Category Archives: cold war

Szabadsag at 70

Posted on by One comment

A young Hungarian girl, Erika Kornélia Szeles, emerges from a building housing resistance fighters in Budapest, carrying a Mauser, November 1956. Note the knocked-out Soviet ISU-152 heavy self-propelled gun casually in the background. Photo by Danish journalist Vagn Hansen. 

After 11 years under a generally disliked Soviet occupation, a series of quiet events led to a full-blown rebellion in Budapest, with ripples across Hungary, in late October-early November 1956, remembered today in the country as the 1956 Revolution (1956-os forradalom).

At the time, the Soviets only had a two-division Special Corps in the country, along with forward elements of three other divisions, about 20,000-30,000 men depending on the season and the regular annual arrival and departure of conscripts.

In typical Russian style, the pushback was handled poorly and sparked a heavy, armor-led response against the Hungarian populace. The engagements were sharp, with the Soviet Operation Whirlwind (Operation Vikhr) deploying as many as 12 fresh divisions from the Carpathian and Kyiv Military Districts in the USSR, as well as units moved in from neighboring Romania, with upwards of 2,000 tanks and armored vehicles.

By comparison, the Hungarian People’s Army (Magyar Néphadsereg) had approximately 120,000 troops organized into 9 active ground divisions and supporting air components. While its officer corps, with dual command held by Red commissars (known in Hungarian as politikai tiszt, or political officers), was largely paralyzed, many Hungarian troops joined the rebellion, bringing small arms with them.

The cry of “Szabadság” (freedom, liberty) and “Ruszkik, haza!” (“Russians, go home!”) was a common refrain. The Hungarians had fought the Russians in 1812, 1848-49, 1914-18, and 1941-45, the latter including a brutal 50-day Red Army siege of Budapest that killed some 38,000 of its residents, so you can see the historic enmity.

Over the first week of November, the Soviets lost at least 699 killed, 51 missing (or deserted), and 1,980 wounded in Hungary, according to Russian military historian General G. F. Krivosheev.

These losses came primarily in the 8th and 9th districts around the Corvin Passage (Corvin köz) and Móricz Zsigmond körtér along with the Kilian Barracks, where Hungarian freedom fighters used anti-tank tactics and Molotov cocktails in narrow streets to good effect.

Additionally, defecting Hungarian Army units–specifically Colonel Pál Maléter and men of the 1st Hungarian Armored Division–brought formal military anti-tank guns and 76mm field artillery into the city defense. They were joined by members of the irregular National Guards (Nemzetőrség), many of whom had fought the Soviets on the Eastern Front just a decade earlier.

Although the figures are all over the place and the Russians never officially owned up to them, photos from the battle show somewhere around 50 tanks (primarily WWII-era T-34-85s, along with several newer T-54s and a small number of IS-3 heavies) and 60 APCs (mainly BTR-40 and BTR-150), augmented by a few SPGs (ISU-152s and SU-76Ms), destroyed or abandoned to the rebels, with several hundred others damaged.

For NATO intelligence, the appearance of the AKM carbine, BTRs, and T-54s was of keen interest, although there were few assets on the ground to exploit them.

For many in the West, images of destroyed Russian armor were a joy to behold.

The butcher’s bill paid by the rebels was high, with some 3,000 Hungarians killed and over 20,000 wounded. When the smoke cleared, something like 35,000 were arrested and at least 229 executed– including the good Colonel Pál Maléter. Another 1,000 Hungarians were deported to labor camps in the USSR.

Over 200,000 Hungarians (almost 2 percent of the total population) fled the country as refugees, mostly escaping across the Austrian border before it was sealed. Many of these exiles would later show up in the French Foreign Legion and U.S. Army Special Forces, the latter courtesy of the Lodge Act, where their native language skills, deep knowledge of Warsaw Pact geography, and tactical experience fighting Soviet armor were prized.

As for the Soviets after 1956, they kept as many as 100,000 troops and upwards of 27,000 vehicles in Hungary for the rest of the Cold War, typically two tank divisions, two motor rifle divisions, Spetsnaz units, an air army, and a long logistics train across some 100 garrisons. This included another 30,000–40,000 civilian family members and support staff. The message was clear: the Red Army wasn’t going anywhere.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the thawing of East-West relations, Moscow finally began withdrawing to its own borders, and 15 drawn-out months later, the last military transport train left Hungary on 16 June 1991.

Soviet Southern Group of Forces commander, Lt. Gen. Viktor Silov, crossed the border into Ukraine three days later, ending nearly 47 years of unwelcome military presence.

Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) 5 November 2026: The Soldier Queen

Posted on by Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies from 1833 to 1954, profiling 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 4 November 2026: The Soldier Queen

By Perkins from Fahey Collections, USNI

Above, we see the Regele Ferdinand-class destroyer (distrugătorul) NMS Regina Maria of the Royal Romanian Navy (Marinei Regale Române) early in her career, likely in the 1930s.

Some 85 years ago this week, the long-lived Maria drew blood, credited with sinking the Soviet Black Sea Fleet Malyutka-class submarine M-58 near the Danube estuary, one of at least 16 Russian boats likely killed by the Romanians during WWII.

Romanian Tin Can Backgrounder

The blue water MMR was one of Europe’s youngest navies in the 1930s, tracing its origins to 1880, when the Danube Flotilla Corps of the recently unified Romanian Principalities acquired the 198-foot Trieste-built gunboat NMS Grivița. Armed with two 57mm Nordenfelt 3-pounders and three smaller pieces, Grivița could make 9 knots and was based in newly Romanian Constanța on the Black Sea, the port ceded along with Northern Dobruja by the Ottoman Empire.

Grivița was later augmented by the very small (1,300 ton, 240-foot, four 5.9-inch guns) protected cruiser Elisabeta, built in 1888 by Armstrong, and a trio of French-built Smeul-class torpedo boats for its newly formed Black Sea Division (Divizia de Mare).

Royal Romanian Protected Cruiser NMS Elisabeta, with a full sailing rig, arrived in Romania for the first time in 1889.

A dozen new Vifor-class destroyers had been ordered from Cantieri Navali Pattison, Naples, prior to the Great War, but only four were completed and, impounded in 1915, were used by the Italians during the war as scout cruisers (esploratori= explorers).

Following the country’s occupation during WWI, the Romanian fleet had contracted but was rebuilt in the early 1920s with seven 250t-class torpedo boats received from Austria as war reparations, the former Vifor-class destroyers/Italian scout cruisers Sparviero and Nibbio (entering service as NMS Mărăști and NMS Mărășești), as well as assorted river monitors and gunboats.

The Mărăști and Mărășești, besides seeing their first five years in Italian service, were small ships, at 1,700 tons with a 310-foot overall length. As they had a speedy 34-knot suite and 5.9-inch guns, as well as two twin 17.7-inch torpedo tubes, the Italians had classed them as scout cruisers. Sisters Vifor/Aquila and Viscol/Falco, were retained by the Italians and passed on to Franco during the Spanish Civil War. For Romanian service, they were rebuilt by Pattison in the 1920s with five 4.7″/45 Schneider-Canet-Armstrongs in lieu of the 5.9s.

Romania still wanted more than two destroyers and once again entered into a contract with Pattison for two more improved Vifor/Mărăști types to be completed at the company’s Naples yard. However, because Pattison had a long relationship with British shipbuilders (the Italian Nembo class built by the yard was a modified Thornycroft design, while the follow-on Indomito and Sella classes used many British components, including Parsons turbines), they instead offered the Romanians something different.

In 1916, Thornycroft developed a 2,000-ton/339-foot/5-gunned/6×21-inch torpedo-tubed/38-knot destroyer leader to compete with designs from other British firms, namely Cammell Laird.

The Royal Navy ordered seven Thornycroft DLs, with HMS Shakespeare as the first of just five completed before the Admiralty chose Cammell Laird’s design.

British flotilla leader HMS Shakespeare at sea, IWM 18680, and drawing by AD Baker

Post-war, Thornycroft took their Shakespeare DL design, beefed up the horsepower of its four Yarrow boilers and two Brown-Curtis turbines to push 40 knots, and offered it to overseas clients.

The Spanish adopted the improved design as their domestically produced Churruca-class destroyer, while Argentina ordered a trio in 1927 as the Mendoza class destroyers, built in England by JS White, Cowes. All three 2,125-ton Mendozas exceeded their design speed during sea trials, with ARM La Rioja (E-4) reaching 39.4 knots on her measured mile without exceeding her engines’ limits.

March 1929 East Cowes, Isle of Wight Argentine destroyer ARA La Rioja Mendoza class

The Thornycroft improved DL design by K.C. Barnaby, as built by Pattison in Naples, was even lighter than the Mendozas (1,880 tons) with a 52,000shp suite of four three-drum Thornycroft boilers pushing two Parsons geared turbines for a designed speed of at least 37 knots.

Rather than the twin guns preferred by the Italians, they would use five advanced Swedish-made Bofors 4.7″/50 Mark 4s with a 45-degree maximum elevation, controlled by a Siemens FCS which included a pair of optical rangefinders.

Romanian Regele Ferdinand-class destroyer in late WWII splinter camo with stern 120mm Bofors swung out

They also carried two triple 21-inch ST tubes of Italian make with accompanying Whitehead fish– the first time torpedoes that big had been used by the Romanians.

Two were ordered in 1927 from Pattison: NMS Regele Ferdinand and Regina Maria, laid down side by side in June and both delivered by September 1930, bringing the MMR to a four-destroyer fleet for the first time. Cost per hull was 205,000 pounds, without armament.

Commissioned without pennant numbers, Regele Ferdinand received an Ace of Cups (Asul de Cupa) hull identifier symbol, while Regina Maria received an Ace of Spades (Asul de pica). This made a set with Mărăşeşti (Ace of Clubs) and Mărăşti (Ace of Chariots).

As the old cruiser Elisabeta was scrapped in the 1930s, these four ships formed the Romanian battle line.

Jane’s 1929, with the MMR’s four destroyers listed, the new Ferdinands over the older Vifor/Mărăștis.

This all brings us to…

Meet Regina Maria

Our subject was named for Marie of Romania, née Princess Marie of Edinburgh, the Kent-born bride of the late King Ferdinand I (whose name the class leader carried).

The ceremonial colonel of the 4th Roșiori Cavalry Regiment, Marie volunteered as a nurse in military hospitals during the Great War and opposed signing the May 1918 Treaty of Bucharest with the Germans and Austrians, earning her the description “truly the only man in Romania.” Post-war, she championed Greater Romania’s interests at the Paris Conferences, waving her ministers aside and leading negotiations herself; the country’s size doubled with the acquisition of Transylvania from defeated Hungary without plebiscites, although the region was only about 55 percent ethnically Romanian. This led to her being called “The Soldier Queen.”

Both destroyers arrived at Constanța on 7 September 1930, where King Carol II (son of the destroyers’ namesakes) and Prime Minister Iorga inspected them.

Handsome ships, they often went overseas during their decade of pre-war service to show the flag.

In that vein, Maria represented Romania as one of 17 nations sending ships to join 134 Royal Navy vessels in the May 1937 Spithead Fleet Review off the coast of Portsmouth to celebrate the coronation of King George V.

Romanian destroyer Regina Maria Coronation Fleet Review for King George VI, May 1937

In January 1938, she attempted to carry Crown Prince (later King) Michael to Greece to attend a royal wedding there. On the way to the event, the ship was caught in a maelstrom and forced to return to port.

Maria also sailed in the International Squadron with the British battlewagon HMS Malaya, French cruiser Emil Bertin, Kriegsmarine cruiser Emden, Soviet destroyer leader Moskva, and Greek destroyer Hydra, following the Turkish Navy Destroyer TCG Zafer and battlecruiser Yavuz to carry the coffin of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk the 60 short miles from Sarayburnu Port in Istanbul to Izmit in November 1938.

By 1939, with war on the horizon, in a refit at the Galaţi shipyard, they picked up two Italian depth charge throwers, two German 37mm SK C/30 flak guns, and a pair of French 13.2mm M1929 Hotchkiss machine guns, the latter AAA guns replacing two original 40/67 Škoda guns.

Going into 1940, the MMR had 15,113 all ranks including 1,002 officers, 780 warrant officers (maiștri militari=military foremen), 257 NCOs and 13,074 enlisted. Besides the Black Sea Division and Danube Flotilla, the force had eight coastal artillery batteries and three Marine Infantry (Infanterie Marină) battalions numbered 15th-17th.

War!

In the summer of 1940, Stalin occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in a sharp, undeclared war led by Gen. Georgy Zhukov’s 460,000-man Southern Front, which left 40,000 unprepared Romanian troops captured while inflicting only about 100 casualties on the Russians. The region, of which only about 10 percent of its 3 million inhabitants were Russians, was carved away while Hungary and Bulgaria also pressed territorial claims on Romania. Germany and Italy arbitrated, and Romania lost Northern Transylvania and Southern Dobruja to Hungary and Bulgaria, respectively.

Hurting, Romania joined the Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy and Japan in November 1940, with Marshal Ion Antonescu in control of the government.

Fully mobilized, the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies were on the front lines to liberate Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina when Romania entered WWII on the Axis side in June 1941 with the Operation Barbarossa invasion of the Soviet Union.

In response, the much stronger Black Sea Red Banner Fleet soon went on the offensive and raided the MMR’s principal base at Constanza.

Soviet VADM Filipp Oktyabrskiy in the cruiser Voroshilov, with the destroyers Moskva, Kharkov, Bodry, and Dzerzhinsky, began bombarding Constanza at 0400 on the morning of 26 June, on Barbarossa +5, firing 350 shells. In response, the Romanian destroyers Mărăști and Regina Maria and German-manned coastal artillery (three 11-inch SK L/45 Great War-era guns from Nassau-class battlewagons) returned fire while a poorly timed Soviet bomber raid, flying right into the already aroused defenders in broad daylight, was met by Axis fighters and AAA guns, which shot down multiple Soviet aircraft.

When the smoke cleared, Moskva, which had her mainmast brought down by a Romanian 4.7-inch shell, had blundered into a Romanian minefield and sank with 268 sailors killed and 69 survivors captured by the locals. Voroshilov and Kharkov limped off, damaged by a mine and Axis shells, respectively. The raid was an Axis victory by all accounts, with only minor damage done to the port.

Convoys and sub-busting

As the ground war went bad for the Soviets in the summer and fall of 1941, the Romanian fleet left its mine- and gun-protected citadel and began probing toward Odessa, eventually protecting convoys headed to the occupied Russian ports along the Northwest Black Sea coast as well as convoys from the Bosporus to Constanța, safeguarding them from Soviet submarine attack.

It was on such runs that MMR surface ships splashed four M-class boats via depth charges:

  • M-31 by Mărășești on 7 July 1943.
  • M-58 by Regina Maria on 4 November 1941.
  • M-59 by Regele Ferdinand on 17 December 1941
  • M-118 by the Romanian minesweepers Sublocotenant Ghiculescu and Locotenant-Commandor Stihi Eugen on 1 October 1942. Ghiculescu also sank the Leninets-class submarine L-6 in April 1944.

At least three other M-class boats (M-33, M-34, and M-60) went missing, thought to have been lost probing Romanian coastal minefields.

As you can probably tell, the 200-ton Malyutkas (Russian for “baby, little one”) had a rough war, with 34 of their 109-strong class lost between the Arctic, Baltic, Black, and Pacific fleets.

Of note, the “three kings,” the Romanian minelayers NMS Amiral Murgescu, Regele Carol I, and Aurora, would lay fields that also accounted for the Soviet subs S-34, Shch-211, Shch-210, Shch-208, Shch-212, Shch-213, and L-24.

Multiple sources also disagree on how and when the accumulated Soviet subs vanished in the Black Sea in WWII, so there is that.

By early 1944, both Ferdinand and Maria would land their No. 2 4.7-inch Bofors in favor of a German 88mm/42 SK C/30 Flak gun. They would also be fitted with four German 20/65 C/38 Flak guns and an S-Gerat sonar suite.

They also got large recognition flashes and a splinter camo scheme.

Romanian destroyer Regina Maria in dry dock. Note the Ace of Spades and new splinter camo

Royal Romanian Navy destroyer NMS Regina Maria mounting German 88 in 2nd mount

Romanian Dunkirk

When the tide turned on Barbarossa (the Romanians suffered 180,000 casualties at Stalingrad), the Romanian Navy had its own Dunkirk: “Operation 60,000,” the evacuation of Crimea, which pulled out men from the trapped Romanian Mountain Corps and the Wehrmacht’s 17th Army.

Between 14 and 24 April 1944, the Romanians ran 25 convoys out of the peninsula, bringing out 72,358 souls in the path of the Red Army, including 29,494 Germans, 20,779 Romanians, 15,055 Russian volunteers, 723 Slovaks, 2,559 Soviet POWs, and 3,748 civilians.

Regina Maria off Sevastopol, 1944 via Preston

Romanian destroyer Regele Ferdinand

A second round of evacuations, between 9 and 13 May 1944, saw another 47,825 evacuated (28,992 Germans including Gen. Walter Hartmann, 15,078 Romanians, 336 Russian volunteers, 52 prisoners, and 3,367 civilians).

In all, the Crimean withdrawal saw the Romanians bring out 108,000 Axis soldiers– 16,000 of whom were wounded– along with 2,611 prisoners, 7,115 civilians, and 22,548 tons of vital war materials and munitions.

A mix of exhausted faces on Regele Ferdinand during Operation 60,000, the evacuation of the Crimea. You can note Romanian sailors in their jumpers along with beret-clad Vânători de munte mountain troops. Torpedo tubes in the background. Of interest, the 35,000 Romanian mountain troops pulled out of Crimea later provided admirable service to the Soviets, notably in the Tatra Mountains, once Romanian switched sides late in the war.

Running the gauntlet from the Crimea to Constanza in the face of the Red Air Force and Navy cost eight lost freighters, a tanker, and a dozen smaller tugs and lighters.

While the Romanians shot down at least 12 Soviet bombers, others found their marks, and Ferdinand was struck by a large bomb that, while it did not explode, caused enough damage to knock her out of the war.

Red Banner Days

By August 1944, amid the ongoing collapse and the withdrawal of the Romanian Third Army from Bessarabia into the Constanza area, King Michael I led a coup on 23 August that arrested Marshal Antonescu and led Romania to immediately switch sides, join the Allies, and declare war on Germany.

In Constanza, RADM Horia Macellariu (who earned a German Knight’s Cross for Operation 60,000) still amazingly had all four of his pre-war destroyers, but only two were serviceable (our Regina Maria and Marasesti). Meeting with German VADM Helmuth Brinkmann, who had orders to hold Constanța at all costs, agreed to let the Germans in harbor quietly on the night of 25/26 August, with 70 packed vessels shipping south to Bulgaria before dawn.

After that, Georgescu ordered his men to disarm and seize the local German-operated shipping in Romanian coastal waters and up the Danube.

While 60 ships were scuttled, 538 German-Bulgarian vessels, mostly minor, were captured and subsequently passed on to the advancing Red Army and Navy, which arrived at Constanza with a 26-ship battleship-led task force on 5 September. This windfall included 213 barges, 90 coastal tankers, 25 pontoons, 22 tugboats, 20 sloops, 14 motor barges, and many similar vessels.

Speaking of the Red Navy, while they were taking away every captured Axis barge and pontoon the Romanians offered, they also impounded every MMR vessel that could float and moved them across the Black Sea to Caucasian ports.

The takeover of Regina Maria by Soviet Naval Infantry was brutal, with the ship’s skipper, Captain Tudor Nicolae, seriously wounded by several bayonet strikes and rifle blows. The head of the Romanian destroyer group, Căpitan-comandorul Alexandru Dumbravă, blew his head in with a revolver in Maria’s command cabin rather than surrender his vessels.

At 0600 on 12 October 1944, the Romanian Navy noted that the NMS Mărășești, Regina Maria, Mărăști, Regele Ferdinand, Amiral Murgescu, the base ship Constanța, the submarine Rechinul, and three gunboats left the port southward under Soviet control, in an unknown direction.

The older Mărăști and Mărășești, Great War veterans, served in the Red Navy as Lovkiy and Lyogkiy, respectively, until they were returned with most of the other Romanian ships in October 1945, along with two gunboats, two very old torpedo boats, a small submarine, and two hydrographic vessels.

They soon dropped their prefix NMS (Nava Majestății Sale= His/Her Majesty’s Ship) as the fleet was rebranded as the more communist-oriented Marina Republicii Populare Române (Navy of the Romanian People’s Republic).

Ferdinand, repaired in the Soviet Union and painted green, was recommissioned as Likhoy, while Regina Maria became Letuchiy. They continued to serve in the Soviet Black Sea Fleet until July 1951.

Regele Ferdinand as Soviet Likhoy

Romanian Regina Maria as Soviet Letuchiy

Back Home, under a Red Star

Returned as a “donation” to Romania, part of the Warsaw Pact after 1955, Ferdinand and Maria lost their regal names but earned new pennant numbers: first D1 and D2, then D9 and D10.

They likewise served in the outlandishly designated 418th Destroyer Division, which was rebadged as the 101st.

Janes 1954, with Ferdinand and Maria still the best ships in the Romanian fleet. Note Marasti and Marasesti, veterans of two world wars and four flags, are still in service as well!

The same quartet remained in the 1960s. The Romanians at the time still had two of the old Imperial Austrian Navy 250-ton torpedo boats in service, Sborul (ex-SMS T 81F) and Smeul (ex-SMS T 83F), dating to 1913 and given as reparations in 1920.

Having served 30 very hard years, and cut off from support for their Western machinery and weapons, it was only a matter of time before the twins were non-functional. The same could be said for the even older Marasti and Marasesti.

Starting in 1955, as a benefit of being in the co-prosperity sphere, the Romanians took over three Soviet-built Project 122bis and later three Project 204E subchasers. Light ships at some 325 and 500 tons, respectively, they were nonetheless better than the old Italian-built tin cans and ideal for confined Black Sea waters.

With that, the baton was passed.

Ferdinand and Maria, along with Marasti and Marasesti, were stricken in April 1961 and scrapped. Assorted relics from all four of the historic ships were saved, including apparently one set of torpedo tubes from Maria, and are in the collection of the Romanian National Muzeul Marinei.

Epilogue

By the 1980s, the Romanian Navy had moved away from Soviet-built ships and produced six Project Tetal I/II-type Bărbuneanu/Sebastian-class frigates.

Once the Cold War thawed, the Romanian Navy, now the Forțele Navale Române, once again looked west, to an English design.

In 2004, they acquired a pair of surplus British frigates of the Type 22 (Broadsword) class, ex HMS Coventry and ex HMS London. They were duly commissioned in Portsmouth in September 2005 as Regele Ferdinand (F 221) and Regina Maria (F 222), the first time those names had been on the Romanian naval list in 61 years.

Both Regele Ferdinand (F 221) and Regina Maria (F 222) continue in service today.

Some things are cyclical.

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

If you like this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a way to connect with those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so you should be too!

CVN-65 Begins Her Final Cruise

Posted on by 2 comments

Operation Sea Orbit: On 31 July 1964, USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) (bottom), USS Long Beach (CGN-9) (center) and USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25) (top) formed “Task Force One,” the first nuclear-powered task force, and sailed 26,540 nmi (49,190 km) around the world in 65 days. Accomplished without a single refueling or replenishment, “Operation Sea Orbit” demonstrated the capability of nuclear-powered surface ships.

The world’s first nuclear-powered flattop and the longest carrier ever constructed (at 1,088 feet oal, later pushed to 1,123 feet, some 31 feet longer than a Nimitz and 17 feet longer than a Ford) is now on her way to be deconstructed slowly in Mobile Bay through the end of the decade, under the oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She will disappear while docked at Modern American Recycling and Radiological Services, LLC (MARRS), where the former SS United States is now tied up, the two ships likely passing each other as SSUS heads for reefing.

The ex-USS Enterprise (CVN-65), formerly CVA(N)-65, was ordered on 15 November 1957 during the Eisenhower administration and commissioned on 25 November 1961, somehow just four years later. She left on her inaugural deployment just seven months later in June 1962. In all, she would complete 25 overseas deployments in her career.

Keep that in mind when you note that Ford took nine years from ordering (2008) through commissioning (2017) and only deployed for the first time six years later (2023).

Big E’s original cost, in 1961 dollars, was $451.3 million. Her $536 million recycling, after more than 55 years of service, will be more expensive once you factor in inflation.

She still looks mighty, even though her last airwing flew off in November 2012 and her last of eight reactors defueled in 2017. It could be argued she is still more effective than Russia’s carrier right now, regardless.

Images from HII as she left Norfolk:

Enterprise CVN 65 Final Departure

Enterprise CVN 65 Final Departure

Enterprise CVN 65 Final Departure

As detailed by HII:

The world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the former USS Enterprise (CVN 65), departed HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding division today for the final time, bound for dismantlement.

When CVN-65 launched at NNS in 1960, she ushered in a new era for the U.S. Navy and the world. A technological marvel, Enterprise served our nation for 51 years.

From construction through inactivation, the skilled shipbuilders of HII are proud to have supported the entire lifecycle of this mighty aircraft carrier.

To the generations of shipbuilders, suppliers, and sailors who are forever part of the CVN-65 legacy: thank you for your dedication to the mission. That legacy will live on in the next Enterprise, CVN-80, under construction right now at NNS.

‘Slay dragons, do noble deeds… and never, never, never, never give up’

Posted on by One comment

Patriot, Vietnam vet, publisher, and Cold War legend Robert Brown has passed away, leaving behind generations of gun enthusiasts who spent much of their youth scanning newsstands for his publications.

Born in Monroe, Michigan, in November 1932, Brown served in the U.S. Army from 1954 to 1957 and again from 1964 to 1985. A Green Beret, he served with Special Forces in Vietnam and retired as a lieutenant colonel.

Long the beacon in the newsstand for those who yearned to meet interesting people in far-off lands– and maybe get into a firefight with them, Brown founded “Soldier of Fortune, The Journal of Professional Adventurers,”  in 1975 after having a hand in founding field manual outlet Paladin Press five years prior.

Based in Boulder, Colorado, SOF provided an outlet for legitimate and would-be professional military contractors and helped fill urgent positions in Africa, the Middle East, and South America, while fueling untold Walter Mitty fantasies in the more chairborne commando.

Noted contributors included Col. David Hackworth, Lt. Col. Oliver North, and sniper guru Maj. John Plaster.

While at the helm of SOF, Brown continued to globetrot and, through the magazine’s offices, helped support pro-Western groups in El Salvador, Afghanistan, and Laos, among other Cold War hotspots. If the Russkis showed up there, Brown was not far behind.

SOF pulled off a number of coups for the good guys over the years, including effectively grounding Sandinista Mi-24 Hind helicopters during the Contra years after Brown published an offer of a $1 million reward for the defection of a Nicaraguan pilot with his gunship. Brown also spirited out the first bulk caches of the then-new Soviet 5.45x45mm AK74 round seen in the West as well as other equipment of intelligence interest from Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The Soviets even targeted Brown in propaganda efforts (left) largely for his support for Mujahideen groups in Afghanistan and Contras in Nicaragua. His offer to buy a Sandinista-operated Mi-24 Hind reportedly grounded the entire force for weeks. In December 1988, a Nicaraguan Air Force captain defected to Honduras in a Soviet-built Mi-16 transport helicopter.

At least six correspondents from the magazine were killed while on assignment in such third-world hotspots as Burma, Angola, and Sierra Leone, going that extra mile for the story.

A member of several Hi-Power and Marksmanship Unit teams while in the Army, Brown was long a power in the gun rights community and sat on the board of the National Rifle Association since the early 1980s. He played a prominent, though behind-the-scenes, role in electing pro-gun political leaders for generations.

In disclosure, this author spoke with Brown, whose email address was simply “Maximus,” numerous times over the years, and was invited to an annual retreat in New Mexico with RKB in 2019. He was always a great storyteller and a true gentleman. He was a welcome regular in the media room at SHOT Show and NRAAM every year.

My buddy, Ben Philippi, also spent time with Brown in Colorado in 2014 and captured an image of him for his book, “We the People.”

Still very spry in his 80s, Brown cautioned Philippi, “Certainly, the Second Amendment and a ‘God-given right’ are substantial reasons for the right to keep and bear arms. But for me, the key criteria for justification of an armed populace, is for it to serve as an ultimate protection from the tyranny from an oppressive government. Think 1776.”

Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown, USAR, (Ret.), publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine, NRA BOD, photographed in Boulder, Colorado, 2014, sporting his DPMS-Panther Arms SASS .308 rifle topped off with an Aimpoint Hunter scope. He leans on his “arrest-me-red” ’93 Vet convertible. (Photo: Ben Philippi)

The motto of SOF during the Brown era was “Slay dragons, do noble deeds… and never, never, never, never give up.”

Respective ends of eras, in passing

Posted on by One comment

As the man said, “You can’t take a picture of this, it’s already gone.”

Here we see, in this circa October 1989 U.S. Navy image from the National Archives, a PBR Mark II riverine patrol boat escorts the British patrol submarine HMS Ocelot (S 17) into the Miraflores Locks during the latter’s transit of the Panama Canal.

Photo by PH1 (Sw) J. Elliott, 330-CFD-DN-SN-90-08113, NAID: 6453615

Introduced in the early 1960s for use in the Brown Water Navy in Vietnam’s myriad inshore rivers and streams, the Patrol Boat, Riverine, or PBR, was an Apocalypse Now-icon worthy staple of Operation Game Warden in both its 31-foot MK I and improved 32-foot MK II varieties.

With over 300 produced, most PBRs were handed over to the South Vietnamese by 1972 but a handful were retained for use by USNR small boat units in California and the Canal Zone until circa 1995.

Likewise, Ocelot, one of 13 Oberon-class diesel boats built for the Royal Navy in the early 1960s and the last submarine built for the Royal Navy at Chatham Dockyard, was, in the above image, like the PBR, coming to an end of her career and would be paid off less than two years after the above image was snapped.

HMS Ocelot paying off. Much of her Cold War history is still classified. 

Decommissioned in August 1991 after a 27-year career, she is preserved at Chatham Historic Dockyard.

That time Checkpoint Charlie armored up

Posted on by One comment

Some 65 years ago this week.

The intersection of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße at the sector boundary between Communist East and NATO-allied West Berlin.

The Cold War armor, face-to-face: three M48A1s from F Coy, 40th Armored Regiment, U.S. Army’s Berlin Brigade, stand tall against East German border forces backed by Soviet troops.

Note the MPs, likely of the 287th Military Police Company, observing from the building’s windows just above the apothecary shop. U.S. Army photo

The “Turner Tankers” carry dozer blades and 18-inch spotlights, ideal for fighting in cities. U.S. Army photo

U.S. Army photo

Following the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, a dispute arose when East German Grenztruppen border guards tried to check the identity papers of U.S. diplomatic personnel crossing into East Berlin. U.S. authorities refused to submit to East German control, maintaining that the city was under Four-Power Allied jurisdiction.

Maj. Gen. Lucius D. Clay (USMA 1918), never one to muck about, deployed the above platoon of M48s to the border, while the Russkis moved 10 T-54/T-55 tanks into opposing positions just 100 meters away, with the Americans sending up enough matching Pattons to balance.

The armored standoff lasted only 16 hours, then both sides withdrew in a negotiated, synchronized withdrawal.

Company F, 40th Armor, was the regiment’s old 6th Medium Tank Battalion when, on 2 May 1958, it was redesignated and assigned to the Berlin Brigade, its home for 34 years.

Later, swapping out its M48s for M60s, it expanded to the 6th Battalion, 40th Armor from September 1990 until May 1992, when it was withdrawn, at which time it was using the M1 Abrams.

M60 main battle tanks of Co. F, 40th Armor, Berlin Bde, Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin. 17 December 1980.

Overachiever Gets her Ticket

Posted on by Leave a comment

Ground crews prepare to launch F-117 Stealth Fighters from Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. at the direction of the Secretary of Defense, William Perry, in response to an Iraqi missile attack against two F-16s flying over the northern no-fly zone. The 49th Fighter Wing F-117 Nighthawks were headed to Kuwait. By MSGT. Val Gempis. Published in Airman Magazine, November 1996. Exact Date Shot Unknown. 330-CFD-DF-ST-98-06090

Lockheed built a grand total of 64 F-117 Nighthawk airframes (5 YF-117A Scorpions, 59 operational F-117As) in the 1980s.

Not a lot.

Of those, one, 82-0806 (Something Wicked), was famously shot down over Belgrade in 1999, with her remains housed in assorted Serbian museums, while another six were lost to accidents between 1982 and 2008, when the type was retired.

Since then, the Air Force has demilitarized four YF models and 12 F models for use as base gate guards or loaned to museums (seven of them on federally operated reservations), leaving an estimated 40 F-117 airframes in inventory, stored and maintained in Type 1000 recallable storage or used at the Tonopah Test Range Airport in Nevada as “red air” adversary aggressors to train U.S. pilots against stealth targets, and for use as testbeds for radar and sensor development as stand-ins for stealthy cruise missiles. Lockheed is supporting this aging fleet of ‘Hawks through 2034.

Since 2021, the USAF has disposed of about four stored F-117 airframes per year.

The latest to get her retirement papers is 85-0818 (The Overachiever), which lived up to her moniker as she flew in all four major conflicts in which Nighthawks flew combat operations: Operation Just Cause (Panama, 1989), Desert Storm (1991, Gulf War), Allied Force (1999, Yugoslavia), and Iraqi Freedom (2003).

During her 1991 participation in Desert Storm, Overachiever flew 1,271 sorties alone, achieving an 80 percent mission success rate while suffering no battle damage.

Catching a ride earlier this month in an equally rare C-5M Super Galaxy (52 in existence) from the Air Force Reserve’s 512th Airlift Wing, Overachiever will be displayed at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, which logs more than a million visitors each year.

Airmen assigned to the Air Force Reserve’s 512th Airlift Wing pose with personnel from Lockheed Martin, Air & Space Forces Magazine, and the Smithsonian Institution for a photo in front of a wingless F-117A Nighthawk before loading it into a C-5M Super Galaxy in Palmdale, Calif., Oct. 5, 2026. The demilitarization process that qualifies an aircraft for museum display requires close cooperation between the War Department and its industry partner. Credit: Air Force Staff Sgt. Alexis Morris VIRIN: 261005-F-LI355-9871

And via Lockheed, reassembled and display-ready:

America’s first true attack boat at 75 (and she is still around)

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 75 years ago this week, the first American submarine designed (not modified) for underwater performance rather than surfaced attacks under the GUPPY program entered service.

USS Tang (SS-563) was commissioned at Portsmouth Naval Yard on 25 October 1951.

USS Tang (SS-563), underway, circa post-1950s in an official Navy photo.

The 1,600 ton (2,100 submerged) 269-foot boat was smaller than the Navy’s WWII-era fleet boats but were quieter, much faster underwater (18.3 knots vs 9 knots) and could dive nearly twice as deep (700 feet vs 400), all courtesy of the cues derived from the advanced later war high-speed German Type XXI U-boats, of which two, U-2513 and U-3008, were studied directly by the Navy as prizes for a decade.

Just look at Tang’s original profile, which resembles most of today’s better SSKs.

Now compare that to a German Type 212A SSK of today:

German U-35 leaving eckenförde for Operation Irini in the Mediterranean Sea (Type 212A)

After an impressive 28 years of service, including earning four battle stars during Vietnam, Tang was decommissioned in December 1980 and transferred to Turkey.

After another 24 years under the White Crescent flag as TCG Piri Reis (S 342), she was decommissioned a second time in 2004 and preserved as a museum ship.

Ex-TCG Piri Reis (S 342), formerly USS Tang (SS 563), alongside the ex-TCG Ege (F 256), formerly USS Ainsworth (FF 1090), at the İnciraltı Sea Museum in İzmir, Turkey, where they have been on display together for 20 years.

Making it rain during Market Time

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 60 years ago today, just some Market Time surface action.

The Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer USS Mansfield (DD-728) fires her 5″/38 guns at waterborne craft off North Vietnam, north of the DMZ, 25 October 66.

Photographed by PH1 V.O. McColley, November 25, 1966. USN photo 428-GX-K-35025.

From the report of her 1966 Vietnam Westpac cruise.

She would revisit Vietnam for two additional tours, chalking up an amazing 1,727 NGFS missions according to CONGA, while taking a hit by a North Vietnamese shore battery off Tiger Island, north of the DMZ, in 1967, suffering 20 casualties.

USS Mansfield (DD-728) Underway at sea, circa 1960-1963, after her FRAM II modernization. Taken by USS Ranger (CVA-61), this photograph was received in July 1963. NH 107137

Decommissioned 4 February 1971 after a 28-year career, she was sold to  Argentina in 1974 to keep that country’s surplus Navy tin cans in service for another decade.

Mansfield earned five battle stars for World War II service, three for Korean service, and three for Vietnam, and served as an alternate NASA recovery ship for Gemini XI.

Faughs in Kenya

Posted on by Leave a comment

The active four-year period of the Mau Mau Rebellion in British Colonial Kenya wrapped up 70 years ago this week on 21 October 1956 with the capture of wounded Kenya Land and Freedom Army Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi. The 36-year-old revolutionary, whose formal military training amounted to a month “taking the King’s shilling” in 1940 before being discharged for drunkenness, was subsequently tried and hanged.

Speaking of taking the schilling…

Official period caption: “At the Naivasha Rifle Range, the 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Fusiliers give members of the Rift Valley Home Guard the chance to handle modern weapons including a Vickers machine gun.”

Dig those windproofs! IWM (MAU 867)

As detailed by the Royal Irish:

The 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Fusiliers, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel G J Hamilton DSO, landed in Mombasa on 30 January 1955. The Battalion deployed A Company to North Kinangop and B Company to South Kinangop in the West Aberdares. The rest of the Battalion deployed around Navisha in the Rift Valley with a Tactical Area of Responsibility of around 1,600 square miles.

The Battalion conducted counter-terrorist operations against the Mau Mau fighters who were raiding white Kenyan-owned farms and properties and terrorising the black Kenyan workers.

The Battalion’s advance party arrived at Ogbourne St George, England, in October 1955, and the main body departed Kenya on 24 December 1955 aboard the HMT Captain Cook. However, within weeks, the Battalion was moved to Bulford, and then in June 1956, the Battalion moved to Wuppertal in the Federal Republic of (West) Germany.

Kenya became independent in 1963, has been in the Commonwealth since 1964, and “The Faughs” of the Royal Irish Fusiliers– from their motto Faugh-a-Ballagh (“Clear the Way”)– in 1968 were amalgamated with the other regiments of the North Irish Brigade, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and the Royal Ulster Rifles, to become the Royal Irish Rangers, which were in turn later merged with the Ulster Defence Regiment in 1992 to form today’s The Royal Irish Regiment (27th (Inniskilling), 83rd and 87th and the Ulster Defence Regiment) which was deployed in Africa as recently as 2022 to Mali.

The Royal Irish Fusiliers Museum is in Armagh.

« Older Entries