Category Archives: US Navy

Rainy Day on the Mighty I

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It happened 80 years ago today.

The South Dakota-class battleship USS Indiana (BB-58), seen taking water over the bow, while steaming through a typhoon in the Okinawa area, circa 5 June 1945.

Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-342732

The storm was bad enough to claim one of her floatplanes. From her deck log that day:

The “Hoosier Houseboat” earned nine battlestars for her WWII service and entered the Pacific Reserve Fleet’s Bremerton Group in 1946 alongside her sister, Alabama, and decommissioned the following year for mothballs.

While “Big Al” got a ticket home to Mobile for museum ship service in 1960, Indiana instead went to the scrapyard, although lots of her relics are on display in her home state.

Indiana War Memorial in Indianapolis (Photo: Chris Eger)

It’s official: CVN-65 headed to Mobile for final cruise

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Operation Sea Orbit: On 31 July 1964, USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) (bottom), USS Long Beach (CGN-9) (center) and USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25) (top) formed “Task Force One,” the first nuclear-powered task force, and sailed 26,540 nmi (49,190 km) around the world in 65 days. Accomplished without a single refueling or replenishment, “Operation Sea Orbit” demonstrated the capability of nuclear-powered surface ships.

The world’s first nuclear powered flattop and the longest carrier ever constructed (at 1,088 feet oal, later pushed to 1,123 feet, some 31 feet longer than a Nimitz and 17 feet longer than a Ford) will be deconstructed slowly in Mobile Bay through the end of the decade, under the oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She will disappear while docked at Modern American Recycling and Radiological Services, LLC (MARRS), where the former SS United States is now tied up.

The ex-USS Enterprise (CVN-65), formerly CVA(N)-65, was ordered on 15 November 1957 during the Eisenhower administration and commissioned on 25 November 1961, somehow just four years later. She left on her inaugural deployment just seven months later in June 1962. In all, she would complete 25 overseas deployments in her career.

Keep that in mind when you note that Ford took nine years from ordering (2008) through commissioning (2017) and only deployed for the first time six years later (2023).

Big E’s original cost, in 1961 dollars, was $451.3 million. Her recycling, after over 55 years of service, will be more expensive until you consider inflation.

Per DOD’s contract announcements last Friday:

NorthStar Maritime Dismantlement Services LLC, Vernon, Vermont, is awarded a $536,749,731 firm-fixed-price contract (N00024-25-C-4135) for the dismantling, recycling, and disposal of Ex-Enterprise (CVN 65). Under this contract CVN 65 will be dismantled in its entirety, and all resulting materials will be properly recycled or disposed of. Specifically, hazardous materials, including low-level radioactive waste, will be packaged and safely transported for disposal at authorized licensed sites. Work will be performed in Mobile, Alabama, and is expected to be completed by November 2029. Fiscal 2025 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $533,749,731 will be obligated at the time of award, all of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment solicitation module, with three offers received. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.

 

The Terrible T at Play

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It happened 80 years ago today.

The Tambor-class submarine, USS Tautog (SS-199), photographed from an altitude of 300 feet off the Florida coast by Navy airship ZP-31 on 29 May 1945. Note the scoreboard painted on her conning tower, representing Japanese ships sunk by the fleet boat.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-323879

Over the course of 13 war patrols, Tautog received 14 battle stars and the Navy Unit Commendation for her war service. According to Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee figures, she sank 26 Japanese vessels, accounting for 72,606 tons of enemy shipping, against 39 ships claimed for 133,726 tons.

Artwork of USS Tautog’s (SS-199) World War II battle flag. Photographed circa the early 1970s. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photograph, NH 98808-KN.

After the war, Tautog served as a USNR training boat for about a decade in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, before her illustrious career ended in 1959.

Connie, is that you?

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So, I spent last week bumming around Connecticut getting some cool behind-the-scenes stuff at Colt Firearms. Part of this involved visiting the State Archives and Library, which has a ton of historically important Colts on display (and more in storage).

How about a pre-Patterson Colt with an integral under-folding bayonet?

Of interest to you guys on display at the library will be this great scale model of the USS Connecticut (Battleship No. 18).

It is just over 9.5 feet long, making it roughly a 1:48 scale whopper of the 456-foot (oal) battlewagon that served as the flagship of the Great White Fleet on its 47,000-mile circumnavigation.

Showing Connecticut in a hybrid configuration that she never sailed in, with her original military pole masts and a later haze grey scheme while lacking her original ornate bow crest, the model was apparently constructed by the Navy around the time of the naval parade for the Hudson-Fulton Expedition in New York in 1909 for shoreside display during the event.

Notably, at the time of the Hudson-Fulton, Connie had been refitted with lattice masts, which she would carry the rest of her career. The masts and new paint scheme, as well as the deletion of ornamentation, came as lessons learned from the recent war between Russia and Japan.

Connecticut (BB-18) in the Hudson River for the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, 25 September – 9 October 1909. Note the lattice masts. Detroit Photographic Company postcard photo via LOC LC-DIG-det-4a16075

The model later bounced around Navy museums and archives before being presented in 1952 to Connecticut State Librarian James Brewster by U.S. Senator William Benton (D-CT). Since being in state care, it has been moved several times and underwent extensive cleaning and restoration in 2014, in line with the 100th Anniversary of the Great War.

 

Crackerjacks in the OSS

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Official caption: “OSS Field Station, London, England, Looking over guns in guard room, 1944.” Note a dixie-cup clad bluejacket maintains the armory, while the rack is filled with Springfield M1903s sans slings and M1 helmets sans covers.

You can also see that this image, taken at the OSS’s “Area H” in England, is inside a Q-hut by the roof. National Archives Identifier 540070

While most think the OSS was primarily an Army operation, the Navy provided key intelligence and logistics support for the secret squirrel organization behind the scenes in European and Pacific theatres. This included providing supplies, equipment, and transportation for agents and resistance groups to operate behind enemy lines.

The OSS’s Special Operations Branch included a dedicated Maritime Unit, which, logically, had a lot of Navy personnel.

An OSS MU swimmer– complete with “Navy” tattoo– uses a Lambertsen Rebreathing Unit and negotiates anti-submarine concertina wire nets during underwater training.

Going well beyond that, the sea service also formed Naval Combat Demolition Units (NCDUs) and Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs) who often served in conjunction and on loan with the OSS’s in-house Scouts and Raiders (S&Rs).

A monument to the NCDUs and S&Rs was erected last year overlooking the old “Dog Red” sector of Omaha Beach in the town of Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer in Normandy.

Aiming for both Structural Integrity and Historical Accuracy

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The Gato-class fleet boat USS Cobia (SS-245), a WWII museum sub in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, is heading to Fincantieri in September to undergo essential dry dock maintenance for the first time since 1996. Credited with having sunk a total of 16,835 tons of Japanese shipping across four war patrols, the dry docking will address maintaining her structural integrity.

However, when it comes to restoring and maintaining the historical accuracy of these old fleet boats, the USS Cod museum has been hard at work experimenting with Cobia with in manufacturing replica period submarine parts that have been missing from these vessels for decades.

That’s when 3-D printed replacements come into play.

You Call this Ship a Destroyer Escort…

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Talk about a recruiting poster.

Here we see the Edsall-class destroyer escort USS Martin H. Ray (DE-338) knifing through the Atlantic with a bone in her teeth while on a Convoy run, circa 1944-45

NHHC Catalog #: 26-G-4502

Named for the engineering officer on USS Hammann (DD 412) who earned a Navy Cross the hard way during the Battle of Midway, DE-338 was built in Orange, Texas, christened by the widow of Lt. Ray, and commissioned 28 February 1944.

Finishing her shakedown, she rode shotgun on 14 Atlantic convoys over the course of the next year– without losing a ship– then was transferred to the Pacific in August 1945, just too late for the war against Japan, capping her service on Magic Carpet runs.

Decommissioned in May 1947 after a career that lasted just over three years, she was laid up at Green Cove Springs, Florida, for two decades, then sold for scrap.

A much deserved show

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It happened 80 years ago today.

The crew of USS Texas (Battleship No. 35) assembled for a USO Show onboard in Leyte Gulf on 22 May 1945, relaxing after being relieved from the Battle of Okinawa.

Courtesy of the National Archives & Records Administration.

As detailed by the Battleship Texas Foundation, just the week prior:

USS Texas was relieved from the Battle of Okinawa after 50 days in action. Texas expended a staggering amount of ammunition in those 50 days:

14” – 2,019 rounds
5” – 2,643 rounds
3” – 490 rounds
40 mm – 3100 rounds
20 mm – 2205 rounds

While the battle was over for Texas on May 14, 1945, Okinawa was not secured until June 22nd. This long, protracted battle was grueling for the land forces but also exposed the Navy to near-constant air attacks. The Navy lost nearly 5,000 men and another 5,000 were wounded. 36 ships were sunk and over 350 were damaged. Texas emerged from her time off Okinawa unscathed in large part due to her crew’s constant state of readiness. Captain Charles Baker included the following praise in his after-action report:

“It is worthy of comment that this vessel remained in Condition I or I Easy [“battle stations”] throughout the entire period off the coast of Okinawa, some seven weeks. That the men took this without undue fatigue is a tribute to their spirit and physical condition. It is not believed that any lesser condition of readiness can meet adequately the emergencies of suicide bombers and suicide boats. The only answer to the approaching [kamikaze] is early and great volume of fire, using every gun that will possibly bear, and early warning by radar cannot always be relied upon. The men realized this and preferred to remain at their stations, resting and sleeping there as opportunity offered, rather than be called up frequently from below as would inevitably have happened. The rest period when it finally came, however, was much appreciated.”

-Captain Baker’s Report for the Battle of Okinawa, filed May 26, 1945

Sting Ray

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Frozen in time, some 30 years ago.

A port bow view of the Spruance-class destroyer USS David R. Ray (DD-971) underway off San Diego, 8 January 1995.

Photo by PH3 Brewer. DN-SC-87-11564. National Archives Identifier 6419151.

Named in honor of HM2 Ray, who earned a posthumous MoH in Vietnam at the ripe old age of 24, DD-971, as with the rest of her class, was constructed at Pascagoula.

Commissioned 19 November 1977, she had an active career in the Pacific Fleet, conducting numerous Westpac cruises, extending to the sandbox where she ran interference with the Iranians in the Persian Gulf and clocked in during Desert Shield, earning a Southwest Asia Service Medal for the latter.

A test bed ship of sorts, she was the first ship to intercept a supersonic drone with the NATO RIM-7 Sea Sparrow then later became the Navy’s primary test platform for the Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) System, which you can see on her stern in the above shot, just aft of her No. 2. 5″/54 Mk 45 mount. She was later one of just two dozen “Sprucans” to substitute her 1970s ASROC mousetrap for a 61-cell VLS to sling Tomahawks.

Earning a trio of both Navy Meritorious Unit Commendations and Navy Expeditionary Medals across her abbreviated 23-year career, she was decommissioned in 2002 and later expended in a SINKEX.

Auto-Ordnance Shows off 250th Anniversary Army, Navy and Marine 1911s

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With 1775 some 250 years in the rearview, Auto-Ordnance came to the recent NRA Annual Meetings in Atlanta with a trio of special new USGI .45s.

This year, besides the semiquincentennial of the start of the Revolutionary War, the Army will celebrate its official 250th birthday on June 14, followed by the Navy on October 13 and the Marines on November 10. To honor the services, Auto-Ordnance has three 250th Armed Forces Anniversary 1911s on tap.

Based on the company’s standard 80-series Government format M1911A1, complete with a GI profile slide, fixed sights, and curved mainspring housing, each variant will sport a dedicated Cerakote livery applied by Texas-based Altered Arsenal.

In each variant, the left slide will carry a “250 years of Service, 1775 – 2025” crest surrounded by laurel leaf etching. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

Each pistol will have custom styling on the top of the slides that emulates the “gig line” of the respective services’ dress uniform, complete with buttons and belt buckle.

The Army variant (1911BKOC15) carries an OD Green Cerakote finish with Silver, Black, and Gold accents. The phrase “May God have mercy on my enemies because I won’t” is a well-known quote attributed to General George S. Patton.

The Navy variant (1911BKOC16) has a White, Blue, Black, and Gold Cerakote finish. The quote, “I have not yet begun to fight!” is famously attributed to Captain John Paul Jones during the Battle of Flamborough Head in 1779.

The Marine variant (1911BKOC17) has a Blue, Black, Silver, Red, and Gold Cerakote finish. The phrase “Retreat, hell – we just got here” is a famous quote attributed to Captain Lloyd W. Williams of the 5th Marines during the Battle of Belleau Wood in World War I.

These 250th Armed Forces Anniversary 1911s will ship soon with one standard 7-round magazine included and have an MSRP of $1,399.

Keep in mind that you can get an actual USGI surplus M1911A1 from the CMP for less than that. Of course, it won’t be pretty, but every old vet, even those in .45 ACP, deserves a home.

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