Category Archives: military history

12 Gauge on Watch

Posted on by Leave a comment

Official wartime caption: “On Guard. Silhouetted sailor, rifle slung on his back, stands guard at a North African port as a huge ship is unloaded of its vital cargo, 31 August 1943.”

U.S. Navy Photograph. Courtesy of the Library of Congress PR-06-CN-215-5

Note that the above blue jacket appears to be on the stern of a small escort, as a loaded depth charge rack and smoke generator are present. Also note the slung 12-gauge, which appears by its bayonet lug to be a Winchester 97. While the Marines had fielded the Winnie in the Great War, Prohibition mail duty, and the assorted Banana Wars of the 1920s, the Navy typically only used long-barreled sporting guns for recreation and hunting, with a few “riot guns” on hand at large brigs and aboard a few gunboats on the China Station.

As noted by Canfield, in January 1942, the Naval Supply Depot, Norfolk, only had 751 “riot type” and 134 “sporting guns” on inventory loaned out across the Atlantic fleet. This resulted in an immediate order for 8,000 Model 97s from the War Department as all stocks of shotguns were “exhausted.” This was in addition to the guns needed for training and to equip the Marines, who were soon issuing 100 combat shotguns per regiment.

The “scattergat” endures in Navy service both ashore with MA units and afloat in most small arms lockers. Today, the Mossberg 500/590 series, which has been acquired almost continually since 1981 in a revolving series of contracts, is most commonly encountered in Navy hands.

230214-N-NH267-1484 INDIAN OCEAN (Feb. 14, 2023) U.S. Navy Fire Controlman (Aegis) 2nd Class Cody McDonald, from Spring Creek, Nev., fires an M500 shotgun during a visit, board, search, and seizure (VBSS) gun shoot on the flight deck of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60). Paul Hamilton, part of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, is in U.S. 7th Fleet conducting routine operations. 7th Fleet is the U.S. Navy’s largest forward-deployed numbered fleet, and routinely interacts and operates with Allies and partners in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elliot Schaudt)

Pour 12 out for the ever-maligned yet everlasting Kingstons

Posted on by Leave a comment

Over the past several years, I have made no bones about my admiration for the 12 humble yet effective Kingston-class Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels (MCDV) of the Royal Canadian Navy.

Kingston-class MCDVs HMCS Glace Bay (MM 701) and HMCS Shawinigan (MM 704)

For the bottom line of $750 million (in 1995 Canadian dollars), Ottawa bought 12 ships, including design, construction, outfitting, equipment (85 percent of Canadian origin), and 22 sets of remote training equipment for inland reserve centers.

These 181-foot ships were designed to commercial standards and intended “to conduct coastal patrols, minesweeping, law enforcement, pollution surveillance and response as well as search and rescue duties,” able to pinch-hit between these wildly diverse assignments via modular mission payloads in the same way that the littoral combat ships would later try.

Canadian Kingston-class coastal defence vessel HMCS Saskatoon MM 709 note 40mm gun forward MCDV

Manned with hybrid reserve/active crews in a model similar to the U.S. Navy’s NRF frigate program, their availability suffered, much like the Navy’s now-canceled NRF frigate program. This usually consisted of two active rates– one engineering, one electrical– and 30 or so drilling reservists per hull. Designed to operate with a crew of 24 for coastal surveillance missions with accommodation for up to 37 for mine warfare or training, the complement was housed in staterooms with no more than three souls per compartment.

With 12 ships, six were maintained on each coast in squadrons, with one or two “alert” ships fully manned and/or deployed at a time, and one or two in extended maintenance/overhaul.

Intended to have a 15-year service life, these 970-ton ships have almost doubled that. These shoestring surface combatants were pushed into spaces and places no one could have foreseen, and they have pulled off a lot– often overseas, despite their official “type” and original intention.

Northern Lights shimmer above HMCS GLACE BAY during Operation NANOOK 2020 on August 18, 2020. CPL DAVID VELDMAN, CAF PHOTO

However, all good things come to an end, and the Kingstons are slated for a long-overdue retirement this year.

The class in retrospect:

Warship Wednesday, October 15, 2025: One Tough Cat

Posted on by Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

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, October 15, 2025: One Tough Cat

Royal Navy official photographer Lt. SJ Beadell, IWM FL 7995

Above we see the armed merchant cruiser HMS Cheshire (F 18) in war paint at anchor at Greenock, 5 December 1942. Note her mixed battery of six 6-inch and two 3-inch guns arranged in tubs around her decks.

At the time, this grey lady had already caught and survived torpedoes from no less than two different U-boats and still had a lot of war left in her.

The Bibby 10,000 tonners

The Liverpool-based Bibby Line was founded in 1807 by the first John Bibby and continues to exist as one of the UK’s oldest family-owned shipping businesses. It’s Bibby Steam Ship Co., operating from 1891 with its flagship, the 3,870-ton Harland and Wolff-built SS Lancashire, recording the fastest time on the Burma run at 23 days and 20 hours.

Looking to grow and maintain its England to Burma service, Bibby ordered a new SS Lancashire, this one a stately 9,445-ton steamship, in 1914 from Harland & Wolff. Not completed until 1918 due to the Great War, her first cruises were in repatriating French prisoners of war and later Belgian refugees, as well as shuttling troops around the Empire before being released to her owners in 1920.

A sister, Yorkshire, was also constructed to a similar plan.

With peacetime accommodation for 295 1st class passengers in addition to mail and cargo, Lancashire proved popular, especially on lease to the Crown for delivering troops overseas, and a follow-on class of six near-sisters were soon ordered.

With four masts, a single large funnel, and elegant decks, the 482-foot, 9,445-ton SS Lancashire and her sister Yorkshire were elegant, especially for the Rangoon “Burma Boat” run, and would remain in Bibby’s service until 1946. Note the “HMT” designation on this period postcard, notable as she spent 1918-20 and 1939-45 in service to the Crown, along with numerous lease terms on a £400 per day rate.

Ordered from Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Govan in Glasgow starting in 1925, MV Shropshire (Yard No. 619), followed by our MV Cheshire (620), MV Staffordshire (630), MV Worcestershire (640), MV Derbyshire (653), and MV Devonshire (670) were delivered by 1939.

While Lancashire/Yorkshire had been designed to run a coal plant (replaced by oil-fired boilers in a 1921 conversion), the new “Shires” would be run on two Sulzer 8-cyl (28, 39in) diesel engines from the start, with a speed pushing 14.5 knots, sustained. As such, these were the first Bibby liners to be motorships rather than steamships. Since the diesels were more compact and required no stokers, they freed up extra cargo and passenger space over the old design.

The design remained close enough to keep the same general dimensions (482 feet registered length vs 483) as Lancashire/Yorkshire, albeit a couple of feet wider (60 vs 57), which grew the displacement to 10,500 tons. To be certain, this continued to grow as the class was built out, with Staffordshire expanding to 62 feet across the beam, Worcestershire to 64, Derbyshire to 66, with the resulting heft in tonnage as well. Devonshire, the last of the class, would balloon to 12,796 tons.

They kept a similar 275 1st class passenger capacity as Lancashire/Yorkshire. This was arranged in two overall decks, a third deck below outside the engine room, and a forecastle, long bridge, and poop deck above. There were eight main bulkheads dividing the ship into two peaks, the engine room and six holds, four of them forward, and No. 4 abaft the bridge, worked by derricks on posts just forward of the single funnel, along with a 1,340 cu ft in a refrigerated hold. Boats included 10 26-foot lifeboats, two 22-foot accident boats, and two motor launches.

Crews were small for liners, hovering around 200, with British stewards quartered in the forecastle and Lascar seamen in the poop.

The passenger areas and cabins, to the “Bibby tandem” design, were much better appointed than on Lancashire, as shown by this circa 1930s pamphlet of Worcestershire:

They also had all the cutting-edge navigational gear of the era, including wireless direction finding and submarine signaling.

These half-dozen new 10,000-ton Shires, along with Lancashire and Yorkshire, graced Bibby’s posters and cards during the 1920s and 30s, with the line expanding regular service from Liverpool and Plymouth beyond Rangoon to Colombo and Cochin with assorted stops along the way.

Meet Cheshire

Our subject was Official Number 149625, Fairfield Yard No. 620, and built at Govan like her sisters, following class leader Shropshire by just 10 months when she was launched on the Clyde on 20 April 1927.

Cheshire finished fitting out and was delivered that July, with Bibby soon putting her into Far East service shortly after. In doing so, she replaced the smaller Bibby steamship SS Warwickshire, which had been in service for 25 years.

Her pre-war service was quiet, as one would expect. Her typical run was Liverpool to Rangoon via Gibraltar, Port Said, Port Sudan, and Colombo, a regular sea-going Agatha Christie novel. Between 1928 and 1934, she logged an impressive 447,361 miles.

Torpedo Bait

On 29 August 1939, just three short days before the Germans marched into Poland, Cheshire became one of ultimately 41 Royal Navy Armed Merchant Cruisers to see service in WWII (along with three each in the RAN and RCN).

This amounted to removing most of their superfluous peacetime appointments, reducing their masts and rigging, landing excess lifeboats, slapping on a coat of thick grey paint (later camouflaged), and adding a mixed battery of 6″/45 Mark VII/VIIIs left removed from Great War era battleships and cruisers (an amazing 629 of these were in storage in 1939), along with a couple of more modern 3″/50s and machine guns to dissuade low-flying aircraft.

Cheshire profiles, pre-war and WWII, by JH Isherwood, Sea Breezes magazine, circa 1962.

Likewise, three of her sisters (Shropshire, Worcestershire, and Derbyshire) were similarly converted as AMCs, while the balance became troop carriers.

Sister HMS Worcestershire at Greenock in 1943. Shropshire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire all had similar 1939-43 appearances. IWM (A 17213)

HMS Worcestershire is shown as AMC. IWM FL21782

Cheshire was commissioned on 30 October, with the pennant number F18, and was tasked initially with patrolling the North Sea for German blockade runners.

Cheshire’s first convoy run was from Freetown, Sierra Leone, to Plymouth with Convoy SLF.16 for two weeks in January 1940, being the largest escort in the force of two destroyers and HM Severn, which were returning to duty in Home Waters.

February 1940 saw her as part of SL.20, shipping from Freetown to Plymouth in line with the AMC HMS Esperance Bay and four V-class destroyers.

In March, she rode shotgun with SL.24 from Freetown to Liverpool.

May 1940 saw her patrolling from Gibraltar off Vigo, Spain, with the destroyer HMS Keppel (D84), searching for German blockade runners, raiders, and U-boats.

It was during this duty that she rescued survivors from the torpedoed French cargo liner Brazza, sunk on 28 May by U-37. Working alongside the French gunboat Enseigne Henry, the two ships accounted for 52 crew members, 98 military passengers (56 French Navy, 17 French Army, and 25 Colonial Troops,) and 47 civilian passengers (20 men, 19 women, and eight children) from Brazza who survived the sinking. Another 379 were never recovered.

While deployed with the Western Approaches Defence Force on 16 August 1940, Cheshire spotted a prowling U-boat and birddogged the destroyer HMS Arrow (H 42).

Starting 7 October 1940, she and her fellow AMC, HMS Salopian (ex sister Shropshire, renamed as there was already a cruiser named Shropshire), was part of the first leg of an early “Winston’s Special” Convoy, WS 3 (Fast), leaving Liverpool with seven large 20,000-ton transports carrying troops to North Africa the long way round via Freetown and Cape Town.

On 8 October, the Orient Liner turned troopship Oronsay (20043 GRT) was damaged by Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condors of I./KG 40 off Ireland’s Bloody Foreland and forced to leave the convoy, escorted by Cheshire and the destroyers Arrow and Ottawa, which took her safely into Lough Foyle.

Returning to sea, at 21.28 on 14 October, Cheshire was promptly struck in her No.2 hold by one torpedo from U-137 (Kptlt. Herbert Wohlfarth), northwest of Ireland. The A-class destroyer HMCS Skeena (D 59) and Flower-class corvette HMS Periwinkle (K 55) embarked all 230 survivors from Cheshire and put parties on board to maintain steam until a tug arrived to take the damaged ship in tow for repair.

Cheshire was successfully towed to Belfast Lough, where she was beached. She was taken to Liverpool for repairs requiring six months.

The 10,000-ton Bibby liners were tough for sure. Sister HMS Worcestershire (F 29) likewise survived a torpedo from U-74 in March 1941, suffering but one casualty. She limped into port on her own power, was repaired, and back on the job in four months.

Sadly, sister Salopian/Shropshire succumbed to three fish from U-98 while off Greenland in April, but remarkably, only sent two of her crew to the bottom with their vessel, while the 278 survivors were landed in Iceland. Even more tragic, her half-sister, the Yorkshire, was also sunk off Cape Finisterre, via two torpedoes from U-37, just 10 weeks into the war, carrying passengers and cargo to Rangoon while still in merchant service. Yorktown carried 58 passengers and crew to the cold embrace of the Atlantic.

Following repairs, Cheshire joined Convoy SL 020F in February 1941 and SL 024 in March. A short run to Iceland, Convoy DS 3, escorting two troopships to the Allied-occupied island from Clyde, was tense but successful.

She continued her convoy escort work with Halifax to Liverpool HX 131 in June 1941, an 11-day crossing. The follow-up Liverpool to Halifax Convoy OB 335 finished up the month.

Convoy BHX.137 and HX 137 came in July 1941.

On 10 January 1942, Cheshire was tasked to escort Convoy WS.15 from Liverpool to embattled Singapore via Cape Town. With 24 steamers packed with troops and munitions, the escort amounted to our subject, the AMC Ascania, the old battleship HMS Resolution (09), the small Dutch cruiser Heemskerk, and a half dozen destroyers and sloops. The convoy suffered one loss, a freighter damaged by U-402 on 16 January, and was later forced to disperse once Singapore fell on 15 February, with the ships proceeding to Suez, Colombo, and Bombay as ordered.

It was during this trip, on 14 March 1942, while on patrol off Cape Town, that Cheshire stopped the German auxiliary minelayer and blockade runner Doggerbank (Schiff 53), which was the British freighter Speybank, which had been captured and converted by the Hilfskreuzer Atlantis in the Indian Ocean a year prior. Doggerbank, flying the ship’s old red duster, successfully identified herself as her sister ship, the Bank Line steamer Levenbank, and was allowed to proceed.

Cheshire can’t be blamed for the mistake; the Royal Navy’s D (Danae)-class light cruiser HMS Durban (D 99) had intercepted the wily Doggerbank two days before with the same result.

Ironically, her British lines would seal her fate, and Doggerbank/Speybank would later be sunk by one of the Kriegsmarine’s own U-boats, which was sure they were sinking an Allied merchant.

Getting back to escort duty, Cheshire rode with WS 19 during passage from Cape Town to Durban in June 1942.

Her final blue water convoy run as an AMC came with Freetown to Liverpool-bound SL 118, her fourth SL/MKS convoy, in August 1942. Amounting to 37 merchants escorted by 12 warships and Cheshire, the convoy had the misfortune of being haunted for a fortnight by the eight U-boats of Wolfpack Blücher, who claimed five of the merchants. Also damaged during this slow-running fight was Cheshire herself, who caught a single fish from a four-torpedo spread from U-214 (Kptlt. Günther Reeder) at 18.52 hours on 18 August.

Undeterred, Cheshire was able to make port on her own power, after all, she had been torpedoed before.

Repaired, she rode with the short coastwise Convoy FS.19 from Methil to Southend in May 1943, where she was paid off on 9 June 1943.

Her escort service as an AMC is remembered in maritime art by Jim Rae.

“AMC HMS Cheshire escorting Admiralty Floating Dock 53, towed in two halves by Tugs HMS Roode Zee and Thames with seven escorts from Montevideo to Bahia. Escort then passed to AMC Alcantara for onward passage to Africa.” By Jim Rae

Troop service (and continued torpedo bait)

Post-Torch and Husky, and with the British fleet much reinforced with new escorts, Cheshire and her surviving sisters were returned to their owner, who operated them, still armed, with merchant crews as troopships under charter to the Ministry of War Transport.

Derbyshire at Clyde, as a troop landing ship with LCVPs on her sides.

HMT Cheshire, Malta

Lancashire as HMT, Malta

On the eve of D-Day, HMT Cheshire joined Convoy ETP1 (sometimes also seen as EWP 1) in the Thames Estuary, where she met the fellow Bibby liners Lancashire (convoy commodore), Devonshire, and sister Worcestershire. Loaded with 10,000 troops of the train of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and elements of the Second British Army, they arrived off Juno Beach on 7 June 1944.

Cheshire also had another brush with death on the sea when she sailed on Christmas Eve 1944, alongside the Belgian troopship Leopoldville, escorted by four destroyers, from Southampton across the English Channel to Cherbourg. The two troopships carried the bulk of the U.S. 66th “Black Panther” Infantry Division, and while Cheshire made it to Cherbourg unharmed with her charges, Leopoldville was sunk by U-486, taking 816 Belgian sailors, RN armed guards, and American soldiers with her to the bottom.

Shipping to the Far East in 1945, Cheshire both shuttled Commonwealth troops around the Pacific for occupation duty once Japan quit the war and carried former Allied POWs home. On 23 November, she brought the last Australian former POWs home from Singapore.

Sydney, NSW 1945-11-23. The steamship Cheshire which carried the last group of ex-prisoners of war to return home from Singapore. (Photographer LCpl E. Mcquillan) AWM 123738

Sydney, NSW 1945-11-23. A Group Of The Last Prisoners Of War To Arrive From Singapore Wave To Friends As The Steamship Cheshire Pulls Into Its Berth At Woolloomooloo. Left To Right: Sapper Sullivan, Driver (Dvr) Pasfield, Dvr Mcbean, Private (Pte) Johnston, Pte Mainwaring, And Pte Kermode. (Photographer L. Cpl E. McQuillan)/ Sydney, NSW 1945-11-23. A Group Of The Last Prisoners Of War To Arrive From Singapore Sitting On The Edge Of The Top Deck Of The Steamship Cheshire. Left To Right: Nx65713 Private (Pte) D. Johnson; Nx44139 Pte A. S. Kermode; Nx56312 Driver (Dvr) M. Pasfield; Nx66021 Sapper D. Sullivan; Nx10767 Pte A. Mainwaring; And Qx19008 Dvr R. Mcbean. (Photographer L. Cpl E. McQuillan) AWM 123727/28

She also carried Dutch POWs to Java and Borneo. It was estimated that upwards of 80,000 troops rode Cheshire during the war.

Cheshire was further used for civilian repatriation services, for instance, carrying Gibraltar residents back home in September 1946 who had been evacuated to Northern Ireland in late 1940 when it looked like Spain might invade the colony.

Liner, again

On 5 October 1948, Cheshire was finally released to the owner and allowed to return to commercial service. She was overhauled and rebuilt as a rather spartan emigrant ship, with accommodation for 650 passengers, and three of her masts removed.

Thus minimally refurbished, she sailed on her first Liverpool to Sydney voyage on 9 August 1949, carrying Europeans fleeing war-shattered and Iron Curtain-divisioned Europe for the hope of a better life Down Under.

She would eventually return to trooping duties for the Korean War, able to carry a battalion at a time back and forth from the Peninsula to Europe.

Paid off for good at Liverpool in February 1957, she arrived at Newport on 11 July of that year for breaking by BISCO’s John Cashmore Ltd., having completed a very busy 30 years of service.

Epilogue

Of Cheshire’s sisters who survived the war, Staffordshire likewise returned to service with Bibby and was broken up in Japan in 1959.

Worcestershire lived long enough to be renamed Kannon Maru for her 1961 voyage to the breakers in Osaka.

Derbyshire was scrapped at Hong Kong in 1963.

Devonshire, used for trooping during WWII and Korea, was present at Operation Grapple, the joint U.S./British atomic bomb tests conducted at Christmas Island (Kiritimati/Kiribati) in 1957, having carried Royal Engineers and landing craft crews there to prepare the sites. Later converted to the school ship Devonia for the British India Steam Navigation Co., she was the last of her class disposed of, broken in La Spezia in 1967.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

If you like this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

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.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Alas, Simpson, you deserved better

Posted on by One comment

From Sept. 15 to Oct. 6, UNITAS 2025 saw 26 Allies, 22 surface ships (including ships from as far away as Spain, Japan, and Germany, as well as the first time the Navy of Guatemala has sent a ship), two submarines (including a 209 from Peru), and more than 8,000 personnel.

Iteration LXVI, dubbed “the world’s longest-running annual multinational maritime exercise,” included the Spanish Navy’s Expeditionary Combat Group Dédalo 25-3, centered around the LPD Galacia, conducting a combined amphibious landing near Camp Lejeune with elements of the Mexican, Peruvian, Dominican Republic, and Brazilian navies

As well as a beautiful PhotoEx combined sailing centered around Carrier Strike Group Two (USS Harry S Truman), escorted by a diverse collection of frigates and corvettes from across Latin America.

ATLANTIC OCEAN (Sept. 21, 2025) Multinational ships and aircraft participating in UNITAS 2025 steam in formation off the East Coast of the United States in support of UNITAS 2025, the 66th iteration of the world’s longest-running multinational maritime exercise. UNITAS, Latin for Unity, focuses on enhanced interoperability, building regional partnerships, and brings together approximately 8,000 personnel from 26 allied and partner nations, with multiple ships, submarines, and fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft

ATLANTIC OCEAN (Sept. 21, 2025) Multinational ships and aircraft participating in UNITAS 2025 steam in formation off the East Coast of the United States in support of UNITAS 2025, the 66th iteration of the world’s longest-running multinational maritime exercise. UNITAS, Latin for Unity, focuses on enhanced interoperability, building regional partnerships, and brings together approximately 8,000 personnel from 26 allied and partner nations, with multiple ships, submarines, and fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft

ATLANTIC OCEAN (Sept. 21, 2025) Multinational ships and aircraft participating in UNITAS 2025 steam in formation off the East Coast of the United States in support of UNITAS 2025, the 66th iteration of the world’s longest-running multinational maritime exercise. UNITAS, Latin for Unity, focuses on enhanced interoperability, building regional partnerships, and brings together approximately 8,000 personnel from 26 allied and partner nations, with multiple ships, submarines, and fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft

UNITAS, much like RIMPAC, always includes a few live fire exercises, starting with killer tomatoes and working up to a full-scale SinkEx of a retired naval vessel.

This year saw ex-USS Simpson (FFG-56) sacrificed to the UNITAS SinkEx gods, although five of her older sisters are rusting away on red lead row in Philly.

Other than USS Samuel B. Roberts and Stark, which have already been disposed of, Simpson was perhaps the most famous of her class still afloat.

Commissioned 21 September 1985, Simpson’s first overseas deployment was in the Persian Gulf, where she was on hand for Operation Praying Mantis in 1988, where she fired four SM-1 missiles, which sank the Iranian Kaman-class (La Combattante II type) missile patrol boat Joshan.

In this file photo from Sept. 13, 2014, a rainbow is seen above the guided-missile frigate USS Simpson after an underway replenishment in the Atlantic Ocean. Jorge Delgado/U.S. Navy

Simpson also helped search for the Challenger after the shuttle’s explosion, rescued 22 souls from a sunk oil tanker, was on the “Haitian Vacation” in 1994, and made several repeat trips back to the Middle East. One of her skippers was killed on 9/11 at the Pentagon.

With all that history, it would seem natural that Simpson, the last of her class decommissioned in 2015, would have been ideal for preservation as a museum ship. After all, she was the last Navy warship still in active service to have sunk an enemy vessel besides the USS Constitution.

Instead, she joined at least nine of her classmates at the bottom of the ocean, expended in exercises.

Leopards in the Mist

Posted on by Leave a comment

No, it is not early morning on the Savannah, but “Danske Leoparder et Letland,” i.e., Royal Danish Army KMW Rheinmetall Leopard 2A7DKs of I Panserbataljon, Jydske Dragonregiment (I/JDR) in Latvia on a NATO deployment getting a live fire ex underway recently.

And that Rh-120 L/55 A1 120mm main gun does growl.

Also note the SAAB Barracuda anti-IR camo system installed.

A closer look:

Of note, the “Blue Dragoons” of I/JDR, Denmark’s sole tank unit and home to 44 Leopard 2s, has a long and storied history going back to 1657, but held on to their horses until 1932. They have been operating successive versions of the Kampfpanzer Leopard since the 1970s.

They are somewhat famous in modern times for the “Mouse Ate the Cat” engagement in Bosnia in 1994, where they just went ham on some particularly dreaded and troublesome Serb positions and bagged at least one T-55 in the process.

They have also completed deployments to Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq in modern times, and have a reputation for being eager to let their tracks (and guns) run free when needed.

Black beret clad in British Armored Corps fashion, their motto is Virtute Vincitur (“He is overcome by strength”).

Columbus Meta

Posted on by 2 comments

Happy Columbus Day, folks.

These images seemed to fit, as they are of the third Navy warship to carry the name, the brand new Baltimore-class heavy cruiser USS Columbus (CA-74), at rest on the Hudson some 80 years ago this month, where she was on hand for New York City’s epic Navy Day festivities.

And as we know, NYC is the heart and soul of Columbus Day.

USS Columbus (CA-74) anchored in the Hudson River, off New York City, at the time of the Navy Day Fleet Review, circa late October 1945. A Ford Motor Company facility is in the background. Collection of Warren Beltramini, donated by Beryl Beltramini, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 105562

USS Columbus (CA-74) hosing down her starboard anchor cable, while in New York Harbor during the post-World War II Navy Day Fleet Review, circa October 1945. Note the harbor oiler at right. Courtesy of Lieutenant Gustave J. Freret, USN (Retired), 1972. NH 81121

Commissioned at Boston on 8 June 1945, Columbus was too late to get any WWII battle stars then served in the Atlantic and Mediterranean during Korea. She was later converted to a Galveston-class guided missile cruiser, CG-12, and served until 1975, getting 30 solid years in, somehow, without seeing major combat operations.

Her place on the Navy List was taken by the 688i-class hunter-killer USS Columbus (SSN-762), which has been in service since 1993, having bested the old cruiser’s service by two years.

Happy 250th, Navy

Posted on by Leave a comment

Circa 1957 “Join modern mobile mighty Navy ” recruiting poster by Joseph Binder. LC-USZC4-3355

Today marks 25 years from 13 October 1775, the day the Continental Congress authorized the outfitting of two armed vessels to intercept British supply ships, marking the official birth of the Continental Navy (although Washington’s Cruisers predated this by seven weeks) and the precursor to the United States Navy.

For those interested, the official graphics are here, while there are printable coloring pages for the kiddies, here.

So long, Mighty U

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 80 years ago today, one of the longest-serving yet oft-forgotten vessels in American maritime service was finally retired.

On 10 October 1945, the 190-foot Miami-class cruising cutter Unalga (WPG-53) was decommissioned, capping 33 years of unbroken service that began in 1912 with the old Revenue Cutter Service.

Serving with the Navy directly during the Great War, she went back to walking the beat and rejoined the Navy for WWII, first in conducting antisubmarine patrols under the auspices of the Commandant, 10th Naval District, then as a floating target ship for the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center in Melville, Rhode Island.

Former crewman Merle L. Harbourt, in a 15 May 1992 letter to the USCG Historian’s Office, wrote about Unalga during the cutter’s second world war:

She never sank a submarine nor shot down a plane, but there is one old ship that I served in that should get some mention simply because she survived. The former Revenue Cutter Unalga, or ‘Mighty U’ as she was not too affectionately referred to by her crew, is a case study in unpreparedness.

As memory serves, the Unalga was commissioned in 1912 as a vessel of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service. I joined her in June of 1941 when she was home ported in San Juan, P.R. She was powered by a four-cylinder triple expansion reciprocating steam engine, which Lt. L. M. Thayer (later to be RADM Thayer), our engineering officer, was intent upon her maintenance since she was forever snapping piston rings.

Shortly before the outbreak of WWII, we painted her gray and limbered up our armament, one three-inch twenty-three caliber mount on the fore deck. We were tied up in San Juan, at the still-existing buoy depot, when December 7th became a day of infamy.

We served as Harbor Entrance Control Vessel for San Juan for a period and then were pressed into service to haul aviation gasoline from Puerto Rico (Ponce) to Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands, in 55-gallon drums stacked all over the main deck, to provide fuel for the Marine air station. The small tanker that had formerly provided that service was shelled and sunk by a sub earlier. Later, without the benefit of radar or sonar, we assisted in the escort of ships between Trinidad and Cuba, convoys that sometimes got away from us during darkness or heavy rains.

My humorous tales of life on that old ship are endless. Like the time when we thought we might be facing a German Q boat, or raider, and .30 caliber rifles were issued to a few crewmembers. And us with one snub-nose three-inch cannon! Or the time when, after sonar installation, we thought we had a sub contact, dropped a pattern of depth charges, and the main engine stopped. The vacuum had been lost. If we were in the vicinity of a sub, he probably thought we wouldn’t make it back to port anyway and didn’t waste a fish.”

She wasn’t quite finished, though.

Sold on 19 July 1946 for her value as floating scrap, she was renamed Ulua and then participated in the immigration of Jewish refugees to Palestine, past the British naval blockade.

Blockade-runner Ulua (former Unalga) tied up pier side at Marseille, France, December 1946

Indian Balalaikas

Posted on by Leave a comment

First acquired in March 1963, the MiG-21 (NATO: Fishbed), a legendary fighter and the first supersonic aircraft in the IAF inventory, has flown its last flight under the green, white, and red Indian roundel.

The final flight came from the Panthers of the 23rd Squadron at Chandigarh Air Force Station on 26 September 2025. Keep in mind, these were not training aircraft and were on airstrip alert up until the past few weeks.

A 62-year run for any combat aircraft isn’t bad.

A hero of the 1971 War, where they engaged Pakistani F-104 Starfighters in supersonic dogfights, securing India’s first jet-on-jet kills (earning a claimed 13:1 kill ratio), the MiG-21 was upgraded over the years to undertake multiple combat roles, including ground attack.

India was the largest non-Soviet operator of MiG-21s and the largest maker outside of the Motherland. Of the 11,496 MiG-21s produced, at least 840 of those (MiG-21FL, MiG-21M, and MiG-21bis variants) were built domestically in India by HAL, while another 400 were purchased directly from the Russians.

With the retirement of the “Balalaika” from IAF service, which ended production in 1986, only about 150 of the type remain in token use by Angola, Cuba, Mali, Mozambique, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, and you can bet few of those are airworthy.

About 400 Chinese Chengdu J-7 (NATO: Fishpot) knock-offs, which remained in production until 2013, are in service as well, primarily with the Norks.

Of Black Hulls, Buoys, and Grenades along the Mekong

Posted on by Leave a comment

While we’ve covered the Vietnam-era deployments of the U.S. Coast Guard’s 26 Point-class patrol boats (CGRON One) and the follow-on rotating mission of 31 blue water cutters with CGRON Three (the latter of which steamed 1.2 million miles, inspected 69,517 vessels and fired 77,036 5-inch shells ashore), there was a third series of unsung USCG deployments that still saw a good bit of action.

Between 1966 and 1972, at least four WWII-era 180-foot seagoing buoy tenders (USCGC Planetree, Ironwood, Basswood, and Blackhaw) were moved to Sangley Point, Philippines, from where they rotated to the waters around South Vietnam in 3-to-7-week stints, establishing a modern aids-to-navigation (ATON) system and training a motley collection of locals to keep tending them moving forward.

The Coast Guard Cutter Basswood works a buoy as busy Vietnamese fishermen travel to the open sea and their fishing grounds from Vung Tau harbor during her 1967 deployment. The cutter battled monsoon weather for a 30-day tour to establish and reservice sea aids-to-navigation dotting the 1,000-mile South Vietnamese coastline. USCG Historian’s Office photo

The 180-foot buoy tender USCGC Blackhaw (W390) in 1960, still with her circa 1943 3-inch mount behind her stack.

Blackhaw tending aids to navigation off Da Nang, Republic of Vietnam in September 1970, with RVN lighthouse service personnel aboard. Blackhaw spent 11 stints in Vietnamese waters while staged from the Philippines: 13 March- 6 May 1968; 24June-18JuIy 1968; 9 September-11 October 1968; 16 January- 4 March 1969; 16 April-3 May 1969; 16 June-3 July 1969; 24 October-7 December 1969; 23 April-18 May 1970; 24 October-10 November 1970; 13 January-7 March 1971; 25 April-17 May 1971.

While they carried a 3″/50 DP mount, Oerlikons, and depth charges when built, most of the 180s landed their topside armament during the 1950s, as it generally wasn’t needed to go that heavy while tending navigational aids stateside at the time.

This changed for the Southeast Asia-bound tenders, who added a pair of topside M2 .50 cal Brownings (later raised to eight!), as many as four M60 machine guns, and a serious small arms locker that included M1 Garands, M16s, M1911s, shotguns, spam cans of 10-gauge Very flares, depth charge markers, and grenades.

Lots of grenades.

Check out this 1970 ordnance draw from Sangley Point by Blackhaw:

The 7,000 rounds of .22LR are likely for recreational use, with the tender probably having a couple of rimfire pistols and rifles aboard for downtime target practice.

Working in the Vietnamese littoral, they came under enemy fire regularly and returned said fire. For example, in one incident in 1970, Blackhaw’s crew expended 132 grenades (!), 3,360 rounds of 5.56/.30 cal for rifles, 2,300 7.62 rounds for light machine guns, and 3,535 rounds .50 cal for heavy machine guns reacting to combat. Heady stuff for navigational aids guys!

Check out this deck log from a rocket encounter on Blackhaw while operating in conjunction with Navy Seawolf helicopters and PCFs.

Also, when anchored overnight within distance of shore, rifle-armed topside sentries typically dropped a grenade over the side every 20 minutes or so and/or fired off a Very signal to discourage enemy sappers from swimming out with limpet mines. Hence, the need for a pallet of hand grenades on a buoy tender.

More details on Blackhaw’s work, via a 1970 Proceedings article by LCDR Robert C. Powers, U. S. Navy, Former Logistics Plans and Requirements Officer, Staff, U. S. Naval Forces, Vietnam:

The basic plan was for the United States to provide material, technical advice, and funds to the Directorate of Navigation, who would provide buoy tender services. A staff study by Commander Coast Guard Activities Vietnam in April 1967 concluded that greater U. S. assistance was necessary in completing the desired improvements, and recommended full time use of a large buoy tender in Vietnam. USAID was to continue upgrading the Directorate of Navigation so that they could completely take over the aids to navigation mission by January 1969.

Coast Guard buoy tenders in the Pacific were reassigned, and the USCGC Blackhaw, (WLB-390) a 180-foot buoy tender, was employed full time for this task in January 1968. Her homeport was changed from Honolulu to Sangley Point in the Philippines. One officer and 14 enlisted men were added to the normal ship’s complement of six officers and 43 men. Six additional .50-caliber machine guns were installed, giving her a total of eight. Two 7.62-mm. machine guns were also added. The Blackhaw’s schedule was planned to provide about 40 days in-country per quarter, with no duties except for the job of Vietnam aids to navigation. In July 1968, the Joint Chiefs of Staff formalized this employment.

The Coast Guard has now installed and is operating 55 lighted buoys, 50 unlighted buoys, and 33 lighted structures in Vietnam. A small Coast Guard buoy depot has been established at Cam Ranh Bay, for in-country storage and maintenance of NavAid equipment. The Directorate of Navigation continues to operate those aids which were in place before Coast Guard involvement, but is not yet capable of relieving the Coast Guard in the maintenance of U. S. installed aids.

The aids to navigation detail remains in Saigon, attached to the Coast Guard Southeast Asia section. They schedule work for the Blackhaw and also repair light outages when the Blackhaw is not in the area.

Operation of a system of maritime aids to navigation in Vietnam is not the same as operating systems in the United States. Charts, for example, are poor, and accurately charted landmarks that may be used for buoy positioning are scarce. The channels, whether natural or dredged, are notoriously unstable. An example of this is the Cua Viet Entrance Channel Buoy 6. Established in 30 feet of water in October 1968, six months later the buoy became a shore light—high and dry. Enemy sappers have also been discovered and shot in the areas of moored buoy tenders. Viet Cong have stolen batteries from range lights. In Tan My, for instance, 50 batteries were lost in two months.

Several buoys are run down each month, usually resulting in a loss of lighting equipment. Within a representative four-month period, 40% of all unlighted buoys received damage as a result of collision, gunfire, and weather, and 70% of all lighted aids required extensive repair, recharge, and re-positioning. Before working on any buoy, a diver thoroughly inspects each buoy mooring for explosive charges.

Since active Coast Guard involvement in this task began, the maritime aids to navigation system in Vietnam has continued to improve. Harbormasters and pilots in all ports are happy with these improvements. Vietnamese personnel are on board the Blackhaw, while she is in-country, to become familiar with the system and maintenance methods.

The USCG turned over the ATON duties in South Vietnam to the locals on 31 December 1972, capping a forgotten footnote in the service’s history. As far as I can tell, none of the four tenders suffered any official combat casualties during their Vietnam service (with Agent Orange exposure being another matter).

Blackhaw earned a U.S. Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation as well as more Combat Ribbons than any other cutter.

She served in California waters until decommissioning in February 1993. Ship breakers stripped the former cutter of her valuable equipment, and the hulk was sunk as a target vessel. Nonetheless, she endures on the silver screen as she appears in the 1990 movie The Hunt for Red October as a Soviet icebreaker trailing the titular Typhoon-class SSBN during the opening sequence.

 

« Older Entries Recent Entries »