U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Oliver Berry (WPC-1124) staging out of San Diego headed to Oahu, 2,600-nm West on a solo trip.
The big 154-foot Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutters, built to replace the 110-foot Island-class patrol boats of the 1980s and 90s, (which in turn replaced the 1950s era 95-foot Cape-class cutters, et.al) are fast becoming a backbone asset for the Coast Guard. Designed for five-day patrols, these 28-knot vessels have a stern boat ramp like the smaller 87-foot WPBs but carry a stabilized 25mm Mk38 and four M2s as well as much more ISR equipment. The first entered service in 2012, just five years ago.
In a hat tip to the fact they are so much more capable, the USCG uses the WPC hull designation, used last by the old “buck and a quarter” 125-foot cutters of the Prohibition-era with these craft, rather than the WPB patrol boat designation of the ships they are replacing.
And the service, perhaps the most under-funded in the country, is holding true to its legacy and is naming these craft for enlisted heroes rather for politicians and top-lawmakers on important spending committees. Here is the latest batch:
As with their FRC sister cutters, the next flight of 19 FRCs will bear the names of enlisted leaders, trailblazers and heroes of the Coast Guard and its predecessor services of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, U.S. Lifesaving Service and U.S. Lighthouse Service.
These new cutters will be named for Master Chief Angela McShan; Surfmen Pablo Valent and Frederick Hatch; Mustang Officer Maurice Jester; Electrician Myrtle Hazard; Coxswains Harold Miller, William Sparling, Daniel Tarr, Glenn Harris and Douglas Denman; Pharmacists Mate Robert Goldman; Stewards Mates Emlen Tunnel and Warren Deyampert; Seamen John Scheuerman and Charles Moulthrop; Boatswain’s Mates Clarence Sutphin and Edgar Culbertson; and Keepers William Chadwick and John Patterson.
These enlisted namesakes include recipients of the Navy Cross Medal, Silver Star Medal, Bronze Star Medal, Gold Lifesaving Medal, Silver Lifesaving Medal, Navy & Marine Corps Medal and Purple Heart Medal.
Warship Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017: The bruised-up U-boat bruiser of the Outer Banks
Photo NOAA
Here we see the brand-new steel-hulled fishing boat Cohasset in Feb. 1942, just before she assumed her military guise as U.S. Navy Patrol Vessel, District (YP) #389, an anti-submarine trawler, and sailed off into a fateful, if one-sided battle.
Laid down at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts for R. O’Brien and Company of Boston as hull #1512 along with three sister ships on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II, the 110-foot trawler was meant to ply the fishing grounds off Gloucester and the Georges Bank.
R. O’Brien was reportedly a top-notch operation, and one of the first in the country to equip their whole fleet with R/T sets in the 1930s, and they landed in excess of 20 million pounds annual catch at the canneries in the area.
When war seemed unavoidable, the four new boats were quickly evaluated to be useful to the Navy and on 6 December 1940 the sister trawlers Salem, Lynn, Weymouth and Cohasset were signed over to the federal government in lieu of taxes by O’Brien and delivered under their ordered names as they were completed throughout October and November 1941. Cohasset was taken into custody by the Navy in February 1942 as a coastal minesweeper, USS AMc-202. This was changed to YP-389 on 1 May and she was refitted into a patrol craft at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Armed with a single 3″/23cal deck gun taken from naval stores, two Great War-era. 30 cal. Lewis machine guns, six depth charges on a gravity rack and assorted small arms, she was placed under command of one LT. R.J. Philips, USNR who sailed her with a crew that consisted of two ensigns and 21 enlisted (none higher than a PO1) with a mission to keep the U-boats terrorizing the Eastern Seaboard at bay– though she did not have sonar, ASDIC or a listening device of any kind.
(List of USS YP-389 crew and their disposition after the events of 19 June, 1942. Courtesy the National Archives)
In June 1942, USS YP-389 headed south to North Carolina with the primary duty to patrol the Hatteras minefield on her economic 6-cylinder diesels– just 9 knots when wide open.
There, in the predawn hours of 19 June, she came across Kptlt. Horst Degen’s Type VIIIC submarine, U-701, of 3. Unterseebootsflottille operating out of the pens at La Pallice, France.
The battle should have been over before it started, as the patrol boat’s 3-inch popgun was out of operation with a broken firing pin and Degen’s 88mm and 20mm guns far out-ranged the 389‘s Lewis guns. Still, the surface action took place over a 90-minute period and saw the small patrol craft resort to dropping their depth charges set as shallow as possible in the U-boat’s path in an unsuccessful effort to crack its hull.
In the end, the trawler-turned-fighter was holed several times and sank in 320-feet of water, carrying five of her crew with her to Davy Jones’ Locker some five miles off Diamond Shoals. The crew of YP-389 had fired more than 24 drums from her Lewis gun as the gunners took cover behind trawling winches, answered by 50 shells of 88mm. In all, she had been in the Navy for just five months, most of that undergoing conversion.
The 18 survivors and one body floated overnight, with no life rafts or lifebelts, until they were rescued by Coast Guard picket boats (CG-462 and CG-486) the next morning. Four required treatment at Norfolk Naval Hospital.
In 1948, a Naval Board found that her sinking was in large part avoidable, as she was ill-fitted and suited for the detail assigned to her and, in effect, never should have been there.
Here is how Degen described the action to Navy interrogators a few weeks later:
On the night of June 17, U-701 surfaced off Cape Hatteras close to a U-boat chaser which challenged her with a series of B’s from a signal lamp. Thinking he was going to be rammed, Degen put about and drew away, without answering the challenge. The following day he saw what he thought was the same cutter escorting a tanker and a freighter in line ahead. Degen believed the cutter had made contact with him in passing, for as soon as the convoyed ships were out of range, the cutter returned and dropped depth charges near U-701. Degen said that on this occasion he did not hear the “ping” of Asdic.
The next night, June 19, U-701 surfaced off Cape Hatteras and again sighted what Degen took to be the same cutter. He opened fire with his 8.8 cm gun to which the cutter replied with machine-gun fire. U-701 expended a large number of shells. Apparently, the gun crew, groping over-anxiously in the dark, seized every available shell in the ready-use lockers without discrimination. Thus, fire was an unorthodox mixture of SAP, HE and incendiary shell, but it sank the cutter. Prisoners considered this a wasteful and “untidy” piece of work, and the captain gave the impression that he was ashamed of it.
Degen said he approached to look for survivors with the intention of putting them ashore, but he found none. He said he thought the crew made off in a boat. Prisoners gave the position of the attack as near the Diamond Shoals Lightship Buoy.
The 389 was not the only YP lost during the war and no less than 36 were destroyed while at least 17 earned battle stars (one, USS YP-42, the ex-Coast Guard cutter Gallatin, picked up three battle stars on her own). Though many of those lost foundered in heavy weather, sank after collisions, or were written off due to grounding, a number matched our YP’s combat service:
YP-16 (ex-CG-267) lost in Japanese occupation of the Philippine Islands YP-17 (ex-CG-275) lost in Japanese occupation of the Philippine Islands YP-26 destroyed by undetermined explosion in the Canal Zone, Panama, 19 November 1942. YP-97 lost due to Japanese occupation of the Philippine Islands YP-235 destroyed by undetermined explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, 1 April 1943. YP-277 scuttled to avoid capture east of Hawaii, 23 May 1942. YP-284 (ex-San Diego tuna clipper Endeavor) sunk by surface ships off Guadalcanal, 25 Oct 1942. YP-345 sunk southeast of Midway Island, 31 October 1942. YP-346 sunk by surface ships in the South Pacific, 9 September 1942. YP-405 destroyed by undetermined explosion in the Caribbean Sea, 20 November 1942. YP-492 sunk off east Florida, 8 January 1943.
Cover art for David Bruhn’s book provisionally titled, “Yachts and Yippies: the U.S. Navy’s Patrol Yachts and Patrol Vessels.” The painting by Richard DeRosset, titled “Night Action off Tulagi”, depicts the destruction of USS YP-346 by the Japanese light cruiser HIJMS Sendai and three destroyers off Guadalcanal on 8 September 1942. Three Navy Crosses were awarded for this action. Via Navsource
As for U-701?
Commissioned 16 Jul 1941, her career lasted but 12 months and, after claiming YP-389 and 25,390 GRT of merchant ships, was herself sunk on 7 July 1942 off Cape Hatteras by depth charges from an A-29 Hudson patrol bomber of the 396th Bomb Sqn, taking 39 dead to the bottom in 100 feet of water. Degen and six survivors suffered at sea for two days and were taken into custody and interrogated by Naval Intelligence extensively.
U-701 (German Submarine) Survivors are rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard, after their boat was sunk off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on 7 July 1942. She was lost just three weeks after she claimed YP-389, ironically just a few miles Diamond Shoals, where her victim rested. NH 96587
Horst Degen, Kapitänleutnant. C. O. U-701 as POW. U.S. Navy Photo
Known to researchers looking for the lost USS Monitor since the 1970s, in 2009, NOAA announced they had verified the wreck of YP-389, and documented the patrol boat and her combat as part of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Photomosaic of USS YP-389 wreck site. Photo: NOAA, Monitor National Marine Sanctuary
U-701 rests near her and is a popular dive attraction in the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Both ships are protected.
Sonar visualization of the U-701 wreck site. Image ADUS, NOAA
Multibeam survey of U-701 wreck site taken by NOAA Ship Nancy Foster, 2016. Image NOAA
Diver taking images of U-701’s conning tower. Photo NOAA
Specs:
Displacement: 170 long tons (170 t)
Length: 110 ft. oal, 102.5 wl
Beam: 22.1 ft.
Propulsion: 4 6cyl diesel engines, 1 × screw
Speed: 9 kts, max.
Crew: 3 officers, 21 enlisted (1942)
Armament:
1 × 3 in (76 mm)/23 cal dual purpose gun (broken)
2 × .30 cal (7.62 mm) Lewis light machine guns
6 depth charges
small arms
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The group, drawn from across the Navy to include the Fleet Air Arm and HMs Submarines, trained for two weeks under the eye of instructors from the Coldstream Guards
A scratch group of 48 RN officers, NCOs and sailors are this week guarding Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, The Tower of London and St James’s Palace as a unit for the first time. The duty traditionally falls to one of the five Foot Guards Regiments from the Army’s London Garrison Household Division, but this is believed to be the first time the Royal Navy are mounting the Queen’s Guard– though Sir Walter Raleigh was appointed Captain of the Queen’s Guard in 1587.
The Royal Marines, meanwhile, have completed the Queen’s Guard on at least three occasions.
The sailors are “dressed in pristine navy blue double-breasted greatcoats with white belts, white caps, white gaiters and black boots” with SA80 (L85 Enfield) rifles and bayonets, complete with white and brass sheaths, in tow.
“The sight of sailors undertaking public duties in our capital city is a sign that the Royal Navy is back where it belongs, at the very heart of national life,” said First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Philip Jones.
So what have the Guards been doing while the RN is on the watch? Well, at least one small group of Grenadier Guards have been hanging out in Africa fighting poachers in Liwonde National Park in Malawi. Armed with AK-47s and the like, armed poachers have killed over 100 park rangers in the past year.
The Grenadiers have been working “side by side with teams from African Parks and the Malawian Department of National Parks and Wildlife to mentor the Rangers. With 548 km2 of woodland and dry savannah to cover, a tactical shift to long-range patrols has paid off. During the three-month period, the teams removed 362 snare traps, two gin traps and more than 700 meters of illegal fishing nets in the park.”
Nine poacher camps have also been destroyed and a number of suspects arrested. So there’s that.
Rock Island Auction’s upcoming December Premiere Firearms event, which is this upcoming weekend, has a bunch of really nice goodies– especally if you are a M1903 rares collector.
Among the nicest I’ve seen is this great Griffin & Howe “exhibition quality” National Match Springfield. From hand-stippling on receiver ring to rich engraving on the barrel bands, floor plate, trigger guard, and rear sight base, this rifle is a showcase piece before you mention the jeweling on the bolt and hand-checkered English walnut stock.
Even the companion 1911-dated M1905 bayonet has gotten attention.
Then there is this late WWI model (1918-marked barrel) Springfield Armory Model 1903 rifle comes complete with a very hard to find Cameron-Yaggi device, one of several “trench periscope” setups tested for use in that horrible “War to end all wars.”
This particular rifle comes from Bruce Canfield’s own collection (he literally wrote most of the noteworthy books on U.S. military small arms currently in circulation) and was featured in a number of books itself. Every time I talk to Mr. Canfield I come away enlightened.
More on the exhibition gun in my column at Guns.com here and the Yaggi here.
Also, if you have about two hours to kill, check out Mae and Othais from C&Rsenal on a 1903 deep dive in the below video. They cover everything from the .30-03 and early rod-type bayonets to oddball WWI spin-offs like the Air Service Model, the periscope-equipped trench guns like the Guiberson, the Pedersen semi-auto and Warner-Swasey sniper variants.
Governor-General of Jamaica His Excellency the Most Honourable Sir Patrick Allen, ON, GCMG, CD, KSt.J inspects the Guard of Honour platoon furnished by the First Battalion, the Jamaica Regiment.
The Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) is a descendant of the old British West India Regiment which dates to 1795 and the Jamaica Regiment consists of two light infantry battalions (1JR and 2JR) with a 3rd battalion made up of reservists.
While the force is constituted on a British Army model, their standard infantry arm is the M16A2 (and wear a MARPAT field uniform) though there are some second line units with the 1980s SA80 (L85) Enfield rifles.
Guard of Honour, furnished by The First Battalion The Jamaica Regiment (1 JR), — note the L1A1s
You will note, however, that the honor guard (and 3JR as a whole) still uses the old L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle (SLR), the standard semi-auto inch pattern FAL adopted by the Brits in 1954. When the British replaced theirs in frontline use in the mid-1980s, they were forwarded over to Kingston– where they replaced even older WWII-era No. 4 SMLE .303s.
Jamaican soldiers training to fire the FN FAL in 2002.
1 Engineer Regiment (Jamaica Defence Force) recently deployed on Ceremonial Guard Duty at the National Heroes Park, note they have M16s
The SMLE’s did not go to waste, however, as they were passed on to the constabulary.
Here we see a waterfront view of Naval Station Key West sometime likely around 1925. Visible to the right is the Wickes-class destroyer USS Maury (DD-100) just behind the local twin-masted schooner Eureka, while the tug to the left is USS Saco (YT-31).
Named after famed 19th Century astronomer and hydrographer, CDR Matthew Fontaine Maury and commissioned 23 September 1918, the 1,199-ton Maury was a “flush-deck” or “four-stack” type destroyer common to the Navy until the 1930s and got in one Atlantic convoy run in the Great War before she was sidelined on red lead row. Reactivated in 1920 as a destroyer minelayer (DM-5) in July, 1920, she carried her former destroyer bow number (100) through her active career, which she largely spent on the East Coast– with the exception of a Caribbean cruise in the summer of 1925 that included a stopover at Key West. She later struck in 1930 as part of the fallout from the Washington and London naval treaties and was scrapped in 1934. Incidentally, three other ships went on to carry Maury’s name, including DD-401 and two survey ships, the most recent of which just entered service.
Purchased for use as a yard tug at the Naval Air Station Key West, Saco operated there as “Alexander Brown” until 24 November 1920, when she was renamed “Saco” and re-designated YT-31. She continued yard tug operations until struck from the Navy list on 22 October 1926. She was sold the next year and her ultimate fate is unknown.
As for Eureka, she sailed regularly around the Gulf throughout the 1920s as a coaster carrying various cargoes and I found mention in the Marco County library that she was still pulling houseboats down to the Keys as late as the 1930s. Odds are she crossed paths with Papa Hemingway in her travels and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was still around somewhere down south under a different name. Key West is funny like that.
Official caption: “South Vietnam, November 1967: Staff Sgt. Raymond Scherz of Addison, Ill., has a passenger, but the gobbler’s ride shapes up as a one-way trip to C Company, 2nd Battalion, 39th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division’s Thanksgiving dinner at the nearby Bear Cat base camp. The turkey was one of 57,000 sent in to provide as many as possible of the half-million U.S. servicemembers in Vietnam with a traditional holiday feast.
Also rolling through the supply chain for the 1967 meal were 225 tons of boneless turkey meat, 28 tons of cranberry sauce, 15 tons of mixed nuts, eight tons of candy, 11 tons of olives, and 33 tons of fruitcake.”
However, you couldn’t be too careful with Charlie.
Specialist Fred Gutierrez “interrogates” a turkey for its supposed links to the North Vietnamese Army as it sits in the rucksack of Staff Sgt. Raymond Scherz near Bearcat Base, Dong Nai Vietnam, Thanksgiving 1967.
As for the AN/PRR-9 on the soldier’s helmet, as noted by VietnamGear.com:
The battery-powered PRR-9 helmet-mounted receiver was used in conjunction with the PRT-4 handheld transmitter as a ‘walkie-talkie’ type radio. After successful testing, PRT/4 – PRR/9 sets were first sent to Vietnam in March 1967. However, the sets performed poorly in the field compared to the PRC-25 and were consequently relegated to base security use.
RN Fleet Air Arm carrier planes, 1943/44. Nearest to farthest is a Seafire (marinized Spitfire), Corsair, Martlet (Wildcat), two Barracuda to the right, aircraft at the end is a Firefly and a Sea Hurricane facing the camera. Photo was taken at RNAS training facility a Royal Navy mechanics school in the Midlands, NAS Mill Meece / HMS Fledgling. The facility was used to train WRNS Air Mechanics (Ordnance) on FAA types.
During WWII, the Royal Navy saw the writing on the wall in the respect that, to remain a first-rate naval power with a global reach, it needed a fleet of modern aircraft carriers. Entering the war in 1939 with three 27,000-ton Courageous-class carriers converted from battlecruiser hulls, the 22,000 ton battleship-hulled HMS Eagle, the unique 27,000-ton Ark Royal, and the tiny 13,000-ton HMS Hermes (pennant 95, the world’s first ship to be designed as an aircraft carrier)– a total of just six flattops, within the first couple years of the war 5/6th of these were sent to the bottom by Axis warships and aircraft!
Luckily, two 32,000-ton Implacable-class and four 23,000-ton Illustrious-class carriers, laid down before the war, were able to join the fleet to help make good those losses until the first of 16 planned follow-on Colossus-class light fleet carriers, a quartet of 35,000-ton Audacious-class, four Malta-class supercarriers (57,000-tons), and 8 planned Centaur-class carriers could be built (although most weren’t)– not to mention 45 escort carriers quickly folded into service– hence the wide array of comprehensive carrier-based strike and fighter aircraft seen above.
The blade bright over a third of its length to the point, the forte etched and gilt against a blued ground on one side with a cherub bearing the maker’s details on a banner, a martial trophy, post 1801 royal arms and Union foliage, and on the other a horse amid foliage, a cavalryman firing his pistol, crowned ‘GR’ cypher within a garland, and a design of foliage, regulation steel hilt retaining its buff leather tassel, and wire-bound leather-covered grip (leather with minor damage), in original steel scabbard with two rings for suspension, the throat on one side engraved with maker’s details in an oval (some light rust patination)
This image, shows the converted light cruiser USS Topeka (CLG-8) firing a Terrier guided-missile on 18 November 1961, during weapons demonstrations for the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral George W. Anderson, a week before Thanksgiving. Photographed from on board USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63). Planes preparing for launch on the carrier’s flight deck are a F8U Crusader jet fighter, at left, and an AD-6 Skyraider attack plane (Bureau # 137588), in the lower center.
While probably not aiming at Thanksgiving dinner, Topeka was known for warming up some VC and NVA on occasion.
USS Topeka (CLG-8) fires her forward turret’s 6/47 guns at the Viet Cong, while steaming slowly in the South China Sea on an in-shore fire support mission, April 1966. Official U.S. Navy Photograph. Catalog #: K-31264
