A largely forgotten part of the war in South East Asia was the one fought by the U.S. Army’s gun trucks as part of convoy operations through the heart of enemy territory.
While Hollywood would tell you everything moved by chopper in Vietnam, the hard fact of life was that it was truck convoys that schlepped the bulk of the food, fuel and ammo to American and allied units stationed in the countryside. However, these predicable routes became target for enemy ambushes.
One of the worst supply runs was that along Route 19, some 150 miles of winding nowhere that became known as “Ambush Alley” for the motor transportation guys having to make the drive.
The response: hit the scrap piles and, using salvaged steel, sandbags and anything else they could find, up-armor Deuce and a Half and later 5 ton trucks then pile on whatever ordnance they could mount. In some instances, this ran all the way up to entire M113 armored personnel carrier bodies.
Sqn Ldr Munro died in hospital in his native New Zealand on Tuesday following heart problems, the association said.
The legendary World War Two Dambusters operation (Operation Chastise) flew from RAF Scampton, near Lincoln, in 1943 and successfully used “bouncing bombs” to attack German dams.
There are now only two surviving crew members of the Dambusters missions.
Warship Wednesday, Aug 5, 5015: 225 Years of Semper Paratus
In honor of the Coast Guard’s 225th Birthday this week, this one is a no-brainer.
Here we see the oldest vessel in the U.S. Coast Guard and one of the last ships afloat and in active service that dates from World War II (although from the other side), the Gorch Fock-class segelschulschiff training barque USCGC Eagle (WIX-327), America’s only active-duty square-rigger.
The Gorch Focks
Designed by John Stanley, the Gorch Fock-class school ships, three master barques with 269-foot long steel hulls, 18,000 sq. feet of square-rigged sails fore and main and gaff-rigged mizzens were perhaps the best training ships built in the 20th Century.
Horst Wessel at sea 1938
First ordered to replace the lost Segelschulschiff Niobe, which capsized in 1932, SSS Gorch Fock was ordered the same year from Blohm and Voss in Hamburg and completed in just 100 days. Then, with a need to greatly expand the German Kriegsmarine soon followed sisters SSS Horst Wessel in 1936, SSS Albert Leo Schlageter in 1937, Mircea for the Romanian Navy in 1937, and SSS Herbert Norkus in 1939.
The subject of our story, Horst Wessel was a happy ship, commissioning 17 September 1936, and spent summer cruises in 1937-39 roaming the globe with a crew of German officer cadets and craggy old chiefs and officers that dated back to the Kaiser’s time.
Importantly for history, her christening was the scene of an image that is perhaps more famous than she was.
August Landmesser was a worker at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg. He appeared in a photograph refusing to perform the Nazi salute at the launch of the naval training vessel Horst Wessel on 13 June 1936.
“He had been a Nazi Party member from 1931 to 1935, but after fathering children with a Jewish woman, he had been found guilty of “dishonoring the race” under Nazi racial laws and had come to oppose Hitler’s regime. In February 1944 he was drafted into a penal unit, the 999th Infantry Battalion, where he was declared missing in action and presumably killed.”
Horst Wessel (the future USCGC Eagle) at the Mürwik Naval Academy in Flensburg, Germany during 1937, two years prior to the start of WWII. Eight years later the situation would be much different: the academy was the seat of government for Adm. Karl Dönitz, who briefly presided over what remained of the Third Reich from 30 April – 8 May 1945.
Crewmen on Horst Wessel performing a totenwacht over a dead comrade
Horst Wessel
Her German Eagle figurehead
When war came, the training fleet was laid up with Herbert Norkus, never fully completed, sunk at the end of the conflict, Gorch Fock herself scuttled in shallow waters off Rügen in an attempt to avoid her capture by the Soviets, who raised her and used her anyway as the training ship Tovarishch for decades, Schlageter damaged by a mine then confiscated and sold in poor shape to Brazil and Horst Wessel with an interesting story of her own.
Armed with several 20mm flak mounts, Horst Wessel had shuttled around the relatively safe waters of the Baltic and came out of the war unscathed.
Coming to America
The Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE laying at a shipyard in Bremerhaven, Germany, in 1946, being rigged and outfitted for her voyage to the United States. Note bombed outbuildings in the background
Won by the U.S. in a lottery of captured but still salvageable German ships, she was sailed to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy where she took the place of the 188-foot Danish merchant academy training ship Danmark, who interned during the war, had trained thousands of USCG and Merchant Marine officers.
Horst Wessel arrived with a mix of new USCG plankowners including 6 officers and 55 men, who shadowed a German volunteer crew consisting of the vessel’s former skipper, Kpt/Lt. Barthold Schnibbe and 48 men, and was commissioned 15 May 1946, as USCGC Eagle while Danmark was returned to her proper owners that September after Eagle was ready for deployment.
A plaque with the names of her mixed first USCG/last German cruise. It could probably be considered the last Atlantic crossing by the Kriegsmarine.
Since then she has been used extensively with a core USCG cadre crew of six officers and 55 enlisted personnel and as many as 150 cadets on summer and even yearlong cruises. During the past seven decades, it can be said that she has sailed with over 10,000 swabs holystoning her decks and rigging her lines.
Eagle under U.S. Flag 1954. Note that she did not receive her distinctive red racing stripe until 1976– the last ship in the Coast Guard to do so
She has been inspected by just about every sitting President since Truman including JFK, a former Navy man.
August 15, 1962–President John F. Kennedy addressing Cadets while visiting on board the U.S Coast Guard Academy training bark EAGLE,
President Kennedy reviewed USCGC Eagle’s crew in 1962. Note the M1 Garands, still a staple of the USCGA.
Eagle allows future officers to put into practice the navigation, engineering, damage control, and other professional theories they have previously learned in the classroom.
ATLANTIC OCEAN – Photo of events aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle July 6, 2012. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.
Upper-class trainees have a chance to learn leadership and service duties normally handled by junior officers, while underclass trainees fill crew positions of a junior enlisted person, such as helm watches at the huge double wooden wheels used to steer the vessel.
The sails are set aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle on Wednesday, July 27, 2011. The Eagle is underway on the 2011 Summer Training Cruise, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the 295-foot barque. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi
Everyone who trains on Eagle experiences a character-building experience gained from working on a tall ship at sea.
U.S. Coast Guard Academy Third Class Cadet Brandon Foy climbs the rigging Tuesday, July 12, 2011, aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle. Foy is one of 137 cadets sailing aboard the 295-foot barque during the 2011 Summer Training Cruise, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the ship. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi
To maneuver Eagle under sail after her rerigging to a larger set of canvas than the Germans used, the crew must handle more than 22,000 square feet of sail and five miles of rigging.
The sails are set Saturday, June 25, 2011, aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle in the Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and the United Kingdom. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi
Over 200 lines control the sails and yards, and every crewmember, cadet, and officer candidate, must become intimately familiar with the name, operation, and function of each line.
The crew aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle work to take in the sails as the ship heads to Corpus Christi, Texas, July 2, 2010. Crewmen work in the rigging nearly 100 feet above the water. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.
While she has the nickname of “America’s Tall Ship” and is seen around the world waving the flag, her bread and butter are training cadets from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy as well as NOAA Officer Candidates and the occasional Navy, and Merchant Marine, and foreign allied maritime officers as well.
The crew aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle work to take in the sails as the ship heads to Corpus Christi, Texas, July 2, 2010. Crewmen work in the rigging nearly 100 feet above the water. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.
And all those sails don’t raise themselves
These ships have proven durable, with Gorch Fock returning to Germany from Russia in 2003 and resuming her old name as a museum ship, Mircea entering her 77th year of service to the Romanian Navy this year, and Albert Leo Schlageter— sailing under the name Sagres III for Portugal since 1961– all still in active service.
Truth be told, only the sad Herbert Norkus, which never sailed anyway, has been lost from the original five-ship class.
Further, since the war ended, another five ships have been built to the same, although updated, design. These include yet another Gorch Fock (built for West Germany in 1958), Gloria (1967, Colombia), Guayas (1976, Ecuador), Simón Bolívar (1979, Venezuela), and Cuauhtémoc (1982, Mexico).
In short, nine tall ships are running around the earth to the same general specs.
And the best traveled of the pack is Eagle, who is all ours and hopefully will see another 75 years under sail.
CARIBBEAN OCEAN – The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle transits the Caribbean Ocean under full sail on Monday, June 7, 2010. Crewmembers assigned to the Eagle “America’s Tall Ship” set sail from New London, Conn., for the annual Summer Training Program in April. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Jetta H. Disco.
ATLANTIC OCEAN – The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through dense fog, Tuesday, July 17, 2012. The crew of the Eagle takes extra safety precautions when sailing through the fog, such as sounding the foghorn and standing extra lookouts. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Erik Swanson.
(June 26, 2005) ONBOARD THE USCGC EAGLE – A view from the bowsprit onboard the Eagle during a cadet summer training patrol. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE designated ‘America’s Tallship’ is a three-masted, square-rigged sailing vessel. Coast Guard photo by Ensign Ryan Beck)
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (May 20)–The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails into Guantanamo Bay to spend the night. The Eagle is involved in training exercises in the Caribbean. USN photo by FINCH, MICHAEL L LCDR
The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through the ocean as the moon’s reflection beams across the sea. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Walter Shinn)
Seaman Katy Turner (right) of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Petty Officer 1st Class Ted Hubbard of West Springfield, Mass., work from one of Coast Guard Cutter Eagle’s small boats to inspect and clean the hull before entering port Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009. Conducting small boat operations is one of the most dangerous evolutions for the crew because the small boats are lowered manually by crewmembers, rather than by a mechanical hoist.
The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle is seen on a foggy Sunday morning at the Coast Guard Yard, Baltimore, Nov. 17, 2013. The Eagle, a 295-foot barque home-ported in New London, Conn., is a training ship used primarily for Coast Guard cadets and officer candidates. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lisa Ferdinando)
ATLANTIC OCEAN – The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through dense fog, Tuesday, July 17, 2012. The crew of the Eagle takes extra safety precautions when sailing through the fog, such as sounding the foghorn and standing extra lookouts. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Erik Swanson.
Although she long ago landed her German eagle for an American one, which carries the Coast Guard seal (while the old one collects dust as a war trophy at the USCGA Museum) and her original wheel carries her Horst Wessel birth name, it also carries her new monicker as well.
Her original German figurehead is on display at the USCGA Museum
The figurehead of the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle is seen on a foggy Sunday morning at the Coast Guard Yard, Baltimore, Nov. 17, 2013. The Eagle, a 295-foot barque home-ported in New London, Conn., is a training ship used primarily for Coast Guard cadets and officer candidates. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lisa Ferdinando)
(June 23, 2005) – ONBOARD THE USCGC EAGLE – A U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadet takes the helm during a summer training patrol onboard the Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE. The three-masted, square-rigged sailing vessel is normally homeported in New London, Connecticut, and sails each summer for months at a time, visiting ports around the U.S. and abroad. (Coast Guard photo by Ensign Ryan Beck)
The helm of the Coast Guard Cutter Barque Eagle. Coast Guard photo by PA1 Donnie Brzuska, PADET Jacksonville, Fla.
In an oil painting on masonite, renowned aviation artist William S. Phillips depicts two icons of the Coast Guard: the cutter Eagle, and an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter, the standard rescue aircraft of the Coast Guard.
The ceremony will take place on Friday appx. 10:30 a.m. August 7 at the Oliver Hazard Perry Pier at Fort Adams State Park, Newport, R.I.
Eagle will be open to the public for tours at approximately 12 p.m. following the commemorative stamp unveiling ceremony.
In the event of inclement weather, the ceremony will take place in the visitor center across from the pier.
In Newport, Eagle will be open for free public tours:
* Friday from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
* Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 7 p.m.
* Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Cutter Eagle by John Wisinski (ID# 90138)
If you cannot make Newport, the Eagle has her own social media account that is regularly updated and on a long enough timeline, she will be in a port near you.
Specs:
Length – 295 feet, 231 feet at waterline
Beam, greatest – 39.1 feet
Freeboard – 9.1 feet
Draft, fully loaded – 16 feet
Displacement – 1824 tons
Ballast (lead) – 380 tons
Fuel oil – 23,402 gallons
Anchors – 3,500 lbs. port, 4,400 lbs. starboard
Rigging – 6 miles, standing and running
Height of mainmast – 147.3 feet
Height of foremast – 147.3 feet
Height of mizzenmast – 132.0 feet
Fore and main yard – 78.8 feet
Speed under power – 10 knots
Speed under full sail – 17 knots
Sail area – 22,300 square feet
Engine – 1,000 horsepower diesel Caterpillar D399 engine replaced 700hp original diesel
Generators – two-320 kilowatt Caterpillar 3406 generators
Training complement – 6 officers, 54 crew, 20 temporary active duty crew when at sea, 140 cadets average.
Maximum capacity – 239 people
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The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to encouraging the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
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A 3rd Marine Regiment color guard takes its place, July 25, 2015, during a repatriation ceremony in Tarawa, Kiribati. The ceremony honored the remains of approximately 36 Marines who fought and died during the Battle of Tarawa during World War II, and were loaded onto a C-130J Hercules aircraft to be transported back home to the United States. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Matthew J. Bragg)
The 3rd Marine Regiment took custody of 36 flag-draped caskets Saturday in Tarawa and flew them home to Hawaii via a Marine KC-130J where the remains will be identified (hopefully) and interred with full military honors.
Among the returned is believed to be the final earthly remains of 1st Lt. Alexander Bonnyman, Jr., who was one of four Medal of Honor recipients for his actions on Tarawa, and the only one whose remains have been unaccounted for.
Back in June I covered the famous raider CSS Alabama which, under the command of the Pirate of the Confederacy, Capt. (later Admiral/Brig. Gen.) Raphael Semmes, CSN (USN, resigned), captured an amazing 65 prizes and destroyed the side-wheeler gunboat USS Hatteras.
In that piece I gave you a sneak peak of his uber rare Houllier-Blanchard revolver.
Well, I’m back with a little more info on that piece after getting with the city-run History Museum of Mobile.
Click to big up
The gun is a cap and ball black powder .36 caliber wheelgun held in a rosewood case that holds the handgun and accessories, the metal plate on the lid reads, “Presented to Captain Raphael Semmes, Belsize Park, 14 May 1862.”
The last Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate deployment ended on Sunday when USS Kauffman (FFG-59) returned to Naval Station Norfolk, Va. following six months in U.S. Southern Command last week, ending the Navy’s 42 year hot and cold love affair with these ships.
It’s the end of a heck of a ride that started 10 March 1973 when USS Oliver Hazard Perry (PFG-109, FFG-7) was ordered. As noted by USNI, the once 51-ship class now just has 15 hulls left in Uncle’s inventory, and they are all set to dispose within the year.
150410-N-IG780-186 PANAMA CANAL, Panama (April 10, 2015) The guided-missile frigate USS Kauffman (FFG 59) transits the Panama Canal. Kauffman is underway in support of Operation Martillo, a joint operation with the U.S. Coast Guard and partner nations within the U.S. 4th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Shane A. Jackson/Released)
Robin Olds, a triple ace with 16 confirmed kills, four in Vietnam and 12 in the European Theater of WWII. Seen here at the controls of his F4 Phantom, 1966.
The rakish gentleman with the Tom Selleck lip lizard is USAF Col (later Brig, Gen) Robin Olds. Olds was a “triple ace” whose father was one of the founders of U.S. combat aviation. Born in 1922, Olds attempted to join the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1939 at age 17 but was thwarted by his father’s refusal to approve his enlistment papers. Instead he went on to West Point and by 1943 was flying P-38s.
Over the next 30 years he racked up a combined total of 16 victories in World War II and the Vietnam War where he had updated his ride to the F-4 Phantom.
United States Air Force Colonel Robin Olds stands in front of his F-4C Phantom II “SCAT XXVII”. Olds named all of his aircraft after his Westpoint roommate, Scat Davis, who couldn’t become a military pilot due to poor eyesight. Note the MIG kills on the intake. (USAF photos via the National Museum of the USAF)
Painting a kill marker on his bird. Dig the old school .38
He finished his career as commandant of cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Perhaps one of the most amazing and unsung USCG heroes was Bernard C. “Bernie” Webber, coxswain of motor lifeboat CG-36500, from Station Chatham, Massachusetts. He and his crew of three rescued the crew of the stricken T-2 tanker Pendleton, which had broken in half during a horrific storm on 18 February 1952 off the coast of Massachusetts.
In 60-foot seas.
In a 36-foot boat.
It looks like there is one heck of a movie coming out detailing that event.
The USCGC Bernard C. Webber (WPC-1101), first of the United States Coast Guard’s Sentinel-class cutters is named after this hero.
MIAMI — The Coast Guard Cutter Webber, the Coast Guard’s first Sentinel Class patrol boat, arrives at Coast Guard Sector Miami Feb. 9, 2012. The 154-foot Webber is a Fast Response Cutter capable of independently deploying to conduct missions such as ports, waterways, and coastal security, fishery patrols, drug and illegal migrant law enforcement, search and rescue, and national defense along the Gulf of Mexico and throughout the Caribbean. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Sabrina Elgammal.
The Battle of Tarawa (US code name Operation Galvanic) was one of the bloodiest of the Pacific T/O during WWII. Nearly 6,400 Japanese, Koreans, and Americans died in the fighting, mostly on and around the small island of Betio. Many have never been recovered
The bodies of 36 US Marines have been found on a remote Pacific island more than 70 years after they died in a bloody World War II battle, a member of the recovery team said.
The remains of the men were discovered after a four-month excavation on Betio Island in Kiribati, director of US charity History Flight Inc., Mark Noah, told Radio New Zealand.
Noah, whose organization worked with the US Defense Department on the project, said the men were killed during the Battle of Tarawa in 1943.
“(They) had an expectation that if they were to die in the line of duty defending their country they would be brought home… that was a promise made 70 years ago that we felt should be kept,” he said late Tuesday.
While the remains have not been formally identified, Noah said they almost certainly include those of Lieutenant Alexander Bonnyman, who posthumously received America’s highest military accolade, the Medal of Honor, for conspicuous gallantry.
