Johnny “J.R.” Cash, besides being known as something of a musician of sorts, was also a veteran and a firearms enthusiast.
Cash enlisted in the United States Air Force on July 7, 1950 and after training was assigned to the 12th Radio Squadron Mobile of the U.S. Air Force Security Service at Landsberg, Germany as a Morse Code Intercept Operator for Soviet Army transmissions. As such, he was the first radio operator to pick up the news of the death of Joseph Stalin. He was honorably discharged as a Staff Sergeant on July 3, 1954, and returned to Texas, where he picked up the guitar.
He was also something of a hunter, known for chasing whitetails on occasion as show in these images by Richard Fiske.
That radio! Also, is that a double-trigger Steyr? Its definitely a Mannlicher-style stock, anyway.
040303-N-6842R-025 Key West, Fla. (Mar. 3, 2004) Ð Lt. Allen Karlson, a student pilot assigned to the Tigers of Training Squadron Nine (VT-9), with instructor Cdr. Joe Kerstiens (USNR) sits ÒshotgunÓ(rear seat) evaluating Lt. Allen Karlson before his solo formation training. 1st Lt. Tim Miller flies his T-2C Buckeye down to cross under the lead, on his first formation solo, during a formation training mission over Key West, Fla. VT-9 came to Key West to teach Navy and Marine Corps student pilots formation flying and gunnery techniques. The instructors are part of Squadron Augment Unit Nine (SAU-9), the Reserve component for Training Squadron Nine (VT-9), one of two training squadrons that operate from Naval Air Station Meridian, Miss., under Training Wing One (TW-1). U.S. Navy photo by Ens Darin K. Russell. (RELEASED)
The North American T-2 Buckeye has been used by the Navy (and Marines) as an intermediate training aircraft since 1959 (which explains its styling). Some 529 of these stubby (400~ knot/4-ton) twin turbojets have provided yeoman service over the past half-decade until nominally replaced by the McDonnell Douglas T-45 Goshawk, the Americanized version of the BAE Hawk.
A small handful of Buckeyes soldiered on for test duties, including executing chase flights and supporting weapons trials. Seven years after its retirement from training students, the Navy is now finally saying goodbye once and for all to the Buckeye.
September 25, 2015 will mark its final operational flight with the Navy. VX-20, which has operated a trio of Buckeyes in recent years, will fly the last sortie, with the Buckeyes being replaced by C-38 Courier business jets.
Warship Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015: The Deseret Battlewagon
Utah as she appeared in World War One (click image to big up). At the time she was the flag of the 6th Battleship Division and carried a unique camo pattern that included the white triangular veins shown here Photo colorized by irootoko_jr
Here we see the Florida-class dreadnought USS Utah (BB-31/AG-16) as she appeared during World War I. While she went “Over There” and was ready to fight the Germans yet never fired a shot, her follow-on experience in the next world war would be much different.
The period of U.S. battleship development from the USS Indiana (Battleship No. 1) in 1890, until Florida was ordered in 1908 saw a staggering 29 huge capital ships built in under two decades. While the majority of those vessels were pre-dreadnought Monopoly battleships (for instance, Indiana was 10,500-tons and carried 2 × twin 13″/35 guns), the U.S. had gotten in the dreadnought business with the two smallish 16,000-ton, 8×12 inch/45 caliber gunned South Carolina-class ships ordered in 1905, followed by a pair of larger 22,400-ton, 10×12 inch/45 gunned Delaware-class battleships in 1907.
The pair of Florida-class ships were better than the U.S. battleships before them but rapidly eclipsed by the 33 that came after and developmentally were sandwiched between the old and new era. Dimensionally, they were more than twice as heavy as the country’s first battleships and only half as heavy as the last commissioned in 1944.
At 25,000 tons, they carried roughly the same battery of 12 inchers (10x12″/45 caliber Mark 5 guns) in six twin turrets as the Delawares, which were equivalent to the period Royal Navy’s BL 12 inch Mk X naval gun and the Japanese Type 41 12-inch (305 mm) /45 caliber naval gun. Utah was the last battleship mounted with this particular model gun.
The crew of Turret I on USS Utah B-31 in 1913 U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 103835 via Navweaps
Their belt, an almost homogenous 11-inches everywhere, was thick for the time and they could make 21-knots on a quartet of Parsons steam turbines powered by a full dozen Babcock & Wilcox coal-fired boilers.
Laid down 9 March 1909 at New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Utah was the first (and, until this week, only) ship named after the former State of Deseret.
Commissioned 31 August 1911, her early career was a series of training and goodwill cruises. Then the gloves came off.
In April 1914, Utah was heavily involved in Mr. Wilson’s intervention in the affairs of Mexico, ordered to seize the German-flagged steamer SS Ypiranga, and loaded with good Krupp and Mauser guns for old man Huerta.
This led to the battle for and subsequent occupation of Veracruz where Utah and her sistership Florida landed two provisional battalions consisting of 502 Marines and 669 bluejackets (many of whose white uniforms were dyed brown with coffee grounds) to fight their way to the Veracruz Naval Academy. Utah‘s 384 sailors gave hard service, pushing street by street and tackling the Mexican barricades. The fleet suffered ~100 casualties in the fighting while the Mexicans took nearly five times that number.
Formal raising of the first flag of U.S. Veracruz 2 P.M. April 27, 1914, by sailors and Marines of the Utah and Florida
As the crisis abated, Utah sailed away two months later for the first of her many refits.
When the U.S. entered WWI in 1917, Utah spent most of the conflict as an engineering school training ship in Chesapeake Bay. then in August 1918 sailed for Ireland where she was stationed in Bantry Bay to keep an eye peeled for German surface raiders.
After her fairly pedestrian war service, she and Florida had their dozen coal eaters replaced with a quartet of more efficient White-Forster oil-fired boilers, which allowed one funnel to be removed. Their AAA suite was likewise increased.
Battleship Number 31, USS Utah, at rest in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, January 1920.
One bluejacket who served aboard her in 1922 Petty Officer 3rd Class (Machinery Repairman) John Dillinger, but he deserted after a few months when Utah was docked in Boston and was eventually dishonorably discharged before becoming Public Enemy No. 1.
Despite the cranky Mr. Dillinger, Utah was a happy ship in the 1920s, completing several goodwill cruises to South America and Europe including a trip in 1928 with President-Elect Herbert Hoover aboard.
While the ships survived the cuts of the Washington Naval Treaty, the ax of the follow-on London Naval Treaty fell, and when compared to the newer hulls in the battleship fleet, Utah and Florida were found lacking although they were only 15~ years old and recently modernized.
As such, class leader Florida was decommissioned in February 1931 and towed to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, where she was broken up for scrap.
As for Utah, she was decommissioned, pulled from the battle fleet, disarmed, and converted to a radio-controlled target ship, designated AG-16 on 1 July 1931. She was capable of being operated completely by remote control with a skeleton crew.
Her electric motors, operated by signals from the controlling ship, opened and closed throttle valves, moved her steering gear, and regulated the supply of oil to her boilers. In addition, a Sperry gyro pilot kept the ship on course.
Able to operate with her much-reduced crew buttoned up inside her protective armor with every hatch dogged, her decks were reinforced with a double layer of 6″x12″ plank timbers to keep inert practice bombs from damaging the ship. Her funnel likewise was given a steel cap. Sandbags and cement patches covered hard-to-plank areas.
Photographed by George Winstead, probably immediately after her recommissioning on 1 April 1932, when Utah (AG-16) departed Norfolk on to train her engineers in using the new installations and for trials of her radio gear by which the ship could be controlled at varying rates of speed and changes of course maneuvers that a ship would conduct in battle. USN photo courtesy of Robert M. Cieri. Text courtesy of DANFS. Via Navsource
No longer considered a capital ship befitting flag officers, her 102-piece silver service, purchased by a donation from 30,000 schoolchildren of Utah (and each piece with an image of Brigham Young on it), was sent back to the state for safekeeping.
While her main and secondary armament was landed, she was equipped with a battery of 1.1-inch quads and later some 5″/38 cal DP, 5″/25, 20mm, and .50 cal mounts to help train anti-aircraft gunners. To keep said small guns from being whacked away by falling practice bombs, they had to be dismantled and stored below decks when not in use or covered with timber “doghouses.”
She carried two 5in/25 mounts forward atop No.1 and No.2 turrets respectively. Two 5in/38 mounts to port atop the port aircastle with two 5in/25s in the same position on the starboard aircastle. (The `aircastles’ are the projecting casemates abreast the bridge area for the former secondary battery). On the 01 level abeam the bridge, a quad 1.1 inch gun was carried on both sides of the ship. Aft, came two more 5in/38s atop No.4 and No.5 turrets, this time enclosed with gun shields. Finally, four Oerlikon 20mm (later scheduled to be replaced by 40mm Bofors) and eight 0.50-calibre guns completed the ensemble. An advanced gun director and stereoscopic range-finder was mounted on the top of No.3 turret and anti-aircraft and 5-inch directors fitted on the foremast area
Note her missing guns, funnel cap, and extensive extra decking
She was in roughly this configuration on the Day that will live in Infamy. Note the 5/38s rear and 5/25s forward. These were covered with heavy wooden ‘dog houses’ on Dec. 7th
Used in fleet maneuvers in the Pacific for a decade, she was resting near Battleship Row on Dec. 7, 1941.
Ironically, she was scheduled to leave Hawaii for the West Coast on Dec. 8th.
The attacking Japanese pilots in the Pearl Harbor attack had been ordered not to waste their bombs and torpedoes on the old target ship, but it has been theorized some excited aviators mistook the gleaming wooden planks on her decking to be that of an American flattop. Further, she was berthed on the Northwest side of Ford Island where visiting aircraft carriers were usually tied up on the weekends.
Utah received two (perhaps three) Japanese torpedoes in the first wave of the attack.
Painting by the artist Wayne Scarpaci showing Utah (AG-16) being torpedoed
Not retrofitted with torpedo bilges as other WWI-era U.S. battleships were, the Emperor’s fish penetrated her hull and she soon capsized, taking 64 of her sailors with her– 54 of which were trapped inside her hull and to this day never recovered.
It went quick for the old battleship. The attack began at 7:55 a.m. and by 8:11 Utah was reported to have turned turtle, her masts embedded in the harbor bottom.
One of those 64 was Chief Watertender Peter Tomich, a Bosnian immigrant who served in the U.S. Army in WWI before enlisting for a career in the Navy. Tomich saved lives that day.
CPO Peter Tomich, MOH
From his MOH citation:
Although realizing that the ship was capsizing, as a result of enemy bombing and torpedoing, Chief Watertender Tomich remained at his post in the engineering plant of the U.S.S. UTAH (AG-16), until he saw that all boilers were secured and all fireroom personnel had left their stations, and by so doing lost his own life.
Navy hardhat salvage divers made 437 dives on the stricken ship during her attempted re-righting in 1944, involving 2,227 man-hours under pressure. However, she was never fully salvaged. She was stricken from the Naval List on 13 November 1944 and is currently preserved as a war grave. A further move to salvage her in the 1950s was stillborn.
Utah‘s ships bell is located on the University of Utah campus and is maintained by the campus NROTC unit.
Utah persists to this day at her berth along Ford Island leaking oil into Pearl Harbor.
She is preserved as the USS Utah Memorial and the National Park Service, U.S. Navy and other stakeholders take her remains very seriously, mounting a color guard daily.
Underwater Photographer Captures Images of USS Utah Memorial. Shaan Hurley, a technologist from Autodesk, takes photographs of the USS Utah Memorial during a data-collecting evolution in Pearl Harbor, October 23, 2014. In a process called “photogrammetry”, the underwater photos will be inputted into computer software that will create 3D data models of the photographed areas. The National Park Service is working with several companies and agencies to gather data points to create an accurate 3D model of the ship. U.S. Navy video by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Brett Cote / RELEASED
Members of the Navy Region Hawaii Ceremonial Guard march in formation after a ceremony in honor of Pearl Harbor survivor Lt. Wayne Maxwell at the USS Utah Memorial on historic Ford Island. Maxwell was a 30-year Navy veteran and former crew member of the Farragut-class destroyer USS Aylwin during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. He was 93.
As for Chief Tomich, he was something of an orphan and his award is the only Medal of Honor since the Indian Campaigns in the late 1800s that has never been awarded either to a living recipient, or surviving family member. The state of Utah, who pronounced him a resident posthumously, long had custody of his award.
USS Tomich (DE-242), an Edsall-class destroyer escort, was named in his honor in 1942 and remained on the Naval List until 1972.
In 1989, the U.S. Navy built the Senior Enlisted Academy in Newport, R.I., and named the building Tomich Hall. Chief Tomich’s Medal of Honor is on display on the quarterdeck there.
Finally, this week, SECNAV Ray Mabus announced in Salt Lake City that SSN-801, a Virginia-class submarine under construction, will be the second vessel to carry the name Utah.
Plan, 1932 Via Navsource, notice one stack, no main guns
Displacement: Standard: 21,825 long tons (22,175 t), full load 25,000
Length: 521 ft. 8 in (159.00 m)
Beam: 88 ft. 3 in (26.90 m)
Draft: 28.3 ft. (8.6 m)
Installed power: 28,000 shp (21,000 kW)
Propulsion: Steam turbines, 4 screws. 12 Coal boilers were later replaced by 4 oil boilers in 1926.
Speed: 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Range: 5,776 nmi (6,650 mi; 10,700 km) at 10 kn (12 mph, 19 km/h) and 2,760 nmi (3,180 mi; 5,110 km) at 20 kn (23 mph, 37 km/h)
Coal: 2,500 tons (2,268 tonnes)
Complement: 1,001 officers and men as designed, 575 after 1932
Armament: (1931)
10 × 12 in (30 cm)/45 cal guns
16 × 5 in (127 mm)/51 cal guns
2 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
(1941)
4×5″/38 DP in single mounts
4×5″/25 in single mounts
8×1.1″ AAA in two quad mounts
4x20mm/80 in singles
15x.50-cal singles, water-cooled
Armor:
Belt: 9–11 in (229–279 mm)
Lower casemate: 8–10 in (203–254 mm)
Upper casemate: 5 in (127 mm)
Barbettes: 4–10 in (102–254 mm)
Turret face: 12 in (305 mm)
Conning tower: 11.5 in (292 mm)
Decks: 1.5 in (38 mm), later reinforced with wooden planks, sandbags, and concrete.
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With the new-fangled Springfield M1903 rifle being issued to replace the mechanically interesting but wanting Krag rifle, late of the Spanish-American War, the U.S. Army was interested in looking at a host of accessories for the rifles including suppressors, lights, cutting edge bayonets and, as seen here, recoil reducers.
The design of Mr. Samuel N. McClean’s device, which looked something like a vase, was for a steel brake that screwed onto the threaded muzzle of a M1903 and, through a series of six rows of perforations, reduce felt recoil by channeling the gas of the muzzle blast outward. According to McLean:
“These grooves are inclined to planes through the axis of the bore, and in such a direction that the pressure of the gases due to this inclination is opposed to the tendency to rotate caused by the rifling. The recoil is controlled by the pressure of the gases against the forward face of the spiral groove and by the reaction of the gases upon the air in their escape to the rear through the vents. The effect of the device is also to gradually lessen and very much reduce the blast of the gun, as well as the report of the discharge”
Several were acquired from the by the McLean Arms Co.by the Army for testing.
Why wasn’t it accepted?
Here’s an excerpt of the 1904 report from W.C. Brown, Capt. 1st Cavalry, Commanding Camp, San Antonio Arsenal (Fort Clark)
The ear splitting report with the device on, is particularly noticeable and dangerous to the hearing, not only to men in the vicinity of the marksmen firing, but to that marksmen as well. The recoil device formerly tested was objectionable enough – this is worse. The puff or blast of escaping gases striking the face of the marksmen is particularly annoying.
The heavy recoil of the U.S. Magazine rifle is only a minor objection, and able bodied men can readily be taught to hold the piece so that it can be fired without discomfort or inconvenience. No amount of training, however, can accustom the soldier to the sharp report with accompanies the use of this recoil device. Its use in ranks would be practically impossible, as men with sensitive cars simply could not endure the shock.
Its use would be simply to remove a minor objection (recoil) by introducing a defect so grave as to condemn the arm.
Tell us how you really feel, Cap!
What worth was the good captain’s report? Well in 1903 the spry 50-year old had 26 years service already! Contrast this against the more typical 6-8 years for today’s Army O-3.
William Carey Brown (USMA 1877), he was an interesting individual who served a dozen hard years in the Plains Wars in which he helped chase down the Apache Kid and served in the last tragic campaign against the Sioux in 1890.
5th U.S. Cavalry, the Black HIlls, 1877, photo by 2Lt. WC Brown. Yes, THAT WC Brown!
He wrote the Manual for the instruction of men of the Hospital Corps and Company Bearers in the 1880s that remained in service for a couple decades, served as the Adjutant of the U. S. Military Academy (1885-90), worked in the fledgling Bureau of Military Intelligence tasked with inspecting armaments in Europe, was on the board that designed the first Emergency Ration adopted by the U. S., invented a pipe shield for tent stoves, devised a method of folding tents to minimize wear that was adopted service-wide and helped the Army adopt the Barr & Stroud self-contained base range finder.
Then was back in the saddle, Commanding Troop E, 1st Cavalry, at battle of San Juan, July 1, 2 and 3, and participated in siege and surrender of Santiago de Cuba in the late war with Spain. Not content to sit aside, he turned in his horse in 1899 and sailed as commander (Bvt. Major) of the 1st Bn. and Cos. E and F, 42d Infantry (Volunteers) arriving Manila Bay, December 31, 1899. While in the PI he fought a number of what are termed “smart” engagements with rebels.
After the Philippines, he traveled more as an inspector for the Army (where he crossed paths with McLean’s brake) and continued his work with MI, being so well-versed in Latin American, Pacific and European jaunts that he wrote extensive tourist guides for Cook’s Travelers’ Gazette.
Once more into the breech, he was promoted to Colonel in 1914 and commanded the 10th Cavalry (Buffalo Soldiers) at the Siege of Naco. Then he rode into Mexico in 1916 with Pershing on the chase for Villa, leading an independent column of horse soldiers.
With WWI on the horizon and the tired Colonel turned down for promotion to general due to his age, he asked to go to France in his current rank when war erupted.
“Colonel Brown then made request to the Chief of Staff that if he could not be appointed a Brigadier General in the National Army, that he be permitted to go to France with the 42d Division in any capacity, announcing that if this were done he would ‘make good,'” reads his file.
And he did, serving in the Inspector Quartermaster Corps attached to the division he traveled 64,000 miles in 1917-18 and was everywhere behind the lines making sure the AEF was taken care of. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his WWI service in 1922.
(Brown)
Forced out at mandatory retirement age of 64 on 19 Dec. 1918, he was recommended for promotion the day before he processed out for brigadier general but was not named one on the retired list until 1927.
He died in 1939, no doubt chomping at the bit to go to Europe to fight once more as the specter of a Second World War loomed.
His photographic collection is preserved in the Army’s archives. Further, his papers at the University of Colorado Library are invaluable to researchers.
He’d probably like that more than he liked the McLean Muzzle brake.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Herbert Knotel
Born in 1893 in Berlin, then the capital of old Hohenzollern Prussia and that of Imperial Germany as a whole, Herbert Knotel was the son of renowned uniformologist and military historian Richard Knötel (1857-1914). The elder Knotel pioneered uniform art and in many cases drew from preserved examples whenever possible.
Herbert found himself as a officer in the Prussian Army and, assigned to Hindenburg’s 1st Army was wounded at Tannenburg during WWI. He finished the war as a Hauptmann in a horse cavalry unit on the Eastern Front.
With the world turned upside down in 1919, he returned to Berlin and took up the family business, both expanding and preserving his father’s inherited work and producing original plates of his own while helping run the Berlin Zeughaus Museum.
He was meticulous, first sketching his art, then using watercolors for shading and fill work and finishing with acrylics.
Lancer of Berg by R. Knötel for reference (From the Library of Tony Broughton)
When the Soviets occupied Berlin in 1945, Knotel was commissioned to cover the uniforms of that force in an epic 50-plate set, drawing many from officers and enlisted he met from Zhukov’s Red Army. These were later combined with over 100 images of the Tsarist army uniforms to create a single volume.
“The woman, seen on theatricals event in January 1946, probably frontline Artist”
“The commander of the Special Operations Group, who selected the watch for me and my wife”
“The captain of the Polish infantry unit as a part of the Soviet Army – 1945”
(Dig the swim gear on the pioneer)
Knotel died in 1963.
A huge cross-section of his work, including the Soviet set, is maintained online at the Anne S.K.Brown collection.
The modern tome that best covers his (non-Soviet) work is Herbert Knotel’s German Armies in Color: As Illustrated in His Watercolors & Sketches by Andrew Woelflein and Napoleonic uniforms by Col. John Robert Elting.
Laid down, 28 December 1967, at Pacific Coast Engineering Co., in Alameda, the heroically named Skilak (YFU-79), was just 125-feet long and could plod along at 9 knots. Armed with 3 M2 machine guns to ward off enemy sappers and sampans, she had a crew of a dozen commanded by an NCO. She was based on a commercial off-the-shelf design for logistics boats used on the Alaskan oil pipeline.
Her mission? As an Army Yard Freight Utility Craft, she was used to shuttle cargo and supplies around the RVN in the hard use of the US Army 329th Heavy Boat Co. “U-boat soldiers” for I Corps at Da Nang, which she dutifully pulled off until 1975 when she was evacuated to Guam after the fall of Saigon.
YFU-79 with a load of retrograde Army and Marine equipment at Tan My (just down river from Hue) late in 1969, I-CORPS Vietnam. YFU-79 would haul this type of cargo back to DaNang and usually pick up ammo to deliver back up north. Photo by Thomas Lanagan YFU-79 Via Navsource
Well in 1986 the Navy picked her up after ten years of afloat storage in the island territory and, as IX-514, stripped her of her guns, updated her electronics and powerplant, installed a helicopter deck and lighting, had her bridge moved forward and then shipped her to Pensacola.
There she served as the Helicopter Landing Trainer (HLT) for over 20 years, getting underway for about 90 days per year to allow approaches, landings and take offs by Navy, Coast Guard and Marine chopper trainees on TH-57 Jet Rangers. And she was good at what she did, setting a record of 346 landings in a single day’s evolution– which isnt bad for a 125-foot long carrier!
060825-N-5328N-745 Pensacola Bay (Aug. 25, 2006) – A TH-57 training helicopter from Helicopter Training Squadron Eight at Naval Air Station (NAS) Whiting Field, makes a landing aboard the Navy Helicopter Landing Trainer (HLT) IX-514, marking the 100,000th consecutive accident-free landing on HLT IX-514. The helicopter, which is crewed by student pilot Navy Lt. j.g. David Dostal and instructor Navy Lt. Teresa Ferry. U.S. Navy photo by Gary Nichols (RELEASED)
Baylander (ex-IX-514, ex-YFU-79), veteran of 120,000+ landings, was brought to the Brooklyn Bridge Park Marina in 2014 where she now serves as a museum of sorts in addition to a more sedate role in shuttling NY Harbor School students to access their classes on Governor’s Island as part of the sailing school program.
Frank Spizuoco over at Maine Military Supply in Holden just picked up a pre-owned former Polish Air Force MiG-21 R (NATO “Fishbed-H”) reconnaissance fighter and is setting it up on static display.
After more than seven decades, the Royal Navy’s standard ‘flies’ once more on the Mighty Hood.
Two thousand eight hundred and forty-eight meters – 9,330ft, or a mile and three quarters – below the surface of the Denmark Strait, the White Ensign has been placed on the remains of the battlecruiser.
It took the robot submarine which ‘hoisted’ the flag more than two and a half hours to reach the warship’s wreck, the last resting place of 1,415 men killed when the Hood blew up in battle with Hitler’s flagship Bismarck in May 1941.
The ensign was placed close to the shattered bow of the Hood, which was the pride of the Navy and nation between the two world wars.
The ‘raising’ of the Navy’s standard on the wreck formed part of a three-pronged mission led by Microsoft founder and philanthropist Paul G Allen with deep-sea exploration experts Blue Water Recoveries – who found the Hood back in 2001.
As part of the successful recovery of the bell, the underwater specialists promised to place a White Ensign and, if possible, clean a memorial plaque placed on a previous expedition.
The submersible was in the process of moving the plaque so it could be smartened up when bad weather on the surface forced the team to abandon the operation and bring the mini-sub back up.
Picture courtesy of Paul G Allen. Hattip Navy News
Warship Wednesday, Aug 12, His Majesty’s Frozen U-boat Busting Bulldog
Here we see the modified V-class destroyer HMS Vansittart (D64) of the Royal Navy tied to a buoy in 1943. The hardy ship was a member of a huge group of WWI-era British tin cans that pulled yeoman service in the twilight of their lives.
In 1916, the Admiralty was in dire need of as many destroyers as they could find to fight the ever-growing U-boat menace that threatened to cut the British Isles off and hand victory to the Kaiser. This led to a crash emergency order of up to 107 Admiralty V-class flotilla leaders.
The Brit’s previous design– the 275-foot/1,075-ton S-class– mounted three 4-inch popguns, a pair of 18-inch torpedo tubes and could make 36 knots on two boilers. Well, the new V-boats were much larger at 312-feet/1,360-tons, higher to allow for a large wireless suite, needed three boilers, but upped the armament to a quartet of QF 4 in Mk.V mounts and 3 21 inch torpedo tubes a triple tube arrangement.
The first ship, Valentine, was laid down in August and completed just seven months later. By the end of the war, these hardy boats numbered some 67 hulls afloat and the remaining 40 were canceled.
Now enter the subject of our tale: HMS Vansittart (D64).
Laid down at William Beardmore and Company, Dalmuir, on New Year’s Day 1918 (no holidays off during wartime) she was completed after the war and only commissioned 5 November 1919.
Built to a modified W-class design, she shipped 1,550-tons largely due to her heavier suite of 4 x BL 4.7 in (120-mm) Mk.I guns, each capable of firing a 50-pound semi-armor piercing shell to 14,450 meters and a full half-dozen torpedo tubes rather than the original trio.
Vansittart served with the 4th Destroyer Flotilla and the Mediterranean squadrons then was laid up in 1925 due to the overall draw-down of the RN in those lean years. For the next 14 years, she was part of the Maintenance Reserve at Rosyth, staffed by reservists occasionally on summer training, and was reactivated in August 1939 as the drumbeat of a new war called.
By September 12, she was part of the 15th Destroyer Flotilla and serving on convoy duty in the Channel, protecting the BEF crossing into Europe. Next, Vansittart shipped to Norway and took part in the pivotal destroyer clash that was the Battle of Narvik, where she was damaged by German aircraft, then promptly returned to convoy duty and the evacuation of Rotterdam in May.
On 1 Jul 1940, as Britain stood alone in the War, she took out German Type VIIB U-boat U-102 in the North Atlantic south-west of Ireland, in position 48°33’N, 10°26’E, by 11 depth charges then proceeded to pick up 26 survivors from the British merchant Clearton, U-102′s last victim.
U-102 took all 43 hands including Kptlt. Harro von Klot-Heydenfeldt to the bottom.
Vansittart at the time had a very photogenic mascot.
A bulldog named Venus stands at the helm of the HMS Vansittart, a British Destroyer, c.1941
Venus was one god looking pooch
More gratuitous Venus
1941 saw Vansittart assisting in mine laying operations off the French coast and spending a few days in May searching for SMS Bismarck.
She was adopted by the town of Kidderminster during the Warship Week National Savings drive in December 1941. The RN got their money’s worth out of the Great War-era ship, later allowing Hereford to adopt the old girl as well in the war.
THE MAYOR OF KIDDERMINSTER, ALDERMAN O W DAVIES, VISITS HMS VANSITTART – THE TOWN’S ADOPTED SHIP. 11 JUNE 1942 IWM photo A 10786 (The officer shaking hands with the mayor of Kidderminster is Lt Cdr Thomas Johnston DSC, who captained HMS Vansittart from 1942 to 43 including the relief of Malta)
In February 1942, she reported to Gibraltar and took part in the epic resupply convoys to besieged Malta including Operation Pedestal where she helped screen HMS Eagle from both air and submarine attacks.
By 1943, she was undergoing a six-month refit at Middleborough from which she emerged with a more potent AAA defense, and traded in half her torpedo tubes for more ASW weapons, but restricted to just 25 knots.
This put her back to escorting merchant convoys in the Atlantic for the rest of the war, including some very hard service in the ice zones.
Chipping away ice on the deck of H.M.S. Vansittart on convoy escort duty in the Arctic
Soon after VE Day, unneeded for the war in the Pacific, she was placed up for disposal along with the rest of the ships of her class still in the Atlantic.
As a whole, these hardy little ships gave their full measure, with many going down fighting.
At least 35 of the class survived the war only to be unceremoniously paid off and sold to the breakers between 1945 and 1948. The last afloat, the Australian-manned HMAS Vendetta (D69), was scuttled off Sydney on 2 July 1948.
The hero of our story is not immune to this fate, being sold to BISCO for scrap on 25 February 1946.
She is remembered on a .26 Euro stamp issued to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Malta run.
Displacement: 1,140 tons standard, 1,550 tons full
Length: 300 ft. o/a, 312 ft. p/p
Beam: 30 ft.
Draught: 10 ft. 11 in
Propulsion: 3 Yarrow type Water-tube boilers, Brown-Curtis steam turbines, 2 shafts, 27,000 shp
Speed: 34 kn
Reduced to 25 kn 1943
Range: 320-370 tons of oil
3,500 nmi at 15 kn
900 nmi at 32 kn
Complement: 111 as designed, 150 by 1943
Type 271 surface warning Radar fitted 1942
Armament: As-built 1920:
• 4 x BL 4.7 in (120-mm) Mk.I guns mount P Mk.I
• 2 x QF 2 pdr Mk.II “pom-pom” (40 mm L/39)
• 6 × 21-inch Torpedo Tubes
1943 LRE conversion:
• 3 × BL 4.7 in (120mm) Mk.I L/45 guns
• 1 × QF 12 pounder 12 cwt naval gun
• 2 × QF 2 pdr Mk.II “pom-pom” (40 mm L/39)
• 2 × 20mm Orkelion cannons
• 3 × 21-inch Torpedo Tubes (one triple mount)
• 2 × depth charge racks
• Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar
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