he designed and built the first submersible offshore drilling rig, Murphy Oil’s Mr. Charlie. He also founded ODECO, Tidewater Marine, Gulf Island Fabrication, and the Almar Foundation. A well-known mover and shaker in Gulf drilling for decades, Laborde passed in New Orleans in 2014, aged 98, and left behind five children, 18 grandchildren, and 35 great-grandchildren.
Tien Shah’s best-known skipper was ROCN VADM Lan Ningli, who has served as Deputy Chief of Staff of the Naval Headquarters, Commander of the 124th Naval Fleet, Director of the Intelligence Division of the General Staff Headquarters, Chief of Staff of the Naval Anti-Submarine Warfare Command, and Director of the Naval Headquarters Intelligence Agency. Retired in 2017 after 40 years of service, he is a noted wargamer and naval pundit.
As for the APD/LPRs left on the U.S. Navy List, there were still at least 23 Buckley (Lawrence) and Crosley-class vessels still around in 1967, with some of the survivors given FRAM updates and others given limited conversions to serve as flagships.
Jane’s for that year, including a good list of disposals and transfers:
However, that would soon come to an end.
In November 1969, USS Beverly W. Reid (APD-119/LPR-119) was decommissioned and placed in reserve at Orange, where she remained inactive, for almost five years before her sale for scrap. She was the last Crosley in U.S. service.
Today, only one Crosley exists, the Colombian Navy’s ARC Cordoba (DT-15), formerly USS Ruchamkin (APD-89). Most of her has been serving as a museum ship at Jaime Duque Park since the 1980s.
USS Ruchamkin (APD-89) ( ARC Córdoba (DT-15)) on display in the Jaime Duque Park, Tocancipá, Colombia. Via Wikicommons.
The ROCN still conducts Dunmu goodwill training cruises, with the latest one seeing three ships crossing the Pacific Ocean and entering the Panama Canal and the Caribbean Sea, sailing 20,000 miles and calling at ports as diverse and far-flung (to Taiwan) as Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, and Guatemala.
The photo shows three ships of the ROCN Dunmu Goodwill Fleet: from left to right, the Cheng Kung-class guided-missile frigate ROCS Yueh Fei (PFG-1106), the oiler and ammunition supply ship Pan Shih (AOE-532), and the Kang Ding-class guided-missile frigate Di Hua (PFG-1206), docked at the Port Zante pier in St. Kitts and Nevis, April 2026.
Thanks for reading!
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
***
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The Pakistan Navy yesterday welcomed “home” the first specimen of the 249-foot/2,800-ton S26 class submarine, PNS Hangor, an export derivative of the Chinese Type 039A SSK, which is currently operated by the PLAN.
Built at CSOC in China, it is a very modern boat with a double-hulled design and powered by AIP, which means she can remain submerged virtually every minute of an entire 40-50 day patrol if needed. It is roughly equivalent to a German Type 209 and superior to a Kilo-class SSK.
The Chinese are rapidly building the first four of the class at CSOC, with the future Shushuk, Mangro, and Ghazi already launched and fitting out for delivery next year. Then, with technology sharing, the next four will be built by KSEW in Karachi, with the future Tasnim and Seem Maai already laid down.
The eight new boats will replace the trio of French Agosta 90B-class submarines (Khalid, Saad, and Hamza) that are now in their 20s, and a pair of much older Agosta 70s (Hashmat and Hurmat), the latter two originally built for South Africa but not delivered due to sanctions on the Apartheid government, so the Pakistani Navy well knows how to run modern SSKs.
The Agostas replaced a trio of Daphnés, one of which sank an Indian frigate in 1971. Before that, the Pakistanis operated a leased Guppy Tench-class boat, ex-USS Diablo, as PNS Ghanzi, which was lost during the 1971 war, so they know the game well.
By comparison, the Indian Navy has 16 boats, three small 6,000-ton domestically built (with Russian help) Arihant-class SSNs, six brand new French Scorpènes, six cranky Kilo (P.877) class boats, and four German Type 209/1500s.
Some 85 years ago, a bit of calm before the storm.
Official period caption: “British and Chinese troops on exercise in rubber boats, Hong Kong, 1941.” Note the M1928 Thompson SMG on the bow of the leading boat and SMLEs at the ready.
IWM (KF 141)
The British first garrisoned Hong Kong on 26 January 1841 when a landing force from the 10-gun Hecla-class bomb vessel HMS Sulphur rowed ashore and set up shop.
Fast forward a century, and, as a result of the build-up to the Pacific War in 1941, the Hong Kong garrison held two battalions sent from Europe (2nd Royal Scots, 1st Middlesex) along with two from India (5th 7th Rajput, 2nd 14th Punjab), and would soon receive two from Canada as reinforcement (Royal Rifles, Winnipeg Grenadiers). This was in addition to units from the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers, et. al.
Plus, as witnessed above, there were some locally raised outfits drawn from the colony’s 1.6 million residents: the Hong Kong Chinese Regiment and the much larger and senior Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps.
Two members of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defense Force on Queen’s Road Central in Hong Kong, 1941, UWM Libraries collection
The HKCR, led by a major, was only established in November 1941 and authorized as a single machine-gun battalion. Still in training as the Japanese closed in the next month, only a platoon-sized unit of the HKCR was able to take the field.
Meanwhile, the HKVDF was nearly brigade-sized, containing 2,200 men in seven infantry companies, five artillery batteries, five machine gun companies equipped with Vickers guns, a service company, an engineer company, an armored car platoon (with four Bedford chassis armored locally by the Kowloon-Canton Railway), a field ambulance unit, and signals. Led by Col. Henry B. Rose, it was formed in 1854.
Newly trained officers and NCOs of the Chinese Battalion, Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. The Corps was the largest military unit of the Hong Kong Garrison at the time of the Japanese invasion. Photographer Frederick E. Palmer. IWM (KF 114)
Decimated in the desperate fight for Hong Kong in December 1941, both “local” units had their men largely paroled by the Japanese rather than tossed into POW camps.
Many of these men duly made their way into mainland China and either joined KMT forces ashore or later joined the 126-man Hong Kong Volunteer Company in Burma, where they were attached to the 77 Chindits Force under General Orde Wingate.
They were later deployed to Japanese-occupied Malaya, conducting special reconnaissance behind enemy lines.
Reformed after WWII once the colony was liberated, the Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers) remained in the colors until 1995, manning British Ferret armored cars under association with the Royal Armoured Corps.
The Republic of China’s Indigenous Defense Submarine, ROCS Hai Kun (SS-711) fired two MK-48 Exercise Torpedoes during her 8th underwater sea trial on 6 May 2026.
The footage and images released by CSBC Shipbuilding, cleared by the ROCN, are amazing and clearly meant for public consumption around the Pacific Rim. You can even see the trailing guidance wires and recovery by the fleet’s new rescue and salvage ship, the CSBC-built ROCS Da Wu (ARS-571), which was only commissioned last October.
The U.S. State Department approved the sale of 18 MK 48 Mod 6AT and related equipment to Taipei in 2020 for an estimated $180 million, but delivery isn’t slated until 2028, with as many as 46 ultimately planned.
Until then, the ROCN has to make do with its dwindling supply of older Indonesian license-made German-designed AEG SUT 264 torpedoes, which were received in 1998 after its initial batch of SUTs, ordered for use with its two Dutch-made modified Zwaardvis class boats in the 1980s, were used up in exercises.
Before the SUTs, Taiwan was stuck using old surplus Mk37s that it didn’t officially have.
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Warship Wednesday 8 April 2026: Front Runner
USN Photo 80-G-08937 via the National Archives.
Above we see the Cramp-built Balao (not Tench) class fleet boat USS Tusk (SS-426), some 80 years ago this week, in April 1946, just after she was commissioned. Note her late WWII style “gunboat” arrangement with two 5″/25s and two 40mm Bofors clustered around her fairwater.
Remember, National Submarine Day is on April 11th, and Tusk, which never fired a torpedo in anger (that we know of), nonetheless has one of the most epic careers in naval history
The Balao Class
A member of the 180+-ship Balao class, she was one of the most mature U.S. Navy diesel designs of the World War Two era, constructed with knowledge gained from the earlier Gato class. Unlike those of many navies of the day, U.S. subs were “fleet” boats, capable of unsupported operations in deep water far from home.
The Balao class was designed to dive deeper (400 ft. test depth) than the Gato class (300 ft.) due to the use of high-yield-strength steel in the pressure hull.
Able to range 11,000 nautical miles on their reliable diesel engines, they could undertake 75-day patrols that could span the immensity of the Pacific. Carrying 24 (often unreliable) Mk14 Torpedoes, these subs often sank anything short of a 5,000-ton Maru or warship by surfacing and using their deck guns. They also served as the firetrucks of the fleet, rescuing downed naval aviators from right under the noses of Japanese warships.
Some 311 feet long overall, they were all-welded construction to facilitate rapid building. Best yet, they could be made for the bargain price of about $7 million in 1944 dollars (just $100 million when adjusted for today’s inflation) and completed from keel laying to commissioning in about nine months.
USS Roncador (Balao) class plans
USS Roncador (Balao) class plans
An amazing 121 Balaos were completed through five yards at the same time, with the following pennant numbers completed by each:
Cramp: SS-292, 293, 295-303, 425, 426 (12 boats)
Electric Boat: 308-313, 315, 317-331, 332-352 (42)
Manitowoc on the Great Lakes: 362-368, 370, 372-378 (15)
Mare Island on the West Coast: 304, 305, 307, 411-416 (9)
Portsmouth Navy Yard: 285-288, 291, 381-410, 417-424 (43)
Our subject is the only U.S. warship named for the cusk or tusk, a large edible saltwater fish related to the cod. The 14th and last submarine to be built by the Cramp Shipbuilding Company of Philadelphia, she was laid down as the future SS-426 on 23 August 1943, and launched into the Delaware River on 8 July 1945; sponsored by Mrs. Carolyn Park Mills, wife of RADM Earle Watkins Mills (USNA 1917) who was soon to take over the Maritime Commission from the retiring VADM Emory S. Land.
Mrs. Mills christens the future Tusk, 8 July 1945. Temple University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center, George D. McDowell Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Collection, SCRC 170
Launch of Tusk, 8 July 1945. The sign on her bow says she was paid for via War Bond Purchases made by the people of Philadelphia. There were eight war loan drives from 1942 to 1945. By the end of the war, 85 million Americans had purchased 185.7 billion dollars of bonds. Temple University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center, George D. McDowell Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Collection, SCRC 170
With the end of the war, construction slowed, and Tusk was only commissioned on 11 April 1946.
Tusk had a late war “gunboat” style arraignment, including two 5″/25s and two Bofors guns, along with points for detachable 50 cals
Her first skipper was CDR Raymond A. Moore, USN, who seems to just be a placeholder as he was replaced within a fortnight by CDR Marshall Harlan Austin (USNA 1935), who had commanded the Gato-class fleet boat USS Redfin (SS-272) on her 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th War Patrols, sinking a Japanese destroyer and four merchantmen to earn a Navy Cross.
These images were taken the day before her commissioning:
(Cold) War!
Under Austin, Tusk completed her shakedown cruise in the South Atlantic, visiting ports in Brazil, Curacao, and Panama from June to July 1946. She returned to New London in August and the week before Thanksgiving 1946, President Harry S. Truman, ADM William D. Leahy, and Annapolis Commandant, VADM Aubrey W. Fitch, toured Tusk while she was tied up at the Naval Academy.
Photograph of President Truman and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy inspecting the USS Tusk, a submarine, during the President’s visit to the U.S. Naval Academy. Note the well-turned-out MM1 watch stander’s dolphins and hash mark on the sleeves of his cracker jacks. National Archives Identifier: 198606
Photograph of President Truman aboard a submarine, the USS Tusk, during his visit to the U.S. Naval Academy: (left to right) the President; Vice Admiral Aubrey Fitch, Superintendent of the Naval Academy; Fleet Admiral William Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief; and General Harry Vaughan, Military Aide to the President. NARA 198648
Truman waves from Tusk’s conning tower. NARA 198649
The next year saw Tusk participate in a series of exercises and a minor collision with the hospital ship USS Consolation (AH-15).
Repaired in Philadelphia, she then conducted oceanographic work along the Atlantic shelf with Columbia University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
She ended 1947 at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for a Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program (GUPPY) II conversion, one of 24 Balao and Tench-class subs that received the SCB 47 rebuild.
During the subsequent seven months, Tusk underwent significant modifications to enhance her submerged performance. Four high-capacity 126-cell batteries replaced her original batteries, which had half as many cells, bedded into larger wells. The hull was streamlined by adding a rounded bow, recessing anchors, capstans, deck rail stanchions, and cleats; and eliminating propeller guards, improving hydrodynamic efficiency.
Topside, her deck guns were removed and sail enlarged and refined to accommodate three new masts (snorkel induction, snorkel exhaust and ESM), the snork enabling diesel-powered operation at periscope depth and battery recharging while submerged. The periscope and radar mast were enclosed. A BQR-2 sonar was fitted with hydrophones under the forefoot and its electronics housed in the forward torpedo room. Likewise, her Elliot Motor Co. high-speed drive electric motors with reduction gear were swapped out for low-speed direct drive motors of 2,500 hp per shaft, up from 1,370.
Her step-side Portsmouth Sail had a thinner top than those fitted to other GUPPYs by EB, with a curved trailing edge, square windows, and a sharper lower forward edge. They also had a fitting for the sub’s SV radar screen.
These upgrades transitioned Tusk from a submersible to an actual submarine and, while her surface speed was cut by about two knots, her submerged speed rose from 10 knots to about 15 knots.
After her G.II conversion in early 1948, she emerged looking very different from her original 1946 configuration, and, amid the Berlin Crisis, conducted a simulated war patrol to the Canal Zone in June and July as part of her post-modernization shakedown.
Her skipper during the cruise was CDR Guy F. Guggliotta, USN, another wartime sub driver who had commanded USS S-28 (SS 133), Halibut (SS 232) on her 10th War Patrol, and Raton (SS 270) on her 8th War Patrol, earning a pair of Silver Stars in the process.
Tusk, post GUPPY II conversion with her step side Portsmouth sail, seen off the New London Harbor Lighthouse.
Tusk seen between 1948 and 1962 post GUPPY II conversion with her step side Portsmouth sail, NH 67826
Cochino’s Last Dive
Attached to Submarine Development Group 2 out of Newport for the first six months of 1949, she sortied to the North Atlantic that July with SubRon 8 for a series of multinational NATO exercises that saw her visit Londonderry and Portsmouth in the British Isles.
At this point, Tusk was on her fourth skipper, WWII sub captain CDR Robert Kemble Rittenhouse Worthington, USN, who had earned a Navy Cross during Balao’s 8th, 9th, and 10th Patrols after sinking over a half-dozen small vessels, adding to a Silver Star he earned as a junior officer on four patrols aboard USS Silversides.
As noted of Cochino by DANFS, “huge waves slammed the submarines’ snorkel so violently, and jolted the boat so severely, that the pounding caused an electrical fire and battery explosion, followed by the release of deadly hydrogen [chlorine] gas,” forcing the stricken sub’s crew to evacuate the surfaced boat in terrible weather, and hunker down on her deck.
The last known photograph of USS Cochino (SS 345) was taken in July 1949. She now lies in deep water north of Norway near 71.35N. 23.35E, sunk stern first on 0146 on 26 August 1949 with no personnel aboard.
Receiving the underwater sonar signal from Cochino “Casualty surfacing,” Tusk worked over the next 14 hours on the rough seas to save first Cochino herself, then, after a second battery explosion made that impossible, to rescue Cochino’s 77 embarked souls via a prow rigged between the two boats on the open sea. Tragically, Tusk wound up trading 11 of her own crew and an embarked Philco techrep (Mr. Robert Wellington) to Poseidon in the deal, with only six later recovered from the sea alive.
A depiction of the USS Cochino battery fire that led to the sinking of the submarine in 1949, and cross-decking to Tusk, by Stanley Borack.
Greater detail from Tusk’s deck log:
Tusk, packed with nearly 150 personnel, many of them injured and suffering from exposure, she made for Hammerfest Harbor, Norway, and tied up at 0845 on the 26th to immediately receive a Norwegian medical team aboard.
Besides an officer (LCDR Richard M. Wright) sent to a Norwegian hospital in Tromso and four men flown home to Westover AFB for transfer to the Navy hospital at Chelsea, Massachusetts, the remaining 72 Cochino survivors crammed aboard Tusk once again two days later tor the return trip back across the Atlantic, arriving at New London on 9 September for a home town welcome.
Truly an epic sea story.
The 1950 Silent Service installment “The Last Dive” (Season 1, Episode 22) covered Cochino and Tusk’s final 14 hours together. A young Walter Matthau, DeForest Kelley, and Leslie Nielsen portrayed Cochino crewmembers, with LCDR Wright appearing at the end of the show, having completed 14 months of medical rehab.
Continued Cold War service
Tusk was assigned to the Submarine School at New London, then Submarine Development Group 2, interspersed with regular Atlantic Fleet exercises.
One of her declassified Dev Group tests now in the public archives is one for the Naval Research Laboratory in 1957, which involved the use of a light pulse transmitter to communicate with aircraft while submerged at depths of 90 feet.
In November 1949, during maneuvers 175nm off the Labrador coast in 40-foot seas, Tusk struck her periscope on the screw of a Navy supply ship USS Aldebaran (AF-10), picking up minor damage but suffering no casualties.
In late 1952, Tusk was assigned to SubRon 10 for a six-month Med cruise with the 6th Fleet, visiting Malta, Gibraltar, Cannes, Piraeus, Izmir, and French Oran.
USS Tusk (SS 426) post GUPPY II conversion 1 August 1952 USN 477116
Tusk would make four further European cruises over the next two decades. Notably, this would include a visit to Fiumicino during the 1960 Rome Olympics, calling in Portugal to mark the 500th anniversary of Prince Henry the Navigator, and a 1967 cruise where she would visit Bremerhaven, Aarhus, and Göteborg.
USS Tusk sailing into Malta on one of her Med deployments, pre 1965
Jane’s 1960 entry for the Tench class, with both the Cramp-built GUPPY’d Tusk and Trumpetfish listed incorrectly as members. At the time, the Navy was also operating at least 80 Balaos, including NRF ships and those in mothballs.
Tusk also pulled three shorter Operation Springboard readiness deployments to the Caribbean, a region of growing importance post-Castro. As you can imagine, annual Springboard exercises involved high-profile mock ASW, amphibious landings, and fleet maneuvers around Puerto Rico. It was a common gathering for GUPPYs in the 60s and 70s.
Balao-class Springboard GUPPYs with North Atlantic sails: USS Bang (SS-385) preparing to tie up alongside USS Chivo (SS-341) at San Juan Naval Station, Puerto Rico, during Operation Springboard. Of note, the lowest point on the keel to the IFF antenna atop the lowered snorkel was 49 feet 8.25 inches, while the height to the top of the whip antenna is 78 feet from the keel. You weren’t going to submerge one of these bad boys in 10 fathoms! Bang’s skipper, CDR R.J. Carlin, is giving orders from atop her sail. The bow of a Canadian Ojibwa (Oberon) class SSK is visible in the lower left, and a U.S. Coast Guard HU-16 Albatross amphibian is flying low in the center background. Photograph by PHC CJ Wiitala, USN, released 14 March 1968 by Tenth Naval District Public Affairs Office. NH 98697
Further, Tusk was involved in at least two extensive polar ice operations, including with USS Tench (SS-417) on ICEX ’60 and SUBICEX 1-62 with Skate (SS-578) and Entemador (SS-340).
USS Tusk, USS Entemedor, and USS Skate dusted with snow, 1962, during SUBICEX
Tusk on ICEX March 1960 with Tench
Entering Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in July 1965, Tusk was given a six-month major overhaul that including removing all her engines, motors, and generators for rebuild, receiving a new periscope with a built in electronic sextant for taking star shots while still submerged, and picking up the tall streamlined fiberglass/plastic clamshell “North Atlantic” style fairweather typically seen on most American GUPPYs after the mid-60s.
The new sail allowed extra room for the growing number of masts and aerials, a higher observation platform for lookouts, and a more habitable position for watch standers while on the surface. Tusk also received the new Prairie Masker bubbler system, increased air-conditioning capacity, additional storerooms, and additional fresh water tanks as part of the modifications.
Balao class GUPPY II sister USS Catfish post refit 1960s North Atlantic sail. Tusk had the same layout.
Balao class GUPPY II sister USS Catfish post refit 1960s North Atlantic sail. Tusk had the same layout.
Rejoining the fleet in January 1966, Tusk was transferred to SubRon 8.
Submarine Squadron Eight at New London, 1968, with a wild mix of eight Cold War fleet boat conversions. Left to right: USS Sea Robin (SS-407)(GUPPY IA with Portsmouth style step sail); Tusk (SS-426)(GUPPY II w North Atlantic sail); Sea Owl (SS-405)(Fleet Snorkel w EB style step sail and large Project Kayo BQR-4A horseshoe passive sonar array); Sablefish (SS-303)(Fleet Snorkel w North Atlantic sail); Halfbeak (SS-352)(GUPPY II w North Atlantic sail); Blenny (SS-324)(GUPPY IA w North Atlantic sail) and Becuna (SS-319)(GUPPY IA w Portsmouth step-sail). The eighth unidentified submarine on the left has PUFFS passive underwater fire control arrays for the BQG-4 system. NH 88415
Tusk (SS-426) at New London, Connecticut, June 1, 1968, as part of SubRon 8. USS Becuna (SS 319) is across the pier. Sailors on deck, civilians observe from the pier. Courtesy of D.M. McPherson, NH 86627
By 1969, Tusk had been transferred to SubRon 2 but was still based out of her traditional New London home. She was known as The Front Runner, so dubbed “due to its reputation for excellence and high-performance.”
This was supported by her being awarded the Fire Control “E” for several consecutive years and the Battle Efficiency “E” for fiscal year 1973.
Tusk underway in Hampton Roads, Virginia, 11 February 1970, as part of SubRon 2. NHHC K-81809
USS Tusk 1972 Provided by Tom Robinson QM2 (SS)
While on her fifth European deployment on 12 August 1972, while off the coast of Spain, the well-traveled Tusk made her 10,000th dive and surface, a benchmark few submarines have reached. Of note, Tusk’s Balao-class sister USS Spikefish (SS-404) had set the 10,000 record first in 1960 and earned the title of “The divingest Submarine in the World,” which was later claimed by another Balao, USS Piper (SS-409), who logged 13,724 before her decommissioning.
Speaking of decommissioning…
Under the Cog
In 1960, the ROC (Taiwan) Navy embarked on the Sea Shark Project, designed to create a submarine force.
This morphed into the Wuchang Project and, in October 1964, after months of wrangling, Capt Wang Xiling, the ROC naval attaché stationed in Rome, overcame diplomatic difficulties and ordered two 58-foot SX-404 class midget-submarines with a displacement of only 40 tons from the Italian commercial shipyard Cos.Mo.S. SpA, Livorno. Two CosMoS CE2F/X100 human torpedo chariot-style frogman SDVs were acquired as well.
ROCN 58-foot SX-404 class midget submarine Haijiao (Sea Dragon) (S-1) between 1968 and 1973
To avoid complications, the components were shipped from Europe to Tamsui and then assembled in Taiwan by CoS.MoS personnel. The two SX-404 boats were commissioned on 8 October 1969 as Haijiao (Sea Dragon) (S-1) and Hailong (Sea Dragon I) (S-2), and were immediately put to work as training vessels of the Wuchang Submarine Squadron for the nascent ROCN sub force. The CNO of the fleet, ADM Feng Qicong, personally handed out the country’s first dolphin badges that day to the program’s members.
By late 1970, and with two years of midget sub operations under the ROCN’s belt, Capt Wang Xiling, then moved to the embassy in Washington, persuaded the U.S. to sell two submarines to Taiwan as training vessels, citing the need to enhance the navy’s anti-submarine warfare capabilities. In other words, “tame mice” for the ROCN’s two dozen destroyers and frigates to play with.
On 21 April 1971, the U.S. confirmed the planned handover of two surplus GUPPY IIs, initially designated “Project Poseidon” by the Navy, and renamed “Project Mercury” in December. In March, 1972, the first batch of ROCN personnel receiving the Project Mercury submarines arrived at the U.S. Naval Submarine School in New London for training.
Tusk’s sister, USS Cutlass (SS 478), was transferred to the ROCN as ROCS Hai Shih (Sea Lion) (SS 91) on 12 April 1973, her hull number later changed to S-791
By May 1973, with Tusk just returned from a three-month Caribbean training cruise that saw her call at Guantanamo Bay, Ocho Rios, Port au Prince, and Montego Bay, she welcomed aboard 81 officers and men from the Republic of China to commence training for turnover.
In anticipation of the new (to them) vessels, Taiwan laid up its SX-404s and redesignated the Wuchang Submarine Squadron as the Republic of China Navy’s 256th Squadron (Submarine) in August 1973.
On 18 October 1973, Tusk was decommissioned at New London and was simultaneously transferred, by nominal sale, to the Taiwan Navy. Her name was struck from the Navy list on the same day.
She became ROCS Hai Pao (Seal) (SS 92) in the same ceremony, with LCDR David H. Boyd, USN, turning over the boat to CDR Cheng Kuo-Yu, ROCN. Kuo-Yu had served in the Wuchang Squadron since 1969 and had spent seven months in Sub School in New London before beginning training on Tusk/Hai Pao.
Jane’s 1975 entry on the Cutlass/Hai Shih and Tusk/Hai Pao. They have since changed their hull numbers to S-791 and S-792
Amazingly, both of Taiwan’s GUPPYs, for decades the last remaining Balaos in service, are still in operation with the 256th Squadron, training ROCN submariners for the current front-line subs, the Dutch Zwaardvis-class ROCS Hai Lung (Sea Dragon) and ROCS Hai Hu (Sea Tiger), which were delivered in 1988.
Nonetheless, they are still officially combat-ready and undergo regular dry docking, inspection, overhaul, and sea periods.
ex USS Tusk, now ROCS 海豹(seal), SS792 circa 2005
ex USS Tusk, now ROCS 海豹(seal), SS792 internals
ex USS Tusk, now ROCS 海豹(seal), SS792 Zuoying Naval Base Oct 2017 Tuo Chiang-class corvette
ex USS Tusk, now ROCS 海豹(seal), SS792 circa 2014
ex USS Tusk, now ROCS 海豹(seal), SS792 circa 2014
ex USS Tusk, now ROCS 海豹(seal), SS792 sail
ex USS Tusk, now ROCS 海豹(seal), SS792 circa 2014 Keelung
ex USS Tusk, now ROCS 海豹(seal), SS792 circa 2014 Keelung
ex USS Tusk, now ROCS 海豹(seal), SS792 circa 2014 Keelung
ex USS Tusk, now ROCS 海豹(seal), SS792 control room
ROC President Tsai Ing-wen attended the “2017 Naval Goodwill Flotilla Launch Ceremony and Submarine Indigenous Construction Design Initiation and Cooperation Memorandum Signing Ceremony,” emphasizing that submarine indigenous construction is the most challenging aspect of the national defense autonomy policy and a responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief to the nation. The ROC Navy’s Tusk/Hai Pao (SS-792) is moored to Tsai Ing-wen’s left fore-south.
When the first two domestically built Haikun (Seagull)-class SSKs arrive in service in 2026 and 2027 (?), Cutlass/Hai Shih and Tusk/Hai Pao are expected to be retired with the 40-year-old Dutch boats rotating to fill the roles of the old GUPPYs.
The President of Taiwan presides over the naming and launching ceremony of the prototype submarine built domestically, the future ROCS Haikun (SS-711), on September 28, 2023.
Epilogue
Tusk’slogs and plans are in the National Archives.
There is at least one blog and one crewmember reunion group (who last met in 2017) to cherish Tusk’s memory and those who served on her.
Her U.S. service is remembered in Cold War classic maritime art.
“Cat and Mouse” by Wayne Scarpaci shows the GUPPY II USS Tusk (SS-426) with a Lockheed (P2V) Neptune flying overhead in ASW training.
Her skipper during the Cochino rescue, CDR Worthington (USNA ’38), had been on subs that earned a dozen battle stars and sunk 100,000 tons of shipping during WWII, earning him a Navy Cross, Silver Star, and three Bronze Stars. He didn’t need more medals. He retired from the fleet as a Captain on the staff of the Twelfth Naval District in San Diego in 1962, capping a very busy 24 years of active service. Worthington received an M.S. in Physics and Electronics from UCLA and worked for Lockheed Corporation on the design and construction of the pioneering submersible Deep Quest,which achieved a depth of 8,000 feet during a test dive. Leaving Lockheed in 1975, Worthington returned to the sea, sailing as master on several ocean vessels in Caribbean and Alaskan waters. He passed away in 1996, in San Diego, leaving a wife and two children behind. His papers are in the U.S. Naval War College Archives, of which he was an alumnus.
Thanks for reading!
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
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A very well bundled General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, 71, is shown inspecting troops of the 24th Infantry on his arrival at the recently recaptured Kimpo airfield, Republic of Korea, for a tour of the battlefront. 21 February 1951.
NARA FILE #: 306-PS-51-10432
At the time, the world’s most famous corncob pipe enjoyer was the SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) in the Pacific, a post he had held since August 1945; Commander of the Far East Command (FECOM), a post he had held since January 1947; was Commander of the United Nations Command, Korea, a job he held since 7 July 1950; and was Governor of the Ryukyu Islands (USAR), an office he held since December 1950.
In early 1951, MacArthur was the senior soldier in the American army — “senior,” quipped one junior officer, “to everyone but God” — and the next president, Eisenhower, had served under “Mac” for seven years in the 1930s.
Old “Dugout Doug” was only about six weeks away from being replaced in all of those posts by Gen. Matthew Ridgway on orders of Harry Truman, capping MacArthur’s epic military career, one that unofficially started at his birth in 1880 at Little Rock Barracks in Arkansas, son of a regular Army captain.
The KMT’s second front(s) in the Korean War
It was as the unofficial Field Marshal of the Philippine Army in the mid-1930s that MacArthur became aware of Chiang Kai-shek, leader of KMT China. This acquaintance that became an active friendship once MacArthur was recalled to active service as U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) after Pearl Harbor.
The two men, the exiled 63-year-old generalissimo and the most powerful man in the hemisphere, only met once, at Taipei, Formosa (Taiwan), on 31 July 1950– just weeks after the North Koreans marched across the 38th Parallel and kicked off the biggest war of the decade.
Chiang offered MacArthur 73,000 troops —three full infantry divisions and support troops —for use in Korea, as well as 20 of the C-47s he had on Taiwan to help move them.
The White House immediately torpedoed the idea, but MacArthur continued to ask Truman to allow his use of KMT troops in South Korea until just a few weeks before he was sacked. Ridgeway did not entertain such a fantasy.
Chiang saw it as just an extension of the Civil War, which he had been fighting against the Chinese Reds since 1927.
Keep in mind that at the time he met with MacArthur, Chiang’s forces were still actively fighting an insurgency war under General Ma Hushan in mainland China’s northwest and Yunnan region that would last until 1958. Further, his exiled 93rd Nationalist Division– with a few mysterious but well-connected American “civilian” advisers among them– was conducting a low-key border conflict under General Li Mi in Burma.
Chiang was also effectively tying down Chicom General Chen Yi’s 3rd Field Army and Piao’s 4th Army along the Fukien coast across from Taiwan, where the Reds were “massing 5,000 vessels for the invasion by commandeering freighters, motorized junks, and sampans and refloating ships that had been sunk in the Yangtze River during the fight for the mainland. Further, they gathered and trained over 30,000 fishermen and other sailors to man the flotilla.”
And the KMT, having lost the bulk of their heavy weaponry on the evacuation from mainland China to Taiwan, had in late 1949-early 1950 (before Korea kicked off) been greatly bolstered by surplus American hardware– signed off on by MacArthur– to allow them to keep holding. Most of it was unwanted and had been warehoused in the Western Pacific, destined for scrap, so it made sense.
KMT exile army Formosa Taiwan 1950 75mm pack howitzers
KMT exile army Formosa Taiwan 1950 M5A1 tank
KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans
KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans
KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans
February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans
February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans
February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans
Going past fighting off a planned Chicom invasion of Taiwan, Chiang was actively planning to invade the mainland, prepping a 270,000-man force.
Check out these images from the Taiwan-based KMT’s October 1950 Pingtung landing exercises:
The deployment of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in a series of “naval parades” in the Taiwan Straits during the Korean War effectively halted the KMT plans for a major, direct invasion from Taiwan, while likewise spoiling (but not releasing) the bulk of the 300,000 Chicom fighters assembled along the Fukien coast.
Meanwhile, General Ma’s forces in Burma (at least those that didn’t want to stay behind in the Golden Triangle and become warlords) would only be repatriated to Taiwan with U.S. assistance in November 1953, once the Korean war had ceased, while unreconstructed KMT holdouts there would keep fighting the Reds as late as 1961.
ROC KMT Chinese troops, Burma, 93rd Division of the 6th Army, going to their “new” home in November 1953.
Japan’s ruling coalition– the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Japan Innovation Party (Ishin)– is considering reviving 19th/20th century military rank titles from the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy for the Self-Defense Forces, causing concern within the Defense Ministry, according to a February 3, 2026, report by The Asahi Shimbun.
This is naturally going over well in China, with the South China Morning Post and others picking up the story, using it as a drum to beat out the tune of remilitarization from Tokyo.
The proposed changes replace the current very generic descriptive titles adopted in 1954 with much more historical Meiji era (circa 1868 onward) period names, which in turn were based on British and French ranks of that day, and used through 1945. These arguably make more sense to Western partners anyway:
Ittohei (Private First Class) and Nitohei (Private)
Additionally, service branch names may revert to traditional terms, such as Hoheika for Infantry (currently Futsuka) and Hohyoka for Artillery (currently Tokka), etc.
A real blast from the past.
I’m not really sure this is a bad thing, as every military should embrace its history and martial tradition, so long as they don’t embrace the war crimes that occurred under the same watch.
After all, the JMSDF has been flying the old Imperial Rising Sun ensign for decades, and has fully embraced it, although it is a bone of contention with folks like South Korea.
JMSDF Kusu (Tree)-class frigates, former Tacoma-class patrol frigates, complete with rebooted IJN Rising Sun Flag, in the early 1950s. Notably, footage of them in JMSDF service appeared in 1954’s original Godzilla. While loaned to the Japanese military for initially five years, they were all eventually transferred outright and continued to serve into the 1970s.
Japanese submarine Hakugei SS-514 launched in October 2021, with some liberal Rising Sun decorations
Plus, both the Cold War era East and West German and now the unified German Bundeswehr (as well as the Austrian Bundesheer) have all practised very stirring torch-set Zapfenstreich tattoo ceremonies (which go back to at least the 19th-century Prussian Guard Corps, if not further) that would probably have old Sepp Dietrich himself getting all misty-eyed.
