Remembering Scorpion
Still on patrol, USS Scorpion (SSN 589)
There are no roses on a sailor’s grave,
no lilies on an ocean wave,
the only tribute is the seagull’s sweeps,
and the tears that a sweetheart weeps.
Category Archives: sadness
Bookends, South East Asia
On 11 May 1961, President Kennedy approved sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100 other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam, also authorizing the use of CIA cutouts to work from Vietnam into nearby Laos and North Vietnam.
Fast forward to this week and the United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration is hosting a three-day “Welcome Home! A Nation Honors our Vietnam Veterans and their Families,” in Washington, D.C., marking the 50th anniversary of when the last combat troops left South Vietnam in 1973.
Of course, Saigon held out for another two years with lots of low-key U.S. support, but that darker anniversary won’t be until 2025.
Montevideo Maru, found
Class leader USS Salmon (SS-182) running speed trials in early 1938. Note the S1 designator. NH 69872
As covered in past Warship Wednesdays, the hard-charging Salmon-class fleet submarine USS Sturgeon (SS-187), under command of LCDR William Leslie “Bull” Wright (USNA 1925), a colorful six-foot-three cigar-chomping Texan, made a name for herself in the early days of the Pacific War. After an early attack on a Japanese ship just after Pearl Harbor, she flashed “Sturgeon no longer virgin!”
It was on her fourth patrol that she came across the 7,266-ton, twin-screw diesel motor vessel passenger ship MV Montevideo Maru which had been used by the Imperial Japanese Navy as a troop transport in the early days of the war, supporting the landings at Makassar in February 1942 and was part of the Japanese seizure of New Britain.
Via ONI 208J.
Sailing on 22 June unescorted for Hainan Island off China, Montevideo Maru ran into Sturgeon eight days later. Our submarine pumped four fish into the “big fella” in the predawn hours of 1 July, after a four-hour stalk, with young LT Chester William “Chet” Nimitz Jr. (yes, that Nimitz’s son) as the TDC officer.
Tragically, in what is now known as the “worst maritime disaster in Australian history,” Montevideo Maru was a “Hell Ship,” carrying more than 1,000 prisoners of the Japanese forces, including members of the Australian 2/22nd Battalion and No.1 Independent Company of the incredibly unlucky Lark Force which had been captured on New Britain.
All the prisoners on board died, locked below decks. Of note, more Australians died in the loss of the Montevideo Maru than in the country’s decade-long involvement in Vietnam.
Sturgeon, of course, was unaware that the ship was carrying Allied POWs and internees.
DANFS does not mention Montevideo Maru‘s cargo.
Four days later, Sturgeon damaged the Japanese oiler San Pedro Maru (7268 GRT) south of Luzon, then ended her 4th war patrol at Fremantle on 22 July.
Sturgeon earned ten battle stars for World War II service, with seven of her war patrols deemed successful enough for a Submarine Combat Insignia.
Bull Wright, who earned a Navy Cross for his first patrol, never commanded a submarine again– perhaps dogged over the Montevideo Maru, or perhaps because he was 40 years old when he left Sturgeon— and he retired quietly from the Navy after the war as a rear admiral. Although a number of WWII submarines and skippers with lower tonnage or fewer patrols/battle stars under their belt were profiled in the most excellent 1950s “Silent Service” documentary series, Bull Wright and Sturgeon were noticeably skipped.
Now, Montevideo Maru has been discovered in her resting place off the Philippines. An expedition team, led by Australian businessman, maritime history philanthropist, explorer, and director of not-for-profit Silentworld Foundation, John Mullen, found the hell ship’s wreck earlier this month.
That little gun doesn’t kick at all
Long before Smith & Wesson made the .500 S&W, a gunsmith in Wyoming cut down a .348 Winchester case to craft the first successful .50 caliber revolver/cartridge. Named the .500 Linebaugh after its inventor– John Linebaugh– the same six-gun smith went on to craft the .475 Linebaugh and follow-on .500 Linebaugh Max and .475 Linebaugh Max.
“Big Bore Handguns” author John Taffin, in his first review of the .500 Linebaugh in 1985, found a 260-grain bullet to clock in at 1,700 fps, punching through quarter-inch sheet steel and penetrating 10 inches into a solid wood block with ease, although he noted the recoil was “fierce,” even when shooting the 10-inch revolver from the bench and off sandbags.
However, speaking to “Gun Digest” in 2013, Linebaugh said his EDC piece was a .500 Linebaugh with a 4.25-inch barrel, saying, “That little gun doesn’t kick at all.”
Which is unsurprising for anyone who ever met the slim little cowboy.
Mr. Linebaugh passed at his home outside of Cody last week.
When it comes to services, a public visitation will be held at Ballard Funeral Home in Cody on Saturday, March 25, 2023, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. with a graveside service at the Bennett Buttes Cemetery in Clark on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. followed by a reception at the Clark Pioneer Recreation Center.
Last of the Reno Air Races
Last September at the Reno Air Race’s Jet Gold Race, Hogue Grips’s president Aaron Hogue, 61, tragically burned in while at the controls of his Czech Aero L-29 Delfín (Maya).
Aaron Hogue, 1961-2022, with his L-29
L-29s have long been a fixture of jet races there, typically clocking in over 500 knots, which is fast as hell, especially at that air level with no afterburners or swept wings.
Now, after 60 years, the final Reno Air Races are set to be held at Reno-Stead Airport this coming September with some 150 planes and pilots in attendance.
The end of an era.
Pour One Out for the Scout Snipers…
Marine Sniper with a Springfield 1903A1 and Unertl 8-power scope. Note the length and size of the objective lens. In 1943, the Marines established the first “Scout and Sniper” schools at Greens Farm in California and New River in North Carolina during World War II, the basis of today’s Scout Sniper program.
The Marine Corps is dismantling its iconic dedicated Scout Sniper platoons – a facet of each infantry battalion for generations – and is doing away with the coveted 0317 Military Occupational Specialty.
The product of a grueling training pipeline that yields field-ready precision marksmen qualified on the M40, M110, and M107 series rifles, the Marine Scout Sniper program is facing permanent disbandment as a result of a shifting focus in the country’s amphibious warfare service.
A leaked Feb. 21 unclassified message from Lt. Gen. D. J. Furness, the deputy commandant for plans, policies, and operations, detailed that the current 18-member Scout Sniper Platoons assigned to the Corps’ infantry battalions will quickly transition to 26-member Scout platoons – in other words, cutting the snipers in favor of a unit that would provide more “continuous all-weather information gathering.”
Spots in the Scout Sniper Basic Course will be zeroed out in the coming fiscal year while a nascent sniper capability will be continued in the Corps’ Reconnaissance and Marine Special Operations units under a new Military Occupational Specialty – 0322 MOS (Reconnaissance Sniper) – via a revamped, shorter training program.
The problem with that is, as these groups typically operate detached from standard infantry units, the highly specialized skill will in effect vanish at the battalion level
which will be left to get by with the current designated marksmen already at the company level. Under current doctrine, DMs typically only have a three-week course under their belt and train to engage targets out to 500 meters, rather than the much longer ranges that Scout Snipers train to achieve.
The USMC Scout Sniper Association is urging the Commandant of the Marine Corps to reconsider what the group terms an “ill-advised” policy decision that will gut the program that has been tweaked and perfected over the past 80 years.
“This announcement by the Deputy Commandant, Plans, Policy, and Operations on Tuesday is the result of misguided assumptions and decades of neglect of the community of men who are Scout Snipers,” said the Association.
“It’s unlikely that any officer who commanded and employed Scout Snipers in combat agrees that removing a sniper capability from the infantry battalion makes sense. Replacing an 18-man Scout Sniper Platoon with a 26-man Scout Platoon will not solve the ‘all weather information gathering’ problem. Retaining the skill set and the combat capability of Scout Snipers by offering a viable career path to Scout Snipers and providing them with more engaged leadership might.”
The shift away from having dedicated sniper platoons in each infantry battalion comes as the number of battalions themselves is dwindling.
The Corps’ three active-duty divisions would field a total of 27 infantry battalions between them if they were at full strength, but that hasn’t been the case for a long time. Long reduced to just 24 battalions all told, in 2020 the current commandant unveiled a plan to case the colors of three additional infantry battalions and the 8th Marine Regiment to make room to form a new Marine Littoral Regiment, the latter optimized to leapfrog rapidly across islands and coastal spaces with a smaller footprint when compared to the current force.
The result is a Corps with just 21 active-duty infantry battalions, shortly, in addition to cuts in tiltrotor, attack, and heavy-lift aviation squadrons and disbanding of all of the branch’s tank battalions.
The Butgenback Shuffle
Jan. 13, 1945: a Big Red One Soldier, from the 16th Infantry Regiment, in a protective snowsuit (aka Spok suit) advances toward enemy positions in the Butgenback sector of Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge.
Signal Corps Photo 248311
PFC George Kelly of Philadelphia near Bütgenbach Belgium – January 1945. LIFE Magazine, George Silk Photographer. Kelly was KIA shortly after this picture was snapped, at age 25.
For more on the 16th Infantry’s trip through snow “knee-deep on the level and drifted to two to three times that depth where the wind could get at it,” check out the regimental historical society’s detailed account.
That great shooting range in the sky
Among those lost to the gun community in 2022:
Aaron Hogue — One of the managing owners of Hogue Grips and son of Guy Hogue, the company’s founder, Aaron died when the jet he was piloting in the National Championship Races at Reno crashed.
Peter J. “Pete” Hylenski — A gifted design engineer who left his mark with Wildey, Winchester, and Kimber, Hylenski was known as “Mr. Model 70” as he was the long-term Model 70 Rifle Design Engineer during the era that saw the return of the “pre-’64” type Model 70 control-round feed action. Hylenski passed away on March 29, 2022, aged 77.
Thomas Devine Smith — A Texas sports shooter and Air Force officer, Smith competed in the 50-meter pistol event at the 1964 Summer Olympics before winning two gold medals at the 1963 Pan American Games. He set and broke numerous pistol records in his career, some of which still stand even decades later. He also survived his plane breaking up in-flight, landing on snow-covered Mt. Helmos in Greece without a parachute, surviving the fall. Colonel Smith died in May, aged 90.
George Trulock — Founder of the shotgun choke empire that bears his name– and is OEM for numerous manufacturers– George Trulock was a legend in the gun industry. He passed in June and is remembered by his company as “a visionary and a creative genius” as well as an “amazing human being.”
The rest of the list is in my column at Guns.com.
Toughest thing I had to write
This cartoon hit me in the feels this year.
That’s because it is the first in my life without my grandfather.
A career NCO (Signal Corps), he joined the Guard as a teenager during the war in Korea and then transitioned to active service, serving as an adviser to the Shah’s Army, to that of the King of Iraq, to the West Germans, and then the South Vietnamese, the latter repeatedly. After traveling around the globe for most of his 23 years of active duty, he retired as a promotable E8, declining to take the extra bump and be a 30-year man because it would have meant finishing his next contract in the Beltway, something he said that he just wasn’t built for.
So, he retired, picked up his family from Fort Gordon, then headed back home to Mississippi. This included his newly-born first grandson– me.
My grandpa and I in 1975, just after he left the Army, with his brand new bouncing baby grandson. The carpet on the wall behind him he brought back to the states from some bazaar in Iran, back when it was called Persia. The right is him just last year, a proud old bearded Vietnam vet.
Now, he is gone, and, while I have written professionally for the past 20 years, including several books, thousands of articles, and thousands more blog posts, his obituary was the toughest thing I ever had to write.
Over 8.7 million Americans served in the Armed Forces during the Vietnam era from 1964 to 1973, and it is thought that well over a third of those have already left us, with more packing their sea bags and duffles every day. The number of Korean War era Vets is even smaller and is expected to fall below 200,000 in the next couple of years.
Be sure to hug them while you can.
Maritime Mystery: Death of a Wooden Shoe
Some 80 years ago today, a warship and her entire crew vanished from the waves and not a single confirmed piece of her has ever been seen since.
Constructed in 1941 at Snow Shipyards in Rockland, Maine, the 225-ton, 116-foot wooden-hulled longline trawler F/V Belmont was acquired for $2,122 on 19 June 1942 by the U.S. Coast Guard for use on the newly-formed Greenland Patrol, watching over the Danish possession and fighting the “Weather War,” keeping German radio and meteorological stations out of the frozen land.
Commissioned as USCGC Natsek (WYP-170), named in honor of a geographical feature on Greenland, her armament was slight– an old 6-pounder 57mm gun taken from prewar cutter stocks that was deemed still deadly enough to haul over German weather trawlers in spotted, two 20mm Oerlikons should she encounter a German Condor patrol plane, and two short depth charge racks should she see a U-boat.
Assigned to CINCLANT control out of Boston with the rest of the Greenland Patrol, Natsek could make a stately 11 knots and cruise at 9.5. Her and her Snow-built half-sisters USCGC Nanok (ex-F/V St. George) and USCGC Nogak (ex-F/V North Star), earned the nickname of “wooden shoes” as they looked, well, like large wooden shoes and had about the same characteristics.
Other vessels of the Greenland Patrol converted at the time included seven larger and sturdier steel-hulled trawlers (F/V Helka, Lark, Weymouth, Atlantic, Arlington, Winchester, and Triton) that likewise received similar armament and Greenland geographical monikers but starting with an “A” to set them apart as a class (USCGC Alatok, Amarok, Aklak, Arluk, Aivik, Atak, and Arvek, respectively).
Besides keeping the Germans out of Greenland, the Patrol’s primary task was to establish and supply a series of 14 “Bluie” met and HF/DF stations around the coastline. Airfields would soon be added to these isolated stations to allow them to serve as way stations for the North Atlantic ferry route, running planes from bases in Labrador to Scotland with stops in Greenland and Iceland.
The fact that these converted trawlers could carry 90 tons of cargo below decks and draw but 11 feet of seawater when doing so helped greatly. While it would seem folly to us today to task 10 small vessels (the largest of these, Winchester/Aivik, was only 590 tons and 128 feet overall) with such a mission, keep in mind that the locations chosen for the Bluie stations were often only reachable by snaking through dense fields of icebergs and narrow fjords, so chosen to remain hidden from German surface raiders.
Natsek’s first patrol, began just ten days after she was commissioned, with newly-minted Lt. (jg) Thomas La Farge, USCGR, skipper. La Farge, who had no prior military experience, received his temporary commission as he was “a yachtsman and lover of ships” and noteworthy as a grandson of the late, great, muralist, John La Farge.
She set sail for Greenland waters in company with the minesweeper USS Bluebird (AM-72), and fellow USCG-manned armed trawlers Atak and Aivik, as part of CTG 24.8 on 29 June. Arriving at Bluie West #1 (Narsarssuak) on 20 July, Natsek plied Greenland waters, supplying Bluie stations through the month of August. Beginning on 28 September, she set sail from Narsarssuak to transport supplies, equipment, and personnel to Skoldungen to establish and build a weather station. She arrived there on 12 October. She continued on to help establish another weather station, this time at Torgilsbu and later that month another one at Skjoldungen.
On 9 November she was ordered to assist in looking for a downed plane along the southeast coast of Greenland.
On 15 November she then received orders to escort the Army cargo ship Belle Isle to Torgilsbu from Skjoldungen. She accomplished the escort without incident and arrived at Torgilsbu on 16 November. She departed Torgilsbu on 23 November and arrived at Narsarssuak on 30 November.
On 14 December 1942 Natsek departed Narsarssuak in a convoy with Bluebird and fellow “wooden shoe” USCGC Nanok, to return to Boston via Belle Isle Strait.
Natsek never arrived.
In January, the Navy made it official after she was several weeks overdue.
From the 1/24/43 issue of the NYT:
The detailed story of her disappearance, via the 1947 report, “The Coast Guard at War: Lost Cutters”
Click to make bigger
This, from “Death of a Wooden Shoe :A Sailor’s Diary of Life and Death on the Greenland Patrol, 1942” by Thaddeus D. Nowakowski, a journal kept by a Coast Guardsman during his six crucial months as a seaman on board Natsek’s sister, USCGC Nanok, and digitized by the Coast Guard Historian’s Office in 1994:
Besides LaFarge, Natsek vanished with a crew of 23 including 10 Coast Guard regulars (counting both her chiefs) a Navy radioman, and 12 wartime-era recruits. Considered lost at sea, their names are inscribed on the World War II East Coast Memorial in Manhattan’s Battery Park as well as a marker at Arlington that notes of the Natsek:
The entire crew of 23 men and one commissioned officer are considered to have met death in the line of duty on or after 17 December 1942, as a result of drowning.”
Natsek at the time was the fourth Coast Guard ship to be lost in WWII and 107th American vessel overall. Ultimately, the USCG would lose no less than 40 vessels in the conflict.
As for the Weather War, the Allies won and today, Bluie West Six is Thule Air Base, still an important enough asset that the Pentagon on Friday awarded a $4 billion civil engineering and maintenance contract to a local firm in Greenland, Inuksuk A/S, running through 2034.