80 years ago today. Infantrymen of the French-Canadian Régiment de la Chaudière, who are wearing British winter camouflage clothing, on patrol, Bergendal, Netherlands, 24 January 1945. This is either a training course or a unit’s sniper section. The rifles are No.4 Mk.I (T) or No.4 Mk.I* (T). Equipped with No. 32 scopes.
(L-R): Sergeants R.A. Wilkinson and René Letendre, Lieutenant Pierre-Paul Elie, Corporal W. Arsenault and Private Jean-Paul Drouin. Department of National Defence. Library and Archives Canada, PA-137987 by Lieut. Barney J. Gloster
Formed as a reserve unit in 1869, the regiment sailed for Britain in July 1941 and garrisoned the islands until landed on Juno Beach at Bernières-sur-Mer, France, on D-Day, 6 June 1944, from HMCS Prince David and fought their way across Northwest Europe over the next 10 months as part of the 8th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division.
Private Jack Roy of Le Régiment de la Chaudière preparing to disembark from HMCS Prince David off Bernières-sur-Mer, France, 6 June 1944. Note the No. 38 field wireless set across his chest, E-tool slung over his shoulder, helmet skrim, and wrapped Enfield. PD-371 LAC 3396561
An unidentified infantryman of Le Régiment de la Chaudière, 8th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, preparing to disembark from HMCS Prince David off the Normandy beachhead, France, 6 June 1944. Note that his Enfield is in a protective plastic bag. PD-360. LAC 3202207
They earned 19 battle honors for their time in Europe.
Still on the Canadian rolls, as a reserve unit, they are garrisoned in Levis, Quebec.
With personal space at a premium inside the tracked metal monsters of a World War II tank battalion, guns sometimes got unofficially smaller.
Check out this great image, snapped some 80 years ago this month, of two members of the 784th Tank Battalion at a railway marshaling yard in recently occupied Eschweiler, Germany on 23 January 1945, just after the Battle of the Bulge.
(Photo: W.C. Sanderson/ Signal Corps No. 111-SC-259409/ NARA NAID 276537211)
According to the official released wartime caption, the above shows Pfc. Floyd McMurthry (in the foreground) of Canton, Ohio, test-firing an M-3 Grease gun, while Pvt. Willie R. Gibbs (in the background) of Birmingham, Alabama, test-fires a sawed-off M-1 Carbine “which he shortened with his light tank to make it easier to handle.”
Let’s zoom in on that M1 a bit.
Judging by the size of the 8.5-inch handguard on the M1 Carbine, Pvt. Gibbs seems to have whittled this gun down to about 24 inches overall, with most of the 17.75-inch barrel abbreviated. The standard M1 Carbine went 35.6 inches overall.
No word on how the performance of the short-stroke piston action Carbine was affected in the above instance, although it is known that, some 20 years after the above image was captured, American advisors in Vietnam were often chopping down their M1s to more pistol length versions. Meanwhile, “Enforcer” pistols from Iver Johnson and Universal were marketed in the 1970s-90s with barrel lengths in the 9.5 to 10.25-inch range.
But that’s a different article.
For reference, the 784th Tank Battalion, a segregated unit equipped with a mix of M4 Sherman medium Tanks and M5A1 Stuart light tanks, entered combat in Europe in December 1944 and fought its way into Germany with the 104th “Timberwolf” Infantry Division.
Company B, 784th Tank Battalion at Sevelen, Germany on March 5, 1945. The two tanks to the left and right are M5 Stuarts while the vehicle in the center of the image is an M3 half-track. Note the extensive use of M3 Grease Guns, which remained prized by American armored vehicle crews through the 1990s. (U.S. Army Photo: SC 336785)
The 784th later linked up with advancing Soviet troops on the Elbe River and spent several months on occupation duty in Germany after the war. The 700-member battalion suffered nearly 200 casualties during its WWII service.
Short Cruise on a Destroyer Escort, By Ernie Pyle:
“So now I’m a D-E sailor. Full-fledged one. Drenched from head to foot with salt water. Sleep with a leg crooked around your rack so you won’t fall out. Put wet bread under your dinner tray to keep it from sliding.
They are rough-and-tumble little ships. Their afterdecks are laden with depth charges. They can turn in half the space of a Destroyer. Their forward guns can seldom be used, because waves are breaking over them.
They roll and they plunge. They buck and they twist. They shudder and they fall through space. Their sailors say they should have flight pay and sub pay both — they’re in the air half the time, underwater half the time. Their men are accustomed to being wet and think nothing of it.
I came back from the northern waters on a D-E. When a wave comes over and you get soaked and a sailor laughs and says, ‘Now you’re a D-E sailor,’ it makes you feel kind of proud.”
Destroyer Escort, WGT (Butler) type, plows into heavy seas, during operations in support of the Lingayen Gulf invasion, 12 January 1945. USS Colorado (BB-45) is steaming in the distance. Photographed from the escort carrier USS Makin Island (CVE-93) 80-G-301255
20 June 1963. A brand new Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguard (S-62C) doing what it was good at– landing in calm(ish) water to make hull-borne rescues, in this case during an exercise. The bird, CG1363 (MSN-62-040), is from the Coast Guard Air Station, Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, 3rd CG District.
USCG Photo 26-G-06-17-63(04), National Archives Identifier 205591343
Sadly, 1363 was destroyed at Trinidad Head near Eureka, California on 22 December 1964, just 18 months after the above photo was snapped. The helicopter crashed into a mountain in IFR conditions during a flood rescue operation in a heavy storm, killing all seven aboard including three crewmen and four individuals that had just been rescued.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Carney launches land-attack missiles while operating in the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command area of responsibility, Feb. 3, 2024. The Carney was deployed as part of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group to support maritime security and stability in the Middle East. U.S. Navy Photo 240203-N-GF955-1012
Her epic 235-day October 2023-May 2024 deployment to the Red Sea to keep the area open in the face of Houthi attacks earned her a Navy Unit Commendation (her third) and she took part in a staggering 51 engagements against a high-low mix of everything from cruise missiles and anti-ship ballistic missiles to swarms of much simpler prop-driven one-way attack drones.
She also made the first publicly acknowledged SM-6 combat intercept, downed air-to-air targets with her 5-inch gun (!), and launched retaliatory TLAM strikes against targets ashore.
Her entire crew earned the Navy’s Combat Action Ribbon while her skipper picked up a Bronze Star and other key members of the crew received Meritorious Service Medals, Navy Commendation Medals, and Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals– well deserved as the ship had the highest anti-air op-tempo that the U.S. Navy has seen since 1945.
An excellent 10-minute Navy film, USS Carney: A Destroyer at War, dives deeper with crew interviews:
80 years ago this week. Stavelot, Belgium. 21 December 1944. “Men of the 823rd Tank Destroyer Battalion are responsible for knocking out four attacking King Tiger German tanks.” The image comes as the men are working to reduce “The Bulge” in the Ardennes while attached to the 30th “Hickory” Divison.
Dig the Tanker boots and varied mix of uniforms. U.S. Army Signal Corps Photo SC 334902
Left to right: Pvt. Robert H. Grout, Columbia, South Carolina, Pfc. Raymond Clements, Indiantown, Florida; T/5 Clarence West, Lilly, La.; Cpl. Buel O. Sheridan, Sheridan, Texas; Sgt. Clyde Gentry, Tucson, Arizona; and S/Sgt. Oron Revis, Klamath Falls, Oregon.
The 823rd Tank Destroyer Bn, 30th Infantry Division, with their newly-issued M10 Wolverines. (Photo courtesy of 30th Infantry Division Association)
Activated on 25 July 1942, at Camp Carson, Colorado. Arrived in England in April 1944. Landed at Omaha beach on 24 June with towed 3-inch guns. Supported drive on St. Lô. Fought at Mortain in August. Passed through Belgium and Holland, entered Germany on 17 September. Fought along Siegfried Line in October, including encirclement of Aachen.
Converted to M10’s beginning in November 1944. Shifted to the Ardennes in late December and fought to eliminate the Bulge in January 1945. Crossed Roer River on 24 February and Rhine on 24 March. Raced eastward to Elbe River at Magdeburg in April. Began military occupation duties on 21 April.
Above we see the magnificent modified York-class heavy cruiser HMS Exeter (68), entering Grand Harbour, Valetta, Malta, likely during her service with the Mediterranean Fleet’s 1st Cruiser Squadron at Alexandria, during the Abyssinian crisis between October 1935 and July 1936.
Simultaneously the final British warship to be built with 8-inch guns and the last “Washington” treaty cruiser built for the Royal Navy, she would use her guns to good effect against a tough “pocket battleship” some 85 years ago this week.
The Yorks
Sometimes referred to as the “Cathedral” class cruisers, York and her near-sister HMS Exeter (68) were essentially cheaper versions of the Royal Navy’s baker’s dozen County-class cruisers, the latter of which were already under-protected to keep them beneath the arbitrary 10,000-ton limit imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. Weighing in at 8,250 tons, the Yorks were intended not for fleet action but for the role of sitting on an overseas station and chasing down enemy commerce raiders in the event of war.
York mounted six 8″/50 (20.3 cm) Mark VIII guns in three twin Mark II mounts. Fairly capable guns, they could fire a 256-pound SAP shell out past 30,000 yards at a (theoretical) rate of up to six rounds per gun per minute. Importantly, they carried 172 rounds per gun, up from the 125-150 carried by the preceding County class, a factor which allowed a slightly longer engagement time before running empty.
Bow turrets of HMS York. Photograph by Mrs. Josephine Burston, via Navweaps
Notably, Exeter was completed with the same main gun but in Mark II* mounts, which allowed for a shallower 50-degree elevation.
Cruiser HMS Exeter training her 8-inch guns to starboard
Exeter vessel also had a slightly different “straight” arrangement for her funnels and masts, whereas York’s carried a slant, giving each sister a distinctive profile.
Exeter’s 1930 rigging plan
HMS York. Note the slant to her masts and stacks. Photograph by Walter E. Frost, City of Vancouver Archives Photo No. 447-2863.1
Rounding out the cruisers’ offensive armament was a half-dozen deck-mounted 21-inch torpedo tubes a battery of DP 4-inch guns and a few Vickers machine guns to ward off aircraft.
Built with overseas service in mind, they could cover 10,000nm at 14 knots. Able to achieve 32.3 knots due to having 80,000-ship via Parsons geared steam turbines, they sacrificed armor protection for speed and magazine space, with just 1 inch of steel on their turrets and a belt that was just 3 inches at its thickest.
Exeter, Janes 1931
As noted by Richard Worth in his excellent tome, Fleets of World War II:
In trimming down the County layout, designers managed to retain several features, though sea keeping suffered. Protection also received low priority; the armor scheme (similar in proportion to the County type) included some advances, but all in all, the Yorks seemed even more vulnerable, especially in the machinery spaces.
Meet Exeter
Ordered as part of the 1926 Build Programme, Exeter was the fifth RN vessel to carry the name since 1680 and carried forth a quartet of battle honors (Adras 1782, Providien 1782, Negapatam 1782, and Trincomalee 1782) from these vessels. Constructed for £1,837,415 by HMNB Devonport Dockyard, Plymouth, she launched on 18 July 1929.
Her sponsor at the christening was Lady Madden.
Anchored off Plymouth, England, during her builder’s trials in May 1931. NH 60806
Bestowed with the familiar motto, Semper fidelis, Ever Faithful, she long maintained a relationship with her ancient namesake cathedral city along the River Exe.
On 23 May 1931, just before she was commissioned, HMS Exeter’s skipper and officers visited the town’s Mayor H W Michelmore, at the Exeter Guildhall. By tradition, Royal Navy ships named after a town are given a small gift by the town, and the Mayor announced that a model of the hall, paid for by public subscription, would be made of silver. Michelmore and a crowd of local dignitaries presented the finished model, about the size of a breadbox, three months later.
“On behalf of myself, my officers and ships crew, and of those who will come after us, I thank you most heartily and sincerely for the beautiful gift you have given us,” her plankowner skipper, Captain (later RADM) Isham W. Gibson, told the delegation. “We hope that you will count us as citizens of Exeter, afloat.”
NH 60803
Exeter, August 1931. NH 60804
Peacetime idyllic cruising
She was a striking vessel for her age. A true peacetime cruiser.
For the next decade, she would embark on a series of “waving the flag” port visits around the globe as she shifted between North America and West Indies Station, based in Bermuda, to the Mediterranean Fleet. This would involve roaming along the coast of Latin America, trips through the Panama Canal with corresponding port calls on the West Coast of America as far north as Esquimalt, BC, and cruising along the Caribbean.
On one such port call, the U.S. Navy dutifully took lots of close-up photographs of her armament and layout that were no doubt forwarded to the ONI, hence their preservation for posterity.
Exeter, .50 cal quad Vickers anti-aircraft machine gun mount. Note the Bluejackets aboard. NH 60811
Shagbats! Exeter with Supermarine Walrus amphibians on catapults. NH 60809
Same as above, NH 60810
Exeter 4″ anti-aircraft gun. NH 60808
Exeter At Montevideo, Uruguay in 1934. NH 60816
Exeter in Balboa harbor, canal zone, 24 April 1934. NH 60812
HMS Exeter, Panama Canal, 1930s. 33rd infantry honor guard at the Miguel locks. N-173-3
HMS Exeter, Northbound, Gamboa Signal Station, March 8, 1935, 185-G-2031
HMS Exeter returning to Devonport from the Mediterranean in July 1936, note her “homeward bound” pennant.
British heavy cruiser HMS Exeter, 1936
HMS Exeter at the Royal Naval Dockyard, on Ireland Island, Sandys Parish, in the British Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, with Gibb’s Hill Lighthouse beyond, circa 1936
Aerial view of HMS Exeter, Panama Canal Zone, circa early 1939. NH 60807
Exeter off Coco Solo canal zone, circa 1939. NH 60814
Get the Graf!
Skipping a planned dockyard period at Devonport in early August 1939 due to rising tensions in Europe, Exeter’s crew was recalled from leave and prepared to return to service with the South Atlantic Division of the West Indies Squadron, escorting the troopship Dunera to Cape Verde before diverting to Freetown.
On her bridge was newly promoted Capt. Frederick “Hooky” Secker Bell, a fighting sailor who served as a mid on HMS Challenger in the Cameron Campaign in 1914, on board the battleship HMS Canada at the battle of Jutland in 1916, and, as a young lieutenant in 1918, was one of only two survivors of his destroyer when it was sunk from under his feet by one of the Kaiser’s U-boats. He had been XO of the battlewagon HMS Repulse just before moving into Exeter’s captain’s cabin– a battleship man in a cruiser.
When Hitler sent his legions into Poland in September, Exeter was in passage to Rio de Janeiro, and, clearing for war service, she soon took up station off Rio for the purpose of trade defense and interdicting German shipping.
By early October, with German surface raiders afoot in the South Atlantic, Exeter joined Hunting Force G along with the older but more heavily armed County-class heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland (9,750 tons, 8×8″ guns, 31 knots, 4.5-inch belt) and the Leander-class light cruisers HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles (7,270 tons, 8×6″/50s, 32.5 knots, 4-inch belt), with the force ranging from the Brazilian coast to the Falklands.
These hounds would eventually find fruit in the chase for the German Deutschland-class panzerschiff cruiser KMS Admiral Graf Spee (14,890 tons, 6×11″/52, 8×5.9″, 28.5 knots, 3.9-inch belt), however, its strongest asset, Cumberland, was in the Falklands under refit at the time, leaving our Exeter and the two lighter cruisers, Ajax and Achilles, to fight it out.
Kriegsmarine Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee im Spithead U.K. 1937. Colorised photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/
A detailed retelling of what is now known to history as the Battle of the River Plate would be out of the scope of this post, but, beginning with Graf Spee’s sighting of Force G at 0520 on the morning of 13 December, and ending when the engagement broke off around 0730 with the big German cruiser retreating into the River Plate estuary, is the stuff of legend.
In those swirling two hours, Graf Spee had been hit at least 70 times by British 8- and 6-inch guns, with the German suffering 36 killed and another 60, including her captain, Hans Langsdorff, wounded– in all about a fifth of her complement. While in no danger of sinking and still very much able to fight– albeit with only a third of her 11-inch shells left in her magazines– the panzerschiff had her oil purification plant, desalination plant, and galley destroyed, factors that would make a 6,000 mile run back to Germany likely impossible.
Graf Spee also gave as good as she got, with Exeter, pressing the fight against the larger ship repeatedly, getting the worst punishment in the form of hits from seven 660-pound 11-inch shells– ordnance she was never expected to absorb. Listing and with her two front turrets knocked out, Exeter had 61 dead and 23 wounded crew members aboard and could only make 18 knots. With only one turret still operable– and under local command only– Captain Bell had vouched that he was ready to ram Graf Spee before the German had retired.
As detailed by Lt Ron Atwill, who served in Exeter during the battle:
‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets were out of action from direct hits.
‘Y’ turret firing in local control.
The Bridge, Director Control Tower, and the Transmitting Station were out of action.
A fire was raging in the CPO’s and Serving Flats.
Minor fires were burning on the Royal Marine messdeck and in the Paint Shop.
There were no telephone communications – all orders had to be passed by messengers.
The ship was about four feet down by the bows due to flooding forward and had a list to starboard of about eight degrees due to some six hundred and fifty tons of water which had flooded in splinter holes near the waterline plus accumulations of fire fighting water. This degree of list is quite considerable and makes movement within the ship very difficult when decks are covered with fuel oil and water.
Only one 4-inch gun could be fired.
Both aircraft had been jettisoned.
W/T communications had completely broken down – mostly due to aerials having been shot away.
HMS Exeter (68) as seen in 1939, shows splinter damage to ‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets and the bridge from the German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee. While her rear ‘Y’ turret was intact, its electrical system had suffered a short from saltwater intrusion and was down to manual control. CDR RD Ross photo IWM HU 43488
Swiss cheese splinter damage to Exeter’s stacks. Splinters had riddled the ship’s funnels and searchlights, wrecked the ship’s Walrus aircraft just as it was about to be launched for gunnery spotting, and slaughtered her exposed torpedo tube crews. Shrapnel swept the bridge, killing or wounding almost all the bridge personnel and knocking out most of the ship’s communications and navigational tools, forcing the vessel to be directed by one of the compasses pulled from a launch. CDR RD Ross photo IWM HU 43505
With no means to fight left at her disposal other than the single 4-inch open mount still working, Exeter remained on watch with the lighter Ajax and Achilles, both damaged and nearly out of shells, keeping station at the Plate’s mouth should Graf Spee attempt to escape. Cumberland, rushed 1,000 miles from the Falklands in just 34 hours, arrived to reinforce the force late on the night of 14 December and relieve Exeter, who was ordered to retire to the Port Stanley for emergency repairs.
Ordered by Berlin not to have his ship interned in Uruguay, options were limited to Langsdorff, Graf Spee’s skipper. Partially due to his ship’s damage, and partially because the three British cruisers at the river’s mouth could bird-dog him should he put to sea, a factor acerbated by openly exaggerated signals that RN carriers and battlewagons were rapidly inbound (they were in fact still five days away), Langsdorff landed his crew– who he refused to sacrifice in vain– scuttled his ship in Montevideo, and then blew his brains out.
Admiral Graf Spee in flames after being scuttled in the River Plate estuary, 17 December 1939. IWM 4700-01
Later Allied inspection of Graf Spee’s hull showed Exeter got in at least three hits from her “puny” 256-pound 8-inchers, including the key destruction of her oil purification plant, the blow that cut off the big cruiser’s legs.
Admiral Graf Spee, ship’s port bow, taken while she was at Montevideo, Uruguay in mid-December 1939, following the Battle of the River Plate. Note crew members working over the side to repair damage from an eight-inch shell fired by the British heavy cruiser Exeter. The notation The ‘Moustache’ refers to the false bow wave painted on Admiral Graf Spee’s bows. The original photograph came from Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison’s World War II history project working files. NH 83003
Admiral Graf Spee photograph of a shell hole in the ship’s forward superstructure tower, made by an eight-inch shell fired by the British heavy cruiser Exeter. The sketch below shows the location of the hole, and describes it as large enough to crawl through. Taken on board the ship’s wreck in the River Plate, near Montevideo, Uruguay, where she had been scuttled in December 1939. Page from an intelligence report prepared by USS Helena (CL-50) during her shakedown cruise to South America. The photograph was taken on 2 February 1940 by Ensign Richard D. Sampson, USN. NH 51986
Admiral Graf Spee photograph of the interior of the ship’s forward superstructure tower, showing damage caused by an eight-inch shell fired by the British heavy cruiser Exeter during the Battle of the River Plate. Cut wires and the absence of a fire control tube were noted on the original report in which this image appeared. Taken on board the ship’s wreck in the River Plate, near Montevideo, Uruguay, where she had been scuttled in December 1939. Photographed on 2 February 1940 by Ensign Richard D. Sampson, USN, for an intelligence report prepared by USS Helena (CL-50) during her shakedown cruise to South America. NH 51987-A
Arriving at Port Stanley on 20 December, Exeterwould remain there for a month, patched up with steel plate salvaged from the old Grytviken whaling station while her wounded were cared for in local homes, until the battered cruiser began her slow voyage back to England. She arrived at Plymouth on 15 February 1940.
HMS Exeter arrives back in the UK after emergency repairs at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands following the battle of the river Plate. Lighter paintwork can be seen where the damage was patched up.
Churchill, at the time First Lord of the Admiralty, visited the cruiser and addressed the crew. The bulldog had come “to pay my tribute to her brave officers and men from her shattered decks in Plymouth Harbor”
Arrival at Plymouth with Churchill coming aboard. IWM HU 104428
On 23 February, her celebrated crew marched through the City of London. Bell was made a companion knight of the Bath while the other members of the crew would pick up two DSOs, seven DSCs, and nearly 40 DSMs.
Leap Day 1940 saw Bell lead 87 members of his crew on a Freedom of the City parade with fixed bayonets through Exeter, where seemingly the entire town turned out. The cruisermen brought with them a host of souvenirs to hand over to the city including Exeter’s shell-torn White Ensign and her bell, left with the city for safekeeping.
Pacific maelstrom
Exeter’s extensive repair would stretch for a year and included rebuilding her gun houses, installing new catapults and torpedo tubes, as well as modernization that saw a Type 279 search radar, Type 284 gunnery control radar, tripod masts, and improved anti-aircraft armament shipped aboard. The latter included landing her old 4.1-inch singles for four twin 102/45 QF Mk XVIs along with two massive octuple 40mm 2-pounder MK VIII mounts.
In that period, her near-sister, York, was lost to MTMs of Xª Flottiglia MAS in Suda Bay.
HMS Exeter, off Devonport after refit, March 1941, by Harold William John Tomlin. IWM A3553
HMS Exeter, off Devonport after refit, March 1941 hoisting Walrus, by Harold William John Tomlin. IWM A 3555
Stern view, same place and time as above. A 3552
Exeter’s ninth and final skipper, Capt. Oliver Loudon Gordon, took command on 11 March 1941.
Following post-refit workups with the Northern Patrol in April 1941, Exeter was transferred to the East Indies Squadron, which was beefing up as tensions with the Empire of Japan were at an all-time high. Likewise, Bell was ordered to a new position as Flag Captain to the Flag Officer, Malaya,
Sailing south with a military convoy on 22 May– while keeping an eye out for the raiding Bismarck and Prinz Eugen— she arrived in Freetown on 4 June and Durban two weeks later before spending the next six months as escort a series of different slow convoys (CM 014, BP 012, CM 017, and MA 001) shuttling around the Indian Ocean.
On 7 December 1941, she was ordered to Singapore to join the ill-fated Force Z– the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse. She didn’t make it to join the force before it was destroyed by Japanese land-based bombers three days later in the South China Sea.
Instead, Exeter leaned into her speed and, under the combined ABDA Command in Java, she spent January and February 1942 as part of several different Allied convoys (DM 001, BM 010, BM 011, BM 012, JS 001, and SJ 5) running troops to Singapore and around the Dutch East Indies.
HMS Exeter firing at Japanese aircraft which unsuccessfully attacked convoy JS1 in the Bangka Strait during the 14/15 February 1942, NIMH 2158_017924
A harbor tug crosses the bow of the 8-inch gun cruiser HMS Exeter as she lies anchored in the congested harbor of Tanjong Priok, the port for Batavia, now Jakarta, in the first days of February 1942. Exeter helped clear the congestion, taking thirty merchant ships to sea. AWM P04139.003
On 25 February, Exeter, along with the RAN Leander-class light cruiser HMAS Perth (sister to Ajax and Achilles) and destroyers HMS Electra, Encounter, and Jupiter, were detailed to join the ABDA’s Eastern Striking Force under Dutch RADM K.W.F.M. Doorman at Soerabaja, which was then renamed the Combined Striking Force. Doorman’s force was slight, made up of just the Dutch light cruisers HrMs De Ruyter and HrMs Java, the heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30), and a mix of nine Dutch and American destroyers, mostly old “flush deckers” from the Great War.
Of the five allied cruisers, only Houston was more powerful than Exeter, carrying nine cramped 8″/55 guns in her thin hull. However, only six of Houston’s 8-incher were operable as her aft turret had been knocked out in an earlier air attack. Further, only Exeter had radar.
Rushing out to confront a force of 30 Japanese troops transports on 27 February 1942 protected by RADM Takeo Takagi’s two heavy cruisers, two old light cruisers, and 14 destroyers, things got pear-shaped pretty fast in what became known as the First Battle of the Java Sea.
A flurry of over 90 Long Lance torpedoes sank a Dutch destroyer while a lucky 7.9-inch hit from the Japanese Myoko-class heavy cruiser Haguro penetrated to Exeter’s aft boiler room and knocked six of her eight boilers offline, dropping the British cruiser’s speed to just five knots.
Retiring South towards Surabaya via the Sunda Strait with Encounter and the American destroyer USS Pope (DD-225) escorting, Exeter had the supreme misfortune of running into the four Japanese heavy cruiser sisters Nachi, Haguro, Myoko, and Ashigara, along with their four escorting destroyers, supported by the carrier Ryujo over the horizon, on the morning of 1 March.
Although Exeter had managed to increase her speed to 23 knots by this time, it was far too slow to avoid being overtaken by the armada of bruisers and fast greyhounds. The disparity in ordnance in big guns alone– 40 7.9″/50s vs six 8″/50s– was staggering before even taking into account smaller guns and torpedo tubes.
Japanese shells rain down around HMS Exeter during her ill-fated encounter in the Java Sea
Despite Encounter and Pope bravely making smoke and attempting torpedo runs against impossible odds– the same sort of bravery later seen by American escorts in the defense of Taffy 3 in October 1944– it was all over in about three hours and all of the Allied vessels were sent to the bottom piecemeal.
Exeter sinking on 1 March 1942 after engagement with Japanese Cruisers off Java. This Japanese photo was captured by U.S. Forces at Attu in May 1943. Collection of Admiral T. C Kinkaid, USN. NH 91772
NH 91773
Exeter sinking after engaging Japanese heavy cruisers in the Java Sea, 1 March 1942. Image taken from the captured Japanese wartime booklet “Victory on the March” 80-G-179020
Exeter earned three battle honors (River Plate 1939, Malaya 1942, and Sunda Strait 1942) to add to the four she carried forward.
Epilogue
Over the next two days, Japanese destroyers would pick up some 800 Allied survivors from the three lost warships in the water after the battle including 652 men of the crew of Exeter, the cruiser remarkably “only” losing 54 in the battle itself. A large reason why so many of Exeter’s crew survived the battle was that Capt. Gordon, his ship lost, ordered her evacuated before the final bloody game could play out. Like Capt. Langsdorff at Montevideo, Gordon owed it to his men not to ask them to perish in vain.
Tossed into the hell that was the Japanese POW camp systems no less than 27 of Pope’s sailors, 37 of Encounter’s, and 30 from Exeter died in the prison camps, usually from either malaria or pneumonia. When it came to Japanese camps, they typically lost a full quarter of those housed within.
Recovered from camps in the Celebes, Macassar, and Nagasaki in September 1945, Exeter veterans were given emergency medical care and repatriated. AWM photos
The wrecks of Encounter, Exeter, and Pope have been extensively looted by illegal salvagers.
Capt. Gordon, while being removed from Japan on USS Gosper (APA-170) in October 1945, finally had a chance to deliver his 12-page report on Exeter’s final battles to the Admiralty, via U.S. channels. With the traditional English gift of understatement, he noted that, during the evacuation of the cruiser, “The ship was evidently leaking oil fuel considerably, which, with a slight lop, made conditions in the water decidedly unpleasant, at first.”
July 1942 portrait of Capt. Oliver L Gordon, RN, HMS Exeter, who was captured in the Java Sea. Capt Gordon was a prisoner of war in Zentsuji Camp, Shikoku, Osaka, Japan. He later wrote of his experiences both in command of the Exeter and as a prisoner of war in Japan in the book Fight It Out, published in 1957, and passed in 1973. AWM P04017.059
As for “Hooky” Secker Bell, Exeter’s commander during the fight with Graf Spee, he escaped Singapore before the fall in 1942 and survived the war. In January 1946 he took command of the battleship HMS Anson, was named an ADC to King George VI, and retired on health grounds in January 1948.
In 1956, he served as an advisor to the film The Battle of the River Plate which included the huge Des Moines class heavy cruiser USS Salem as the Graf, Achilles as herself, the light cruiser HMS Sheffield as Ajax, and the light cruiser HMS Jamaica as our Exeter.
Her 1931-marked bell and River Plate battle-damaged ensign, along with a scale model of the cruiser, are in Exeter as part of the city’s archives.
St Andrews Chapel in Exeter has several relics and a memorial stained glass window which incorporates the ship’s badge.
She is celebrated in maritime art, and for good reason.
HMS Exeter at Plymouth in 1940: Back from the Graf Spee action, by Charles Ernest Cundall. IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 1848)
Battle of the River Plate, 13 December 1939 watercolor by Edward Tufnell, RN (Retired), depicting the cruisers HMS Exeter (foreground) and HMNZS Achilles (right center background) in action with the German armored ship Admiral Graf Spee (right background). NH 86397-KN
Admiral Graf Spee vs Ajax, Achilles, and Exeter painting by Adam Werka
The Battle of the Java Sea, painting by Van der Ven. From left to right two American destroyers (Four stackers), cruiser Hr.Ms. De Ruyter, HMAS Perth, HMS Exeter, Hr.Ms. Witte de With, Hr.Ms. Kortenaer (sinking) and HMS Jupiter. NIMH 2158_051001.
The Royal Navy, when passing through the Sunda Strait, typically holds a memorial service for the lost cruiser and her escorts.
HMS Montrose showers the now-calm waters of the Java Sea with poppies over the site where 62 men lost their lives when cruiser HMS Exeter and destroyer HMS Encounter fell victim to the Japanese, 2019. MOD photo
In 1980, a Type 42 destroyer, HMS Exeter (D 89), joined the fleet to perpetuate the name. She earned the ship her eighth battle honor (Falklands- 1982) and was only decommissioned on 27 May 2009.
October 1987. Gulf Of Oman. A starboard beam view of the British destroyer HMS Exeter (D-89) underway on patrol while stationed in the region as part of a multinational force safeguarding shipping during the war between Iraq and Iran. PH1 T. Cosgrove. DN-ST-93-00902
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 means of contact for 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.
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Some 85 years ago this week, one of the largest– and simultaneously least supported by the Allies– underground resistance armies in WWII took its first key organizational steps.
The Polish military gave its all against the German blitzkrieg in September 1939 and gave a better account of themselves than historians have often alleged (read Poland 1939 by Roger Moorhouse for a more nuanced report). However, once the Red Army swept over the country’s eastern border in force two weeks into the conflict, the struggle was a moot point.
Nonetheless, even in the final days of the campaign, the groundwork was being established to continue the fight. As detailed by Moorhouse, General Juliusz Rómmel, commander of the bulk of the Polish forces enduring the siege of Warsaw, on 26 September received a courier sent from Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły, who had escaped to Bucharest.
The courier, Major Edmund Galinat, had braved a one-way flight, while lying flat in the fuselage as there was no seat, by Polish test pilot Stanislaw Riess in an experimental PZL.46/II Sum light bomber across German-held airspace. The message deemed so important? The well-known assent to Rómmel from Rydz-Śmigły to surrender Warsaw as well as a secret set of orders.
Written in the lining of Galinat’s uniform jacket, to be burned after reading, was an order for military authorities to establish an underground organization, in the tradition of Poland’s Konspiracja efforts in the 19th Century, to continue the fight.
As described by Moorhouse, “Warsaw might capitulate, but Poland would not surrender.”
This task would be passed from Rómmel’s hands to Brig. Gen. Michał Tadeusz Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, who commanded an isolated operational group in the east composed of the remnants of the Pomeranian Army’s 15th and 27th Infantry Divisions. A 46-year-old officer who had fought with the old Polish Legions formed by Józef Piłsudski under the Austro-Hungarian flag in the Great War, Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz took on a codename (“Torwid”) and formed what he termed Service for Poland’s Victory (Służba Zwycięstwu Polski), to carry on the fight.
It turns out there were several other figures outside of the SZP’s scope at work around the same time, with something like 300 smaller groups with such exotic names as the Peasant Battalions (Bataliony Chłopskie), the People’s Guard (Gwardia Ludowa) of the WRN, the National Military Organization (Narodowa Organizacja Wojskowa), the Military Organization of the Lizard Union (Organizacja Wojskowa Związek Jaszczurczy), the Armed Confederation (Konfederacja Zbrojna), the Musketeers (Muszkieterowie), the Military Organization “Wolves” (Organizacja Wojskowa Wilki), the Sword and the Plough (Miecz i Pług), the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska), the Secret Military Organization “Gryf Pomorski,” the Shock Cadre Battalions (Uderzeniowe Bataliony Kadrowe), the Jewish Combat Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa) et. al.
Polish Army Red Cross Nurse after surrendering to German Army September 1939 LIFE Hugo Jaeger
While some 200,000 Poles were killed or severely wounded during the September 1939 campaign, and 140,000 Poles were captured by the Germans, most of the rank and file were simply disarmed and furloughed, to be used for labor, with only senior and staff officers kept as POWs for the duration– a mistake the Germans would no doubt rue. The Soviets, on the other hand, preferred to imprison almost all the 240,000 Poles that fell in their hands, eventually liquidating most of the officers.
Captured Polish troops under German eye “go to work” circa late 1939
By November 1939, General Władysław Sikorski– another former Austrian Army Polish Legion vet– had escaped to the west and been installed as the head of the Polish government in exile. He sent word back to occupied Poland that a more well-established underground shadow army would be needed.
Formed on 17 November 1939, the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej) would be country-wide whereas the SZP was largely just in the east. As such it soon absorbed most, but not all, of the other military-based resistance units.
Soon, the country would be split into West (under German occupation) and East (Soviet) zones with Brig. Gen. Stefan Rowecki (codename Grot), another Polish Legion vet and former head of the Warsaw Armored Brigade (WBPM), in Warsaw, was given command of the former and Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz kept as commander of the latter. The overall command would be the job of Lt. Gen. Kazimierz Sosnkowski– from Paris and later London.
Rowecki, who had access to more officers who had gone underground, was to establish a seven-section command staff covering intelligence, logistics, training, operations, communications, finance, and propaganda, all typically led by majors and colonels.
Each region would also be divided into 17 geographical districts, all typically commanded by field-grade officers, usually captains and majors.
The territorial structure of the ZWZ-AK in the territory of the Second Polish Republic
Three overseas stations in neighboring neutral countries (“Romek” in Hungary, “Bolek” in Romania, and “Anna” in Lithuania) were also established to help ratline supplies, correspondence, and personnel in and out of the country. Once these outlets were closed later in the war, they were replaced by the Wanda network inside Poland itself which, backed by the SOE, would eventually number 54 clandestine radio stations established by 316 British-trained Free Polish paratroopers dropped by No. 1586 (Polish Special Duties) Flight, RAF. These airborne agents are better remembered in Poland as the Cichociemnych (Silent and Unseen.)
The crew and ground staff of the 1586 Polish Special Duties Flight in front of their B-24 Liberator aircraft GR-U (BZ 860). The Flight’s CO, Squadron Leader Stanisław Król, is standing in the middle of the group, under the white and red chessboard – the Polish Air Force emblem. Note all the para drops, agents, and canisters, on the aircraft’s side. IWM (MH 1214)
By early 1940, Rowecki calculated the number of ZWW troops in the underground army at 40,000 soldiers and officers, at roughly a 3:1 ratio, with most being prior service. While many furloughed soldiers were easily recruited, thousands of Grey Ranks (Szare Szeregi), drawn from the Polish Boy Scouts and Girl’s Duides, organizations long considered a military auxiliary, also quietly joined up.
Boys of the Broom Battalion (Chłopcy z Batalionu) in the area of the sewer manhole on Warecka Street – from the left: Tadeusz Rajszczak “Maszynka”, Kazimierz Gabara “Łuk”, Mieczysław Lach “Pestka”, Warsaw uprising, 1944. It was estimated that at least 8,000 Polish Boy Scouts, aged 15 to 17, served in assault groups with the Home Army while tens of thousands of younger boys and girls served as couriers carrying dispatches and supplies.
While direct action squads were being formed, the group at this stage was primarily an intelligence-gathering organization. They ultimately sent 22,047 intel reports to London during the war, some 48 percent of the reports from all of occupied Europe! Besides troop movements (including the full battle order for Kursk) and cipher work, this would include the construction and location of the V-1 and V-2 weapon research centers, plans of the prototypes of the Panther tanks, midget submarines, data on new anti-aircraft guns, and new war gases.
The ZWW would continue to operate through liberation in late 1944-early 1945, changing its name to the simpler Home Army (Armia Krajowa) in 1942.
At its peak in late 1944, the AK numbered some 390,000 soldiers in 8,920 platoons in the field while its largest rival, the unrecognized National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne, NSZ) numbered some 80,000. This didn’t count other organizations disavowed by London such as the communist People’s Army (Armia Ludowa, AL).
The amount of weapons dropped by SOE to the Home Army– 670 tons between 1941 and 1944, of which only 443 tons were received– paled against what was dropped into France (10,485 tons), Yugoslavia (76,171 tons) and Greece (5,796 tons). As such, even by 1944, it was estimated that the force only had enough small arms to equip 12 percent of its fighters.
Curiously, the main source of weapons for many Home Army units outside of Warsaw was to dig around old September 1939 battlefields to salvage lost Mausers, both Polish Kb wz.98s and German K98s, and their common 7.92mm ammo; or areas where the Soviets displaced during Barbarossa in 1941 and abandoned Mosins and SVTs in their wake.
The Home Army’s Clandestine Production Unit (Oddział Produkcji Konspiracyjnej) tried to compensate for the deficiency by crafting their own weapons. However, garage-built insurgent-made guns, including several variants of the “Polski Sten,” cottage-made VIS pistols made with parts smuggled out of the factory at Radom, and the famous Błyskawica(Lightning) sub gun, provided only a trickle of additional firearms for use on “The Day.” This habit of having guns and components go missing from the factory led the Germans to convert production at Radom from complete VIS pistols to parts kits– with no barrels– that would be shipped to Steyr for final assembly.
Błyskawica sub-machine gun in Polish Home Army use 1944. Although well known today, most sources acknowledge that only 750-1,000 were ever produced. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Witold Gokieli’s improvised flame thrower in Polish Home Army use, 1944
It’s pretty clear that London looked at the Polish underground as best used for intelligence gathering rather than direct action– although post-war analysis points to some 6,243 partisan incidents recorded by the Germans in the country during the war. Polish estimates are much higher, albeit mostly in the destruction of military stores and railway disruptions/derailments.
The Home Army thrived in the country’s thick forests and swamps, where the Germans never really controlled, and often took part in the liberation of larger cities once the Allies– in their case the Soviet Red Army– were just over the hill. Their uniform and arms, Polish whenever possible, were mixed with civilian items as well as those captured from the Germans or Russians.
Every effort was made to try and be a legitimate army in the field in the unrealized hope that, if captured, they would be afforded POW protection under the Geneva Convention rather than be executed outright as Francs-tireurs. This included listing organizations as named companies, battalions, and even divisions and issuing ranks and titles to members.
AK soldiers during the Burza action in Lublin, in July 1944. Note the German web gear, flashlights, potato masher grenades, and Mausers. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
4th battalion of the 1st PSP AK on Przysłop nad Ochotnica, AK. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
AK Partisan horse patrol September 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
1st Podhale Rifle Regiment on Skałka nad Ochotnica, AK. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Soldiers of the Stołpecko-Nalibocki AK group. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
1st Platoon of the 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, 1st PSP AK at a meeting on 11 November 1944, AK. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Father Władysław Gurgacz with AK unit note mix of Russian and German arms to include an StG 44. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Review of 1st Battalion of the 16th Infantry Regiment of the Home Army summer 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Polish Home Army partisans. Note the German MP40 and Russian SMGs Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
AK partisans from the Suszarnia Battalion, summer 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Soldiers of the 27th Volhynian Infantry Division of the Home Army 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Polish partisans Surowiec battalion of the OR 23rd DP AK 1944. Note the Ręczny karabin maszynowy wz. 28, the long-barreled FN variant of the M1918 BAR/Colt Monitor. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Jan Piwnik Ponury, commander of a Home Guard partisan group operating in the forests of the Kielce region, armed with a “Polski Sten.” Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Only about 11,000 STENs made it from Britain to the Home Army.
Home Army soldiers on the streets of Vilnius in July 1944– mingling with Soviet troops. The comradery was short-lived
The Home Army is of course best known for the fiery 63-day Warsaw Uprising, which, spearheaded by 45,000 members of the AK, is described as the “single largest military effort undertaken by resistance forces to oppose German occupation during World War II.”
The soldiers of the Home Army during the Warsaw Uprising, led by Maj. Gen. Thaddeus “Bor” Komorowski, was perhaps the most motely equipped of AK units.
The Home Army in Warsaw was especially poor in terms of Polish uniforms and equipment due to frequent German police searches. This meant they had to capture weapons to fight with
Prof Witold Kieżun caught on documentary footage during the Warsaw uprising, on 23 August 1944. Note the red and white recognition stripe on his captured German helmet. He had been a 17-year-old private in 1939 and, escaping a POW detail, went underground with the Home Army for the duration. The renowned economist survived the war and recently passed, aged 99.
Polish Home Army using German uniforms and arms: Soldiers of the Zośka battalion during the Uprising. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Krawiec company of the Ryś battalion of the 7th AK District made it to Warsaw to fight Aug 1944. AK Museum. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Colt New Service in the holster of Wiesław Chrzanowski, officer Polish Home Army, Wilcza Street, Warsaw Uprising September 5, 1944. Chrzanowski later helped draft the framework of the Solidarity trade union in the 1970s.
A mix of captured German MP38s and MP-40s with Polish Home Army Members, Warsaw Uprising, August-September 1944
Polish Home Army soldier in the Warsaw uprising, using a captured German Stalhelm helmet, and dual-wielding a Radom VIS 35 and Walther P-38
Unknown member of Armia Krajowa during the early days of the Warsaw Uprising in August of 1944. His weapons include a ZB Czech Brno Bren 26 and a Luger, both likely liberated from the Germans
Soldiers from the “Parasol” battalion (note the homemade cap badge) after leaving the canal on Warecka Street (Śródmieście-Północ) during the Warsaw Uprising. In the middle stands Maria Stypułkowska-Chojecka “Kama”. On the right Krzysztof Palester “Krzych.” A force made up largely of teenage scouts, the unit had pulled off several actions such as the targeted assassinations of SS-Hauptscharführer August Kretschmann and Sipo commander Franz Bürkl in September 1943 before the Uprising. Its members included poet Józef Szczepański, who was killed in action in September 1944, aged 21.
Happy Polish Home Army troops with some parachuted British PIAT anti-tank projectors during the Warsaw uprising. Note the captured Waffen SS Splittermuster camo smocks and a French MAS-38 sub-gun.
With the Red Army finally “liberating” Poland by February 1945, the Home Army was ordered disbanded.
It was estimated that the force lost between 60,000 and 100,000 between 1939 and 1945 (records vary widely) while another 50,000 were “disappeared” by the Soviets soon after.
The final commander of the Home Army was Brig. Gen. Leopold “Niedźwiadek” Okulicki, who had fought in Warsaw in 1939 and 1944, with a stint in the Gulag in between. He was arrested by the NKVD a second time in March 1945 along with 15 other leaders of the Polish underground in recently “liberated” Poland and put on a show trial in which the verdict was predetermined. He died on December 24, 1946, in the Butyrki prison hospital.
Okulicki, the last commander of the Home Army, seen in his NKVD mugshot in 1940 as well as in Polish service and, bottom right, at his 1945 show trial in Moscow.
Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, arrested in Poland by the Soviet NKVD in March 1940, would eventually be freed from the gulag post-Barbarossa and manage to join the Free Polish forces in the West, eventually serving as commander of the III Polish Corps in the Middle East. His Poland privileges were revoked once the Cold War started, and he died in exile in Casablanca in 1944.
Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, seen as arrested by the NKVD in 1940 to the left, and in Polish service to the right
As for Rowecki, captured by the Gestapo in August 1944, he was murdered in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Rowecki, seen in Polish service, left, and in his circa 1943 “mufti” look
Komorowski, who surrendered to the Germans in October 1944, ended the war in Stalag XVIIIC, and, liberated by the U.S. 103rd Infantry Division, was soon cleaned up and sent to London to join the Polish exile government. Earning a living as an upholsterer in Britain post-war, he died in 1966.
“Bor” Komorowski, seen before, during and after the war.
As for the Home Army, their resistance marks, and the fighting Polish PW anchor, akin to the “V” in Western Allied countries, endured for years across Poland.
Although they have been in hundreds of engagements and campaigns since 1775, only a handful of fights are noteworthy enough to have shaped the Marine Corps for generations and echo throughout history, becoming as much bywords among those who have earned the Eagle Globe & Anchor as “Valhalla” was to Norse warriors.
The storming of Chapultepec Castle in 1847 (“From the Halls of Montezuma”), Presley O’Bannon’s Marines at Derne in 1805 (“To the Shores of Tripoli”), Belleau Wood in 1918 (“Teufel Hunden“), Guadalcanal in 1942 (The Southern Cross constellation), Iwo Jima in 1945 (raising the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi), the “Frozen Chosin” in 1950, Hue City in 1968 (the Dong Ba Tower and the later personification of “Animal Mother” and the gang) will endure with the Marines much as the Royal Scots will always mark Waterloo, the Rifles (Gloucestershires) will remember the Imjin River, the Legion will celebrate Camerone Day, and the 101st/82nd Airborne will “own” Overlord.
Operation Phantom Fury, the six-week so-called Second Battle of Fallujah fell broadly on the shoulders of four Marine rifle battalions (3rd Bn/1st Marines, 3rd Bn/5th Marines, 1st Bn/8th Marines, and 1st Bn/3rd Marines) and a LAV company (Charlie Company “Warpigs,” 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion) in November-December 2004, will surely join that pantheon.
With that in mind, check out the most current 88-page USMCU history on the subject, and these deep dive videos (some over an hour in length and very well done) that were recently dropped in the past week.
Two ship commissionings in the news show some decent salutes to those who have sailed into history in days prior.
In New York on Saturday– one day shy of the USMC’s 249th birthday– the Navy commissioned the second destroyer to carry the name of GySgt John Basilone,DDG-122.
Why New York? Basilone was born in Buffalo and grew up in Raritan, New Jersey, just 45 minutes away from the Big Apple.
During Basilone’s service on Guadalcanal, he led two machine gun sections of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, where he used his detachment’s M1917 water-cooled Browning machine guns and an M1911 .45 Government Issue pistol to great effect to break up a Japanese charge of some 3,000 Japanese against his emplacement. The feat earned him the nation’s highest military decoration and was depicted in 2010’s “The Pacific.”
His Medal of Honor citation, from his public file in the National Archives:
Basilone. He was posthumously honored with a Navy Cross for his actions on Iwo Jima, making him the only enlisted Marine in WWII to earn both of the service’s two highest honors.
In 1945, the Navy named a destroyer after Basilone, and in 1948, a life-sized statue of him was installed in his enlistment hometown of Raritan, New Jersey.
The new USS John Basilone’s battle flag includes a pair of crossed M1917s inside the Blue Diamond shoulder patch of the 1st Marine Division.
The Battle Flag is on the portside yardarm. (Photo: General Dynamics)
As detailed by the Navy, “These words characterize the life and service of Gunnery Sergeant Basilone, honor his legacy, and charge future generations of Selfless Warriors to sharpen their spears, take a stand, and move forward.” (Photo: General Dynamics)
Once commissioned, the USS Basilone will be part of the Atlantic Fleet. If she has anything like the service life shown in the rest of her class, she will only retire around 2064.
‘Old Ironsides’ Assist
Meanwhile, up the coast from NYC in Boston, the 27th Littoral Combat Ship, the future USS Nantucket (LCS-27) is set to commission on 16 November at the historic Charlestown Navy Yard. The 14th Freedom-variant is the fifth navy warship to honor “the rich heritage of the people of Nantucket and the maritime legacy that the island represents.”
The monitor USS Nantucket, seen in her post-war configuration. Loaned to the North Carolina Naval Militia in 1895, she was somewhat fancifully recommissioned for Spanish-American War service and only sold for scrapping in 1900. NH 66760-A.
The fourth, a 177-foot steel-hulled Alert-class gunboat (PG-23) commissioned in 1876, carried the name Nantucket as a training ship for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy from 1918 through 1942.
USS Nantucket (PG-23), formerly USS Ranger and USS Rockport, was then loaned to the State of Massachusetts for use at Massachusetts Nautical School. Courtesy of Mr. Gershone Bradford. NH 500
Fittingly, PCU Nantucket (LCS-27) is tied up near the USS Constitution this week as she awaits entrance to the fleet.
