Rockwell Field, near Coronado, California, 29 April 1930. Hollywood actresses Winnie Lightner, 31, and Irene Delroy, 29, clown for the camera as Lt. (later Maj. Gen.) William C. Kingsbury of the U.S. Army Air Corps’ 11th Bombardment Squadron looks down from the forward navigator/bombadier position of a rare Keystone LB-7 light bomber.
Of note, Winnie Lightner was known as Broadway’s “Song a Minute Girl” at the time because she could belt out a song in less than 60 seconds.
A sample of her work:
The Keystone LB-6/LB-7, dubbed the “Panther” by its maker, was never made in great numbers, with just 35 production models delivered to the Army for use by its six bomber squadrons in the late 1920s.
Armed with five light machine guns in assorted mounts, it could carry up to a ton of bombs out to 600 miles, lumbering along with its open crew compartments at a canvas-flapping 95 mph. They were replaced by monoplane bombers by 1934.
Keystone LB-7 aircraft at Patterson Field, Ohio, in September 1929. (U.S. Air Force photo)
They were also stars of the silver screen, appearing in Howard Hughes’ 1927 aviation epic, Wings, filling in as German Gotha bombers.
The insignia seen on the side of the LB-7 at the top is “Jiggs” of Sunday newspaper comics fame. Drawn by George McManus, Jiggs is a wealthy top-hatted rogue who attempts repeatedly to escape his dish-hurling and bread-pin-wielding wife, Maggie.
The unit adopted a bomb-toting Jiggs as the 11th Aero Squadron when it was flying DH-4s over the Western Front out of Maulan Aerodrome in France in 1918.
Official period caption: “The shadow of a U.S. Navy photograph reconnaissance jet passes near a burning Communist Vietnamese PT boat after it was blasted by U.S. Seventh Fleet aircraft from aircraft carriers USS Midway (CV 41) and USS Hancock (CV 19). This was one of the five PT boats destroyed by U.S. Navy aircraft on April 28, 1965. The boats were spotted in the Song Giang River near the Quang Khe Naval Base (located some 50 miles north of the 17th Parallel) despite heavy camouflage. A total of 58 Navy aircraft (28 strike and 30 support types) took part in the day-long attack. All were recovered safely.”
330-PSA-81-65 (USN 711478)
The silhouette is unmistakably that of a Crusader, making it either from Hancock’s embarked CVW-21’s Light Photographic Squadron (VFP) 63 Det. L or Midway’s CVW-2’s VFP-63 Det A, both of which flew RF-8A photo birds during that time.
While not made in big numbers (just 144 constructed), the RF-8A was key in Cold War history, playing a critical role during the Cuban Missile Crisis spotting Russian missile sites. In 1957, five years before becoming the first man to orbit the Earth, Marine Major John Herschel Glenn Jr. made the first supersonic transcontinental flight in “Project Bullet,” a photo Crusader, cruising from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8.3 seconds, averaging 725.55mph. It would have been faster had he not had to slow for three aerial refuelings. Glenn’s on-board camera likewise took the first continuous, transcontinental panoramic photograph of the United States.
For what it is worth, postwar analysis shows that the Vietnam People’s Navy lost three Chinese-supplied Type 55A (NATO Shantou or “Swatow” class) gunboats on 28 April 1968 at Song Gianh, South Vietnam: T-161, T-163, and T-173. Two others, though roughed up a bit by Navy air and follow-on strikes by USAF F-105 Thunderchief, were able to limp away to fight another day. The 82-foot steel-hulled diesel-powered boats were based on the Soviet P-6 class (Project 183) PT boats (which themselves were based on American-built Elco and Higgins mosquito boats delivered to Uncle Joe during WWII via Lend-lease), but only carried guns and depth charges, not torpedoes and were notable for their involvement in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964.
Official period caption, 1st Marine Brigade aboard the carrier USS Hancock (CV-19)on 28 April 1975. Operation Frequent Wind. “Sgt. M.C. Murdock, assigned as a side gunner in one of the CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters of Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463 (HMH-463) onboard the USS Hancock, poses beside the .50 caliber machine gun prior to flying into Saigon for evacuation exercises.”
Marine Photo A150915 (091-0850-86-75) by: GySgt.D.L.Sbearer, via NARA 127-GVB-279-A150915
Founded originally as a SBD bombing squadron (VMB-463) in 1944, by 1966 HMH-463 was reborn hard as a CH-53 unit and not only served in Frequent Wind– the evacuation of Saigon– but also in Eagle Pull, the evac of Phnom Penh two weeks prior.
“Our 53s were picking up 60 (evacuees). On our second load, we took on three sticks since we had no problem with 60, so then we had 90 aboard. On the third flight, we still had room on the ramp, and so we waved the CIA guy to have him send another stick. With a six-man crew and about 120 passengers, we left the DAO compound just east of Saigon for the Hancock at sea.”
HMH-463, flying CH-53s to the last, was decommissioned on 22 April 2022 as part of the Marines’ “divest to invest” budget cuts to fund the Marine Littoral Regiments.
The future museum’s physical footprint is taking shape. Elevator shafts are now in place, and electrical and utility work is actively underway. These milestones represent real progress toward opening day.
When finished, the 80,000 sq. ft. museum in New London, built in the shadow of the USGCA and its training barque, “America’s Tall Ship,” USCGC Eagle, will host more than 200 galleries covering the service going back to 1790.
I think they have enough room to host the USCGC Reliance, which is set to strike in a couple of years, and has an amazing history. At 210 feet oal, she is almost pocket-sized compared to other museum ships that are out there. Plus, rather than most potential museum ships that have been in mothballs gathering rust for decades, she is still in active service and looks great, even with 61 years on her hull.
The crew of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Reliance (WMEC 615) interdicts a low-profile vessel carrying more than $5 million in illicit narcotics in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Feb. 15, 2024. Patrolling in support of Joint Interagency Task Force-South, the Reliance crew stopped two drug trafficking ventures, detaining six suspected traffickers and preventing nearly 4,000 pounds of cocaine and 5,400 pounds of marijuana, worth more than $57 million, from entering the United States. (U.S. Coast Guard photo courtesy of Reliance)
The location has a lot of potential, being just a half-mile from I-95, inside Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor route, which brings 11 million passengers a year through the city, and near the ferry to Orient Point, New York that has some 1.3 million passengers annually.
If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says, “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”
Warship Wednesday, April 23, 2025: The Seas are Alive…with the sound of Torpedoes
Above we see le croiseur cuirasseLeon Gambetta.
She was a beautifully obsolete ship that intersected history in several unusual ways and was lost to an infamous Austrian submarine skipper some 110 years ago this week.
French armored cruiser Amore
The French invented the concept of the true armored cruiser when Dupuy de Lome was ordered in 1888. A 6,300-ton steel-clad iron-hulled steamer, Dupuy de Lome could make 20 knots on her 11 Amirauté fire-tube boilers and three engines and had no auxiliary sail scheme.
The French armored cruiser Dupuy de Lome
Swathed in as much as 5 inches of plate armor, she carried eight large (7.6 and 6.4-inch guns) as well as 18 smaller pieces (37mm, 47mm, and 65mm) while also carrying four small (17.7-inch) torpedo tubes.
Able to operate alone and far from home if needed (Dupuy de Lome could steam at 12.5 knots for 4,000 nm), she was capable of defeating anything smaller than a genuine battleship, which she could outrun.
The concept ship was followed by the four-ship Amiral Charner class, the one-off cruisers Pothuau and Jeanne d’Arc, the trio of Gueydon-class cruisers, the three ships of the Dupleix class, and the five-unit Gloire-class. In all, in the 13 years between 1888 and 1901, the French had ordered 18 armored cruisers, with each class learning from the preceding one.
The result, the Gloire and her sisters, ran 9,996 tons, had an amazing 28 boilers (!) to drive three engines to obtain a 21-knot speed, and could steam 6,500 miles ecumenically. They carried 10 large guns (2x 7.64″/40, 8x 6.5″/45) as well as six 3.9″/50s, 18 x 45mm guns, and 4 x 37mm guns, plus five 17.7-inch torpedo tubes. All of this was protected by as much as 6.9 inches of armor.
Gloire-class armored cruiser Conde is pictured at Arsenal de Brest, c1918. A true floating castle with four funnels and a curious mix of armor and armament.
The three follow-on Gambetta class armored cruisers (class leader Leon Gambetta and Jules Ferry, followed by half-sister Victor Hugo) were up-sized Gloires, displacing 11,959 tons on a hull some 30 feet longer (489 feet vs 458 feet) and four feet beamier.
All three ships used different boiler arrangements (Gambetta 28 Niclausse boilers, Ferry 20 Guyot du Temple boilers, and Hugo 28 Belleville boilers) with triple engines that produced roughly 28,500 shp to make about 22 knots and steam 6,600nm at 10 knots.
Armament on the Gambettas was a repeat of the Gloires, albeit with two fewer 6.5-inch guns and a third more 47mm mounts (24 up from 18). Likewise, they only had two torpedo tubes. The armor plan was also similar to that of the Gloire.
To speed things up, the trio was laid down at three different naval yards, with Gambetta constructed at Brest, Ferry at Cherbourg, and Hugo at Lorient, with all constructed between January 1901 and April 1907.
A heavier update to the class with more guns and armor, the 13,000-ton Jules Michelet, was constructed soon after joining the fleet in 1908.
French cruiser Jules Michilet, American cruiser USS Huron, and Japanese Cruiser Yakumo in the Whangpoo River, Shanghai, 1925
Naval architect Emile Bertin kept tinkering with the Gambetta design to produce the 13,644-ton cruiser Ernest Renan in 1909 and her half-sisters Edgar Quinet and Waldeck-Rousseau, which were the most powerful (and last) armored cruisers built in France, commissioned in 1911.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Meet Gambetta
Our subject is the first French warship named after the 1870s political and cultural juggernaut, Leon Gambetta, who was key to the formation of the Third Republic and served at various times as the country’s minister of the interior, Président du Conseil, and Président de la Chambre des deputes before his young death at age 44 in 1882. Something like 200 towns have a Rue Gambetta in France to this day, and his likeness remains borne in numerous statues throughout the Republic.
Odds are, if you have been to France in the past 140 years, you have either walked upon a street named for Leon Gambetta or gazed on his face. He is right up there with Leclerc, Ferry, Foch, and Clemenceau.
The armored cruiser ordered in his honor was laid down at Arsenal de Brest on 15 January 1901.
Lead ship, Armoured Cruiser Léon Gambetta, construction at Arsenal de Brest, 1901
She was launched into the waters of the Bay of Biscay on 26 October 1902.
Brest. Launching of the armoured cruiser Leon Gambetta.
Lancement du croiseur cuirassé Léon Gambetta Petit Journal 10 novembre 1901
While on sea trials in February 1904, she ran aground in the fog and required dry docking for another six months, then promptly ran aground a second time, sending her back to the yard for further repair.
Gambetta, Brassey’s Naval Annual 1905
She finally finished her trials and was accepted and commissioned on 21 July 1905, with her cumulative construction cost hitting 29,248,500 francs.
Made the flagship of VADM Camille Gigon’s (later VADM Horace Jaureguiberry’s) 1re Division de croiseur as part of the Northern Squadron, she immediately sailed to Portsmouth in August 1905 for the Anglo-French naval review to celebrate the historic Entente Cordiale, which ended centuries of tension between London and Paris and helped set the stage for the Great War.
Entente Cordiale: The French squadron in Portsmouth Harbor – from the French magazine Le Petit Journal, August 13, 1905.
The French ships were reviewed by King Edward VII and hosted in a variety of events ashore for the Gallic visitors throughout the week, including a garden party in Victoria Park.
Remaining a ship of state, she carried President Clement Armand Fallieres to England in May 1908 for an official visit and, later that summer, represented France at the Quebec Tercentenary.
French cruiser Léon Gambetta at the Quebec Tercentenary 1908 LAC 336185
Gambetta and HMS Minotaur at the Quebec Tercentenary 1908 LAC
Quebec Tercentenary, HMS Minotaur, Leon Gambetta, Don de Dieu, and HMS Indomitable
Quebec Tercentenary Illumination of Indomitable, Minotaur, Leon Gambetta and the Chateau Frontenac
By 1911, the three Gambetta sisters would make up the 1re Division legere in the French Mediterranean fleet with RADM Louis Dartige du Fournet hoisting his flag on our subject.
War!
Carrying the flag of RADM Victor-Baptistin Senes, Gambetta entered the Great War at the head of the 2e Division legere out of Toulon and was soon busy escorting troopships moving colonial troops from French North Africa to the Republic proper.
Then came orders to join the force of ADM Augustin Boue de Lapeyrere’s fleet of two dozen battlewagons and cruisers blockading the Austro-Hungarian coast along the Adriatic. This included several sharp skirmishes with Austrian ships, tracking the neutral Italians, supporting the Serbian and Montenegrin armies ashore, and escorting troop ships through U-boat-infested waters.
Speaking of the latter, on 26 April 1915, she was found at sea by SM U-5 of the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine. A humble 105-foot gasoline-electric submarine designed by Electric Boat of Connecticut to the same plans as used by the U.S. Navy’s C-class, U-5 only carried four 17.7-inch Whitehead torpedoes to be fired from her two forward tubes.
Kuk S.M. U 5
The tiny boat, good only for 10 knots under the best sea conditions, her new skipper, Linienschiffsleutnant Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp, had only assumed command nine days prior. Von Trapp, from a noble family and husband to Agathe Whitehead, granddaughter of the torpedo godfather, had joined the Austrian fleet at age 14 in 1894 and had served in China during the Boxer Rebellion with the surface fleet before switching to submarines in 1908.
SM U-5 of the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine and her commander, Linienschiffsleutnant Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp, at the joint Austro-German U-Boat base in the northern Adriatic in the Brioni (Brijuni) islands off Pula in Croatia during the War.
Von Trapp, in his tiny a risky little boat, continued to stalk Gambetta in the Ionian Sea off Italy’s Cape Santa Maria di Leuca into the night and, closing to within 500 yards, fired both tubes at point blank range just after midnight on 27 April.
With hits against the massive target inevitable, both fish exploded and created havoc on Gambetta, which soon began settling in the water, her boilers knocked out. Ten minutes later, it was all over, and the proud cruiser was on the bottom, taking every single one of her officers and the bulk of her 800-man crew with her.
Escorted by Italian destroyers who had only entered the war that week, they rescued 137 waterlogged survivors from the lost French cruisers.
Von Trapp made history that pre-dawn morning, conducting the first-ever underwater nighttime (and only the second) submarine attack on a vessel in the region. Gambetta remained one of the largest ships hit by a U-boat during the war.
For the feat, he would eventually earn the coveted Militär-Maria-Theresien-Orden, the highest military honor of the old Habsburg monarchy, and he would become a household name in both Austria and Germany.
Propagandists on both sides took advantage of the loss to show how brave French sailors met Poseidon without fear and how, for the Central Powers, the U-boat was a modern marvel of war, commanded by a brave modern-day knight of the sea
Engraving from the Petit Journal of May 5, 1915: “How French sailors know how to die.” Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
French armoured cruiser Leon Gambetta, sinking SMS U-5. 2
German propaganda art of Gambetta sinking by Alexander Kircher
Sinking of the French armoured cruiser Léon Gambetta on 27 April 1915, by German artist August von Ramberg
Torpedoed and sunk by the Austro-Hungarian Submarine U-5 on 27 April 1915. Austrian War Art painting. NH 60194
As for Von Trapp, just three months after sending Gambetta to the bottom, he sank the Italian submarine Nereide on 5 August 1915, just off Pelagosa (Palagruza) Island. He followed that up with capturing the Greek steamer Cefalonia three weeks later. Before the end of the war, Von Trapp would add 11 more steamers to his tally sheet, surviving 19 war patrols.
Epilogue
Little remains of Gambetta topside that I can find.
Her sisters, Jules Ferry and Victor Hugo, survived the war and, after overseas service policing French colonies in the Far East, were retired and scrapped in the late 1920s.
French armored cruiser Jules Ferry at sea, around 1905-1911, Gambetta class
Léon Gambetta-class cruiser Victor Hugo Melbourne 1923
Von Trapp, left without either a navy or a sovereign when Austrian Emperor Karl left the throne in November 1918, had to fall back on his personal inherited fortune. Left a widower with seven children in 1922 upon the passing of his wife due to scarlet fever, he hired one Maria Augusta Kutschera, a young novice from the nearby nunnery, as a live-in tutor, and the old sea dog later married her in 1927 despite the 25-year age difference, and had three further children.
The Von Trapp family then drifted into a singing career, and the rest is history.
Von Trapp, exiled from Austria in 1938, later settled in the U.S., where he passed in 1947, aged 67. He is buried in Stowe, Vermont.
Christopher Plummer portrayed him in the 1965 movie, The Sound of Music, which was very loosely based on the family’s story in the 1920s and 30s.
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
***
Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.
***
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The battle of Bunker’s Hill, June 17th, 1775, painted by J. Trumbull circa 1840; on stone by A. Hoffy. The print shows British and American soldiers in hand-to-hand combat during the Battle of Bunker Hill, including early Colonial martial banners. LOC LC-DIG-pga-00085
With nearly 2.5 million (1,227,890 Confederate and 2,128,948 Union) serving in the Civil War, and the much more prevalent availability of silks as the U.S. was a Pacific nation at the time, thousands of 1860s vintage regimental battle flags and ensigns survive, some in amazing condition. Practically every medium-sized military or veterans’ museum East of the Mississippi has a collection of martial CW flags, while hundreds more are in private hands. The Michigan History Center alone has 240 flags from the conflict.
The same cannot be said of the Revolutionary War.
Only an estimated 231,000 men served in the Continental Army throughout the war’s duration and the Army’s size never exceeded 48,000 at any time during the 1775-1783 conflict. Even those numbers are probably inflated as men often enlisted numerous for short period in assorted units and their names were frequently misspelled or abbreviated so its a high likelihood that those 231,000 should be trimmed down.
Plus, silk was rare in the colonies in the 1770s.
This means that today, only an estimated 30 or so unit flags from the War of Independence endure. Even these are widely distributed in personal, private, and public collections, with even the latter often locked away in archives and not on public display.
That’s what makes the new Banners of Liberty exhibit at the Museum of the American Revolution, which kicked off last week, important.
They have assembled more than half of the known American Colonial unit flags known to still exist, most of which have not in the same vicinity to each other since Washington’s Army was disbanded.
They include Washington’s Headquarters Flag, his own personal standard; as well as the flag of Pulaski’s Legion, the 2nd Regiment of Light Dragoons, that of the 8th Virginia Regiment, the banner of the Light Horse of the City of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Associators, and the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment.
Pulaski’s Legion
The exhibit runs through August, at which point the banners will return to their respective homes across the country, perhaps never to be assembled again. So if in Philly at any time this summer…
The 700 British regulars under Lt. Col (later MG) Francis Smith that sortied out of Boston to Lexington and Concord some 250 years ago this month did so in a bewildering array of units. Smith’s force included the Grenadier and Light Infantry Companies of the 4th (King’s Own), 5th, 10th, 23rd (Royal Welch Fusiliers), 38th, 43rd, 47th, 52nd and 59th Regiments of Foot, Grenadier and Light Infantry companies of the 1st Battalion of Marines, and also the Grenadier company of the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot.
For those keeping up at home, that’s at least 21 companies for what would today be viewed as a light battalion-sized force.
Why?
Robust and agile Grenadiers and “Light Bobs” from various regiments and Marines made up the British force that marched on Lexington and Charleston. They were typically drilled and trained to skirmish with the enemy from behind cover, provide reconnaissance, and protect the army’s flanks, whereas more traditional line infantry companies from the same regiment were of the “stand and deliver” style force that would provide massed musketry in a set-piece battle (NPS photos)
The reason for the variety was that Smith, looking to move fast, had the cream of the Britsh regiments in Boston, the elite Grenadiers and the skirmishers of the Light companies, with each of His Majesty’s regiments of foot organized into 10 companies: eight line, and two flank (Grenadier and Light). The picked men of each regiment. Smith’s main striking force would be the Grenadiers, screened and supported with the assorted Light companies.
It was a good choice, as his exhausted force would have to cover 18 miles from Boston to Concord and back, with the way back under a fierce fighting retreat, in 22 hours.
Each British infantry regiment of the time numbered 477 men in 10 companies, with each of the latter typically containing no more than 49 men: a Captain, two Lieutenants, two Sergeants, three Corporals, a Drummer, two Fifers, and 38 Privates. As basic math would have given Smith a force of well over 1,000 on paper, the discrepancy (700 marching out of Boston), shows how understrength through illness, death, and discharges the Brits were.
King George III only had a 48,647-strong Army- deployed around the globe- in 1775, organized in 46 regiments of infantry and 16 of cavalry as well as an array of independent companies and support units. Of those 46 regiments of foot, an impressive 18 were deployed to America. At the start of the war, the only regular cavalry in the Americas was the 17th Dragoons, numbering just 288 sabres in four squadrons.
In all, only 8,580 British regulars were in America at the start of the Revolution.
Facing 4,000 alerted Massachusetts militia who began surrounding Boston on the morning of 20 April- an 11-month siege that would eventually lead to the evacuation of the city by the British in March 1776- you can see how thin the King’s hold on the colony really was.
We’ve been digging into the ballistics and historyaround the battles of Lexington and Concord, which are now 250 years in the rearview.
Of interest, we found that a .69 caliber spherical musket ball of 584 grains, pushed by 110 grains of modern 2F black powder out of the barrel of a Land Pattern musket, was still able to zip through 32 inches of 10 percent FBI ballistics gel and keep going through two water jugs into the berm!
That’s no slouch.
Photos by Paul Peterson, Guns.com
Looking back at the outfitting of the local militia, in the Journal of Arthur Harris of the Bridgewater Coy of Militia (n.d.), Arthur Harris states that in 1775, Massachusetts forces were required to have with them:
A good fire arm, a steel or iron ram rod and a spring for same, a worm, a priming wire and brush, a bayonet fitted to his gun [at this time Minute Companies were outfitted with bayonets while many Militia Companies were not required to use them], a scabbard and belt thereof, a cutting sword or tomahawk or hatchet, a…cartridge box holding fifteen rounds…at least, a hundred buckshot, six flints, one pound of powder, forty leaded balls fitted to the gun, a knapsack and blanket, a canteen or wooden bottle to hold one quart [of water].
Many of the guns at those battles that were carried by the militia were “long fowlers,” or hunting pieces, of assorted calibers, along with a smattering of British (.77 caliber) and Dutch-made (.78 caliber) martial muskets and some French infantry muskets (.60 and .62 caliber) captured in the French and Indian War.
Meanwhile, the British regulars were armed with 46-inch-barreled Long Land muskets and 42-inch-barreled Short Land muskets in .75 caliber. As bullets of the age were often molded to much smaller diameter than the bore (for instance the British used .69 caliber balls in their .75 caliber muskets), to aid in rapid loading as part of a paper cartridge, this only adds to the curious array of balls recovered not only in this early battle but in many Revolutionary War sites.
When the smoke cleared, the Massachusetts provincials lost 49 killed, around 40 wounded, and 5 missing out of roughly 4,000 who answered the drum. The British lost 269 killed and wounded out of 1,800 regulars engaged.
A deep dive into those on the ground there, as interpreted by Lt Paul O’Shaughnessy and Pte Nick Woodbury of the 10th Regiment, and Steven Conners of the Lexington Minutemen:
This upcoming Patriots’ Day weekend will see the Minute Man National Historical Park host Battle Road 250 with hundreds of Revolutionary War reenactors.
Honoring the day-long battles fought at Lexington and Concord and the roads around the two Massachusetts towns, the park says that over 750 reenactors will be on hand for the anniversary of the beginning of America’s War for Independence.
While several events are planned around the anniversary, it is the fast-paced Battle Road Tactical Demonstration that will draw the crowds. Told from both sides, that of the rapidly mobilized Colonial Minutemen and militia and the British Regulars – the hated “Lobsterbacks” – those in attendance will be able to drink in the sound of musketry and the thrill of historical interpretations on the hallowed grounds that helped establish Liberty.
The park’s social media accounts have been filled in recent days with images of past Battle Road demonstrations as well as recreated militia and Redcoats drilling and training in the use of the 1764 manual of arms.
Mindanao Operations, Philippines, 1945. Original period Kodachrome. Official caption: “PT boats speed through Polloc Harbor, Mindanao, while supporting landings there, 17 April 1945.”
The boat in the background appears to be PT-150. Note the twin .50cal machine gun in the foreground and 40mm/60 Bofors single over the stern.
NARA 80-G-K-4342 via NHHC
An 80-foot Elco boat, PT-150 (dubbed at various times by her crew as Lady Lucifer, Princessr, and Joker) was built by EB in Bayonne in 1942 and shipped to the Southwest Pacific to join Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron EIGHT (MTBRon 8). After seeing action in New Guinea- they fired a torpedo that missed the Japanese submarine I-17 but managed to strafe the conning tower with .50 cal before it submerged- the mosquito boat became part of MTBRon 12, a squadron that earned a Presidential Unit Citation.
Following operations in the Philippines, she was burned along with dozens of her type there in Samar in October 1945.
They were also stars of the silver screen, appearing in Howard Hughes’ 1927 aviation epic, Wings, filling in as German Gotha bombers.
