Category Archives: military history

The Red Circle’s ’45 European Vacation

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Activated 15 July 1943 at Camp Carson, Colorado– some 79 years ago this week– the U.S. Army’s 71st Light Division (Pack, Jungle) was a rarity when it came to WWII infantry divisions as it was not descended from units that had a Great War history. Formed from two regiments of regulars– the 5th and 14th– that had long been assigned to defend the Panama Canal, augmented with new units such as the 66th Infantry Regiment, it was originally meant to fight in the triple canopy green hell of the South Pacific.

With a TO&E that included hundreds of horses and mules to carry and support 75mm pack guns– rather than the more standard 105mm howitzers and trucks– it had a small footprint, just 9,000 men, only about two-thirds the size of a traditional “leg” infantry division.

“7200 rounds of 75mm pack how. Ammunition is required per battery for operations of the 609th F.A., 71st Div. (L), atop a ridge on firebreak trail near hill #3905 during mountain maneuvers. Here are men of Hq and Service Batter, 609th, 71st L. Div., unloading dummy ammunition after a long 5-mile haul up the steep firebreak trail. 900 rounds a day is a good haul, as one mule can carry only 9 rounds. HLMR Mtn. Man. 168-9-44-593.’ Army Signal Corps photograph Photographer: J. P. Johnson. 22 March 1944

However, the 71st (L) never did make it to New Guinea or the Philippines.

Proving a bad idea in stateside tests in California, the 71st (L) was recast as a standard 14,000-man infantry division, sent to Fort Benning for additional training, and left its 75mm guns and beasts of burden behind.

This put it late to mature and the outfit only reached the European Theatre of Operation (still with jungle-trained Panama regulars of the 5th and 14th Inf Rgts making up two-thirds of its combat force, because this is the Army we are talking about!) in the Winter of early 1945.

The 71st ID’s patch had a red circle around it, earning the unit the easy nickname of “The Red Circle.” This uniform, of WWII combat veteran Staff Sergeant Harold R. George, is in the American Legacy Museum.

Hitting France on 6 February 1945, some 245 days after D-Day, it would enter combat on 10 March and spend 49 days engaged, suffering 1,879 total casualties in that short period, some 13.3 percent of its strength. The division earned two battle streamers, for the Rhineland and Central Europe Campaigns, and notably took 107,406 enemy POWs, including bagging most of the battered stragglers of the dreaded “Black Edelweiss” of the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord.

In doing so, the men of the 71st earned over 800 individual awards including 166 Silver Stars and 651 Bronze Stars. In the final days of the war, on 4 May 1945, the Division liberated Gunskirchen, one of the many subcamps of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. Three days later they made contact with advancing Soviet Red Army elements near Waidhofen after capturing Steyr and were already making merry by the time VE-Day hit on the 8th.

The most excellent war chronicle map below, drawn by T4s Emil Albrecht and Roland Wille, covers the 71st 49-day war with the Seventh and Third Armies from Limesy, France to Sierning, Austria.

(3500×2200) National Archives Identifier: 152951241 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/152951241

Wind of the Great North

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We’ve covered the Wind-class “battle icebreakers” several times on Warship Wednesday including USS Atka (AGB-3)/USCGC Southwind (WAG-280) (then became the Soviet Kaptian Bouleve then later Admiral Makarov) and USCGC Northwind (WAG/WAGB-282).

USCGC Northwind in Antarctic waters, 16 December 1956. K-21429.

In all, an impressive eight Wind-class ships were built. Equipped with 5″/38 DP mounts and with the ability to carry floatplanes (later helicopters as soon as 1945), they fought the Germans in the “Weather War” while on Greenland Patrol in WWII, were the coldest boats of the frozen front lines of the Cold War where they helped establish the DEW Line and made sure Thule AB could exist in the Arctic and McMurdo in the Antarctic. Operations Deep Freeze, Nanook, Blue Nose, High Jump (aka “The Battle of Antarctica”), and more. They also proved to have long lives, with several still clocking in for hard work crunching ice in the late 1980s.

However, one of the Winds that got little love from the history books was a special one-off sister HMCS Labrador (AW50), the Royal Canadian Navy’s only polar icebreaker. She was almost amazingly advanced for the “old school” Tars of the RCN, being the first fully diesel-electric vessel in the Royal Canadian Navy as well as the first to have central heating and ventilation, air conditioning, and bunks instead of hammocks.

Built domestically under license by Marine Industries Limited in Sorel, Quebec (Yard No. 187), she was laid down on 18 November 1949, making her all-Canadian. Her seven American sisters were all built at San Pedro while her unarmed freshwater half-sister USCGC Mackinaw (WAGB-83) was built for Great Lakes service at Toledo.

Speaking of unarmed, the 6,500-ton HMCS Labrador was completed with a much-reduced fixed armament, mounting two 40mm Bofors and a single 3″/50 gun platform on the forecastle– though the latter was never mounted.

Note her forward gun platform is empty

As noted in her 141-page operational history:

The ship was by no means an exact copy of the American icebreakers, for advantage was taken of USN experience to incorporate many improvements. The stem of the Canadian ship, for instance, was given a knife-edge instead of the U shape of the American vessels, and the bow propeller fitted in the original Wind Class was omitted. The flight deck was made about half as big again as those fitted in the American ships and could accommodate three helicopters. Another major deviation from the US design was the fitting of retractable Denny-Brown stabilizing fins in an attempt to cut down the excessive roll of the Wind Class ships in rough weather. A great many changes involving accommodation of personnel were also made in order to provide better quarters and more recreational space for the ship’s company. Further modifications were necessitated by the fact that the RCN communications and radar requirements were about twice as great as those of the American ships. The ship’s first Commanding Officer, Captain O.C.S. Robertson, GM, RD, RCN, was responsible for many of the improvements made to the ship. He spent several months working with USN icebreakers, and his fertile mind conceived improvements and modifications at a rate that almost had the Naval Constructor in Chief wishing the ship had been assigned a less efficient and enthusiastic CO.

Commissioned 8 July 1954– some 68 years ago this week, later that November Labrador became the first warship to circumnavigate North America in a single voyage, sailing North from Halifax, crossing the Northwest Passage, sailing down the Pacific Coast, and back up to Halifax via the Panama Canal.

She could carry three helicopters including two Bell HTL-4 and a HUP II. Along with the 36-foot (11 m) all-aluminum hydrographic sounding craft Pogo. 2

She was Canada’s first heavy icebreaker and the Royal Canadian Navy’s first vessel capable of reliably operating in the waters of the Arctic, in essence, the country’s first Arctic patrol ship. She was the first warship as well as the first deep-draught ship of any type to transit the Northwest Passage and only the second vessel ever to accomplish the feat in one season.

USCGC Eastwind W279 coming alongside HMCS Labrador in the Arctic Ice

However, scandalously cash-strapped (a heritage the service continues to carry to this day), Labrador decommissioned on 22 November 1957 and transferred to civilian control in 1958 after just four years of RCN service.

Operating with the Department of Transport as the Canadian Government Ship (CGS) Labrador and then after 1962 with the newly-formed Canadian Coast Guard as CCGS Labrador, she endured until 1988 and was sent to the breakers. Today, the RCN hopes to field six new new “ice-capable” patrol ships, this time armed– the Harry DeWolf-class offshore patrol vessels– which are, at 6,600 tons, actually bigger than Labrador. It seems sending armed ships to the Arctic has finally become popular in Canada.

For more on Labrador, see her page on For Posterity’s Sake, a Royal Canadian Navy Historical Project.

Recalled!

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80 years ago today, official caption: “CPO George Sanderson. View was taken in 1942. Sanderson held the distinction of being the oldest man in the armed forces on active duty. Joined (sloop-of-war) USS Iroquois on 7 July 1882, recalled to active duty on 15 July 1942. Born 3 January 1862.”

Original print signed: Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, best wishes, George Sanderson. Naval History and Heritage Command, Yarnell collection NH 81981

The Chief Boatswains Mate has 10 (gold) hash marks on his sleeve, denoting at least 40 years of active service.

Mustachioed Gunners Mate First Class (Gun Captain) George Sanderson in the center with his gun crew, USS Oregon (BB-3) before the battle of Santiago, 1898. LOC LC-D4-32321 det 4a16563

As described over at the US Militaria Forum:

After a life of service on Civil War Sloops of War, a Coast Survey Ship in the Arctic, Screw Gunboats, Screw Sloops of War, Protected Cruisers, the first Battleships, a prize Spanish Gunboat, Hospital Ship, Schooner Rigged Steamer, Armored Cruiser plus a fleet of Receiving ships, he wanted more sea duty. Over 40 years of service ‘Sandy’ Sanderson had rounded the world 21 times, landed Marines in Panama in the 1880s, served in the Spanish American War as a Gun Turret Captain, fought Philippine Insurrectionists, Boxer Revolutionaries, Panamanian Revolutionaries, Zulu uprisings, protected seals in the Bering Sea, and made liberties in the Hawaiian Kingdom, as Sandy put it, “when they were something – when old King Kalakaua was in charge”. Recalled during World War I, he organized and was placed in charge of a gunnery school in New York City with 542 men assigned there and retired again in 1922.

Putting on his old uniform again after Pearl Harbor, he asked for sea duty.

He asked for sea duty.

Ultimately taken back into service, though restricted to shore assignments, he was assigned to Treasure Island and Recruiting Duty,

“Sandy” became one of the Navy’s best recruiters of Sailors, Seabees and in particular, WAVES, having had experience with the first Yeomanettes during World War I when he ran the NYC Gunnery School. 80-G-359957: “CBM George “Sandy” Sanderson, 81, oldest man on active duty in the Navy was nearly swamped by WAVES when he visited Portland, Oregon, recently and appeared at the Navy Mother’s Club tea on Navy Day.”

Discharged in August 1945, he earned his 11th service stripe!

CBM (PA) George ‘Sandy’ Sanderson, USN – The oldest US Navy sailor serving in World War II. All Hands, March 1949.

Attempting to reenlist for Korea but denied, Sanderson passed the bar in 1954.

Not that Georgia

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On or around July 14, 1943, official caption:

“Private Lloyd Culuck, Company A, 1st Battalion., 172nd Infantry Regiment, eats chow from a can of Ration B on New Georgia Island, SW Pacific during the New Georgia Campaign against Imperial Japanese military forces. He uses the can lid in lieu of fork or spoon. On the island since the first beachhead was established on July 2, 1943, he hasn’t changed clothes in 12 days.”

Signal Corps Photo: 161-43-2537 (DiPaola)

The 172nd was then and is now a unit of the Vermont National Guard, and has since the 1980s specialized in mountain warfare.

For more on its involvement in the New Georgia campaign and the grueling push up the Munda Trail, see Operation Toenails. 

SEAL Vet Holds Class on SOPMOD History

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Every gun nerd knows about SOPMOD. SOPMOD refers to Special Operations Peculiar MODification kit.

This stuff:

The purpose behind SOPMOD is to provide rifles with the flexibility and versatility to adapt basic issue weapons to meet mission-specific requirements.

It started off a lot less high-speed. 

Retired Navy SEAL Mark “Coch” Cochiolo talks about his career in SOPMOD, with a great 11-minute show and tell below going from the old days of pipe-clamping Maglights on MP5s, and drilling eye-bolts through handguards to where we are at today.

Abbreviated Warship Wednesday: Tennessee by the pale moon light

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I’m on the road, haunting New England on a gun industry-related trip all week (although I do plan to catch the screening of “Master and Commander” on the deck of the USS Constitution on Friday night!). As such, I didn’t have the time to do a proper Warship Wednesday today.

Until then, enjoy this haunting image– photographed by scout aircraft from USS Ranger (CV 4)— of the dreadnought USS Tennessee (Battleship No. 43) with San Francisco Bridge in the background, 84 years ago today, 13 July 1938. The image was likely snapped by the observer in a Vought SBU-1 (Corsair) belonging to the “Ducks” of Scouting Squadron Forty-Two (VS-42).

U.S. Navy photo now in the National Archives 80-CF-14-2054-12

El Tiburon Blanco looking great

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The Reliance-class U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Steadfast (WMEC 623, ex WPC-623) returned to homeport last week following a 55-day/11,000-mile counter-narcotics deployment to the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The 54-year-old 210-foot medium endurance cutter and crew conducted law enforcement and search-and-rescue operations in international waters off Central America from Mexico to Costa Rica.

With an embarked MH-65E Dolphin helicopter and aviation detachment from Air Station Port Angeles, Washington, and with additional crew members from the Tactical Law Enforcement Team Pacific, Electronics Support Detachment Detroit, Coast Guard Base Galveston, and three U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadets, she got some amazing photo-ex shots while underway.

The crew aboard U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Steadfast (WMEC-623) stands in formation on the ship’s flight deck while underway off the coast of Central America on Memorial Day, 2022. An embarked MH-65 Dolphin helicopter detachment crew from Air Station Port Angeles hovered overhead for the photo in recognition of the day of remembrance. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman Brad O’Brien)

Note that the awnings typically rigged on such patrols to shelter picked-up migrants and smuggling suspects, shield the cutter’s Mk38 25mm gun, which replaced her old 3″/50 in 1994. The 210-foot cutter has a pair of M2 .50 cals on her bridge wings that cover both her decks and for use in boardings. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman Brad O’Brien)

The class is capable of operating HH-60 and HH-65-sized helicopters albeit without the ability to do in-depth maintenance as they have no hangar. Note the LSO box under the smack. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman Brad O’Brien)

As noted by the USCG, on her latest deployment:

The crew of the Steadfast also worked with Mexican law enforcement assets on two occasions, to locate, track, and interdict fast-moving drug smuggling vessels, resulting in the seizure of 2,747 kilograms of cocaine by Mexican authorities, valued at $109 million.

While transiting South of Mexico, Steadfast’s bridge team sighted a disabled and adrift open-hull vessel with two Mexican adult males waving life jackets. Steadfast approached the vessel to investigate and determine the nature of distress. The imperiled mariners stated that they were fishermen who had been adrift for 23 days after their vessel had been beset by weather. Steadfast embarked both persons, provided meals and medical care, and returned them safely back to Mexico.

Steadfast is a Reliance Class cutter that has been homeported in Astoria since 1994. Previously, Steadfast was homeported in St. Petersburg, Florida where she earned the nickname “El Tiburon Blanco,” (“White Shark”) from drug smugglers for her notoriety in counter-narcotics operations in the Florida Straits and the Caribbean Sea.

All in all, not too bad looking for a ship that launched in 1967.

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Steadfast side-launched at the American Shipbuilding Company, Lorain 1967

Battlewagon Vought

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95 Years Ago Today: Vought UO floatplane, arriving at Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego, California, 8 July 1927, marked on its fuselage as being from USS Nevada (Battleship No. 36).

U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-HAN-142-2

The Vought UO was top-of-the-line a century ago at the time it was introduced in 1922.

As noted by Vought.org,

“As their superiority over potential competing types became evident, they became the only observation type in use on the fleet’s catapult-equipped combat ships. The 15 first-class battleships were each equipped with one or more UO-1s. Two or more UO-1s were used aboard each of the new scout cruisers comprising the Navy’s scouting fleet.”

The two-seat observation plane accomplished several firsts, including:

  • The first airplane to be catapulted from a battleship at night (26 November 1924, Lt. Dixie Kiefer off the USS. California in San Diego harbor while lit by the ship’s searchlights).
  • Vought’s first overseas sales (to Cuba and later to Peru).
  • One of the first new aircraft bought by the USCG— two used for chasing rum-runners during Prohibition.
  • The first airplane hooked in midair from the Navy dirigible USS Los Angeles (1929).

With just 141 aircraft built, the career of the Vought UO series was limited, and, obsolete only a decade after being introduced, they were retired by the Navy by 1933.

Screaming Eagles Headed Back to Europe After 80 Years

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U.S Army Maj. Gen. JP McGee, right, commanding general, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), and Command Sgt. Maj. Veronica Knapp, left, case the division colors during a color casing ceremony at McAuliffe Hall, Fort Campbell, Ky., July 5, 2022. The ceremony was held to officially mark the Screaming Eagle’s deployment to the European Command theater of operations to assure NATO allies and deter Russian aggression in the region. The casing of the colors symbolizes their departure from Fort Campbell, Ky. Their colors will remain cased until they redeploy the European Command theater of operations. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Sinthia Rosario, 101st Airborne Division Public Affairs)

While the 101st famously started their 1944-45 European vacation at Normandy– including the capture of Carentan– and ended 214 days later at the Eagle’s Nest, suffering 11,548 battle casualties along the way, the division’s post-WWII logs have seen it stay more Asia-way.

Earning 12 battle streamers in Vietnam as well as two for Southwest Asia service (along with a Meritorious Unit Commendation), the unit as a whole has kept out of Europe with the exception of exercises. However, that has changed as the division headquarters and the 2nd Brigade as a whole are headed there for the next several months.

From the Army:

Elements of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) began arriving to the Mihail Kogalniceanum Airbase in Romania June 20, and are scheduled to continue arriving during the next several days.

Headquarters, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, will support the U.S. Army V Corps’ mission to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank and engage in multinational exercises with partners across the European continent in order to reassure allies and deter further Russian aggression.

The deploying 101st Soldiers do not represent additional U.S. forces in Europe, but are taking the place of Soldiers assigned to 82nd Airborne Division Headquarters and the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division.

As noted by local media around E-Town: 

Considering Fort Campbell soldiers haven’t been deployed to Europe in 80 years, to put that in perspective – in 1942, gas was 20 cents.

The most-watched film that year was Bambi, and Bing Crosby released “White Christmas” in July 1942, which would be the Billboard top hit for three months that year.

The 4,700 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division began deploying to Europe in late June.

The latest troop will depart Fort Campbell at 10:30 Wednesday night.

In related news, it is almost ironic that Bradford Freeman, the last survivor of the Easy 506th’s famed “Band of Brothers,” died on Sunday in Columbus, Mississippi. He was 97.

Banzai meets Brooklyn

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Soldiers of the New York National Guard’s 105th Infantry Regiment on Saipan during World War II.

(New York State Military Museum)

Formerly the 2nd New York Volunteer Infantry of the 19th Century, the 105th had a long and distinguished record in federal service including the Civil War, the Spanish-America War, the Mexican Border dispute of 1916, World War I, and finally World War II.

Assigned to the 27th “New York” Infantry Division on 15 October 1940, after training at Alabama’s Fort McClellan, the New Yorkers shipped out for the Pacific and cleared Butaritari Island in the Makin Atoll campaign before landing on Saipan 17 June 1944.

The fighting on the long-held Japanese territory continued up Mount Tapotchau where the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 105th in the predawn hours of 7 July “bore the brunt of the largest Banzai charge of the entire war,” standing their ground against 4,300 fanatical Japanese, an action that resulted in three of the New Yorkers earning the Medal of Honor for the price of some 918 men from the two battalions listed on the casualty rolls, more than half of their effective strength.

MAJ Edward McCarthy, then in command of 2-105 and one of the few officers of the regiment to survive the 15-hour attack, described the scene as follows:

“It reminded me of one of those old cattle-stampede scenes of the movies. The camera is in a hole in the ground and you see the herd coming and they leap up and over you and are gone. Only the Japs just kept coming and coming. I didn’t think they’d ever stop”.

The 105th, after rest and refit, was thrown into the hell that was the Shuri Line at Okinawa and was bled white once more. It was disbanded back home in December 1945 and has never been reformed.

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