The F8U (after 1962, F-8) Crusader first flew on 25 March 1955. To salue the “Gunfighter,” how about this great laydown image.
A Vought F-8D Crusader with all of its possible armament: In the center in front of the aircraft lies an AGM-12C Bullpup missile, next to it are Mk 83 1,000 lb ordnance, AGM-12As, and Mk 82 500 lb ordnance. To the right and left of the F-8D are four AIM-9B Sidewinder missiles and two multiple ejector racks. Six LAU-3/A rocket launchers are carried on the underwing pylons, and four 5-inch “Zuni” rockets are fitted to the fuselage launch rails.
And, of course, you can’t have an awesome Cold War laydown image without looping in the back of Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma album!
Early 1969 U.S. Navy images from the National Archives, show a “Zippo” flamethrower installed on a 56-foot Armored Troop Carrier monitor– an armored LCM (6) landing craft– in testing along an unnamed river in the Republic of Vietnam.
Note the camo “duck hunter” jungle hat, worn slouch style. DN-SC-82-03010
In the summer of 1967, when the Viet Cong constructed bunkers capable of withstanding 40mm rounds, RIVFLOT 1 began exploring the idea of deploying flamethrowers on riverboats as a potential bunker buster. On 4 October, the M132A1, an Army flamethrower, was shoehorned into an ATC. Commanders hoped the M132A1’s 32-second burst and 150-yard range would not only neutralize enemy bunkers but also deter river ambushes. Tests proved satisfactory, but the M132A1, weighing 23,000 pounds, was too heavy for the Navy’s needs. Instead, lighter M10-8 flamethrowers were installed on six monitors delivered in May of 1968.
Nicknamed “Zippo” after the popular cigarette lighter, these monitors mounted two M10-8 flamethrowers, each with an effective range of 200–300 yards. With 1,350 gallons of napalm fuel, the M10-8 could lay down a sheet of flame for 225 seconds. Sailors would make napalm by mixing a powder consisting of the coprecipitated aluminum salts of naphthenic and palmitic acids with gasoline. Compressed air propelled the napalm through the flamethrower, and a gasoline lighter acted as the trigger.
“You had to be careful to get the right jelly consistency when making it,” explained Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class Joseph Lacapruccia, “but firing the weapon was not dangerous. No one was ever burned. It was much safer than the 20mm, and napalm was effective against the VC because it could travel into spider holes and deplete oxygen.”
Zippo Monitor of Task Force 117 using dual flamethrowers to reduce possible enemy ambush sites along riverbank Mekong Delta, May 3, 1968, USN 1135595.
March 1963. Static line ARVN paratroopers jump from USAF Fairchild C-123 Providers of the 346th Troop Carrier Squadron (Assault) during Operation Phi Hoa II, a tactical air-ground envelopment strike against Viet Cong in the Tay Ninh Province of South Vietnam. Between 13-22 March, no less than 1,181 ARVN paras hit the silk over Tay Ninh, near what would later be known as the “Iron Triangle” north of Saigon.
Official period caption: “Sixteen C-123s dropped more than 840 parachutists in two minutes after Vietnamese Air Force tactical fighters and bombers had worked over the area. A smoke bomb, dropped minutes before the assault, marks the drop zone.”
USAF Photo 342-AF-93093USAF, National Archives Identifier 542293
South Vietnam fielded a full four-brigade airborne division by the 1970s, with 1,000 American airborne-qualified advisors attached, although they pulled very few large combat jumps such as at Phi Hoa II. They were primarily delivered by helicopter but did continue to put their chutes to work in myriad small squad and platoon-sized recon missions (often in places they never officially were) to watch roads and conduct ambushes and small-scale raids.
Before the above image was taken, the ARVN Airborne Group, as it was termed at the time, had already made five increasingly larger combat jumps– leaping in to reinforce the garrison at Bo Tuc in March 1962, setting a two-company ambush behind a VC group north of Saigon in July 1962, conducting a battalion-sized raid at An Xuyen in August 1962, and finally two regimental-sized drops at Ap Tan Thoi and Ba Rai in January 1963.
They had a lineage that went back to the old French, who recruited and trained 1e BPVN, 3e BPVN, and 5e BPVN, which were airdropped into Dien Bien Phuin 1954. The French raised at least four colonial airborne battalions and five independent companies during their fight against the Viet Minh.
Of note, the C-123s of the 346th at the time were also used to train Air America crews and in Ranch Hand defoliant spraying operations, which were no doubt a bonus to the ARVN paras.
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Warship Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025: Gallant Gussi
U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.7161.010
Above we see a Vought F4U-1D Corsair of Marine Fighting Squadron (Carrier Squadron) (VMF(CVS)) 512 as it prepares to catapult on deck qualifications from the brand new Commencement Bay-class escort carrier USS Gilbert Islands (CVE-107)during the flattop’s shakedown cruise off San Diego, on or about 6 March 1945.
Commissioned 80 years ago today, she was one of just six carriers earmarked to carry embarked dedicated all-Marine air groups during WWII, then would go on to continue to serve in a much different role into the Vietnam era.
The Commencement Bays
Of the 130 U.S./RN escort carriers– merchant ships hulls given a hangar, magazine, and flight deck– built during WWII, the late-war Commencement Bay class was by far the Cadillac of the design slope. Using lessons learned from the earlier Long Island, Avenger, Sangamon, Bogue, and Casablanca-class ships.
Like the hard-hitting Sangamon class, they were based on Maritime Commission T3 class tanker hulls (which they shared with the roomy replenishment oilers of the Chiwawa, Cimarron, and Ashtabula classes). From the keel up, these were made into flattops.
Pushing some 25,000 tons at full load, they could make 19 knots, which was faster than a lot of submarines looking to plug them. A decent suite of about 60 AAA guns spread across 5-inch, 40mm, and 20mm fittings could put as much flying lead in the air as a light cruiser of the day when enemy aircraft came calling.
Finally, they could carry a 30-40 aircraft airwing of single-engine fighter bombers and torpedo planes ready for a fight, or about twice that many planes if being used as a delivery ship.
Sounds good, right?
Of course, had the war run into 1946-47, the 33 planned vessels of the Commencement Bay class would have no doubt fought kamikazes, midget subs, and suicide boats tooth and nail just off the coast of the Japanese Home Islands.
However, the war ended in Sept. 1945 with only nine of the class barely in commission– most of those still on shake-down cruises. Just two, Block Island and Gilbert Islands, saw significant combat at Okinawa and Balikpapan, winning two and three battle stars, respectively. Kula Gulf and Cape Gloucester picked up a single battle star.
With the war over, some of the class, such as USS Rabaul and USS Tinian, though complete, were never commissioned and simply laid up in mothballs, never being brought to life. Four other ships were canceled before launching, just after the bomb on Nagasaki was dropped. In all, just 19 of the planned 33 were commissioned.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Meet Gilbert Islands
Our subject is the only American warship named for the sprawling August 1942-December 1943 Gilbert Islands campaign– Operations Galvanic and Kourbash– that included the seizures of Tarawa and Makin and the hard-fought Battle of Tarawa.
The Battle of Tarawa (US code name Operation Galvanic) was one of the bloodiest of the Pacific T/O during WWII. Nearly 6,400 Japanese, Koreans, and Americans died in the fighting, mostly on and around the small island of Betio. Many have never been recovered.
Laid down on 29 November 1943 at Tacoma, by Todd-Pacific Shipyards, CVE-107 was initially to be named USS St. Andrews Bay-– for a bay on the Gulf Coast of Florida and a sound on the southern coast of Georgia– but this changed when she was set to be renamed Gilbert Islands on 26 April 1944. She launched on 20 July 1944 under the latter name, sponsored by Mrs. Edwin D. McCorries, wife of a surgeon captain at Puget Sound Navy Hospital. The carrier was the 57th Navy ship launched at Todd, and the third of her class of carriers christened there.
She was commissioned on 5 February 1945, her company numbering 66 officers and 755 enlisted, about half of which (27 officers, 350 men) had sailed for two weeks on USS Casablanca (CVE-55) in the Puget Sound area as part of a CVE Pre-Commissioning School, with the command and senior petty officers spent another five days at sea on sister USS Block Island.
USS Gilbert Islands from her commissioning booklet Feb 1945. Via Navsource
Her first skipper was Capt. Lester Kimme Rice, a regular Navy aviator (USNA ’24) with 20 years under his belt that included operations officer of PATWING7 (1941-42) and commanding the Barnegat-class seaplane tender USS Matagorda (AVP 22) during the worst days (1942-43) of the Battle of the Atlantic.
After commissioning, our new carrier spent a week in Tacoma fitting out, then another week steaming around assorted Naval bases in the Puget Sound area, taking on supplies, ammunition, aviation ordnance, and getting depermed and degaussed. Setting out of San Diego on 20 February– with a stop at San Francisco– she arrived there on the 27th.
Now we need an air group.
WWII Marine Carrier Groups
Without getting too far into the weeds here, Gen. Alexander Vandegrift, Commandant of the Marine Corps, successfully campaigned during discussions with the CNO during an August 1944 conference at Pearl Harbor, to get Marine aircraft squadrons on carriers– ideally on ships dedicated to air support over Marine beachheads.
On 21 October 1944, under Order No. 89-44, Marine Carrier Groups, Aircraft, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific (FMFPac) was established as a tactical command at MCAS Santa Barbara under Col. Albert D. Cooley.
Originally formed as Marine Base Defense Aircraft Group 48 (MBDAG-48) at Santa Barbara and Marine Aircraft Group 51 (MAG-51) at Mojave, by early November, they had 406 officers and 2,743 enlisted assigned, along with a motley collection of 63 aircraft in nine types.
Of note, the four new Corsair squadrons of MAG-51 (VMF-511, 512, 513, and 514) had previously been training on the East Coast as part of Project Danny for Crossbow strikes on German V-1/V-2 rocket launching sites in Europe using massive underwing 10.5-foot “Tiny Tim” rockets, a mission scrubbed before the Devils got a chance to clock in.
While about 15 percent of the Marine aviators in the command had combat experience in the Pacific, few had ever landed on a carrier, so the ramp-up had to be fast.
This led to four initial Marine Air Groups (eight planned), each ideally with an 18-plane fighter squadron and a 12-aircraft torpedo bomber squadron, designed for operation from escort carriers:
By the end of December– just 75 days after founding– the Marine Carrier Groups had tallied 17,218 hours across 13,257 flights in the desert, rising and landing in approximated carrier flight deck outlines, and the number of aircraft on hand rose over 150, concentrating on Corsairs and Avengers while personnel climbed over 3,700.
The first flattop to pick up a Marine Air Group (MCVG-1) was Block Island on 3 February 1945, which shipped out with a mix of 12 TBMs, 10 F4Us, 8 F6F Hellcat night fighters, and 2 F6F planes.
The second group would go tothe Gilbert Islands. Accordingly, Lt.Col. William R. Campbell’s MCVG-2 — made up of VMF(CVS)-512 with 13 FG-1Ds and five F4U-1Ds, VMTB(CVS)-143 with 10 TBM-3s and two TBM-3Es, and CASD-2 with two F6F-5P photo recon Hellcats– would embark on our carrier on 6 March at San Diego. The group would remain aboard through the end of the war except for brief periods ashore while the carrier was in shipyard maintenance.
The Rocket Raiders of VMTB(CVS)-143, had been formed in September 1942 and logged five major combat tours, primarily from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, before stateside carrier conversion training. VMF(CVS)-512, meanwhile, was newer, only formed in February 1944, and had never been overseas.
Four other “Marine” carriers that made it into service would be:
USS Vella Gulf (CVE-111), MCVG-3: VMF(CVS)-513, VMTB(CVS)-234, and CASD-3
USS Cape Gloucester (CVE-109), MCVG-4: VMF(CVS)-351, VMTB(CVS)-132, and CASD-4
USS Salerno Bay (CVE-110) MCVG-5: VMF(CVS)-514, VMTB(CVS)-144, and CASD-5
USS Puget Sound (CVE-113), MCVG-6: VMF(CVS)-321, VMTB(CVS)-454, and CASD-6
Compare this to the 16 Navy Escort Carrier Air Groups (CVEGs) and 90 Escort Scouting Squadrons (VGS)/Composite Squadrons (VCs) that served on the Navy’s 70 other “baby flat-tops.”
War!
Following workups off California and Hawaii, on 25 May, the Gilbert Islands arrived off Okinawa as part of the Fifth Fleet and, joining Task Unit (TU) 52.1.1, sent up her first CAP and close air support strikes against Japanese targets.
Take a look at this hectic one-day air report, with MCVG-2 just going ham on targets of opportunity:
It was during these operations that VMF-512’s Capt. Thomas Liggett bagged a twin-engine Mitsubishi Ki. 46 Dinah reconnaissance plane– the only aerial victory for MAG Two and Gilbert Islands during the war.
The carrier also lost her first pilot around this time.
On 1 June, Gilbert Islands joined her sister Marine carrier Block Island in TU 32.1.3 under Third Fleet control, then got busy neutralizing enemy installations in the Sakishima Gunto area via liberal application of rockets, bombs, and .50 caliber rounds.
Goodyear FG 1D Corsair VMF-512 TBM Avengers FM Wildcats aboard 2nd Jun 1945
As detailed by her War History, just take a look at this 10-day period (including a three-day gap to run to Kerama Retto for more ordnance), keeping in mind that this was carried out by a group of just ~30 aircraft:
Sent to San Pedro Bay, Leyte, on 16 June for 10 days of rest, replenishment, and repairs, Gilbert Islands was then dispatched south as part of TG 78.4 along with Block Island to cover the landings of Australian and Free Dutch forces during Operation Oboe II at Balikpapan.
With the path cleared by UDT-18, 7th Division Australian troops come ashore from landing craft during a landing near Balikpapan oil fields in Borneo. Some 33,000-strong combined Australian and Royal Netherlands Indies amphibious forces (the largest ever amphibious assault by Australian forces)
It ended up being somewhat anti-climactic, although she did lose one of her F6F drivers, 1LT James Benjamin Crawford, to Japanese AAA fire.
Sent back to San Pedro Bay after the 4th of July– making sure to dip her pollywogs along the way– she spent the rest of the month there, briefly serving as the flag of Carrier Division 27.
During operations in the PI, her plane guard, the “Green Dragon” USS Lee Fox (APD-45),suffered a bow bender while transferring the ditched Capt. Leggett was back aboard on the morning of 25 July 1945.
Fox on Gilbert Islands. The crack-up carried away the carrier’s starboard boat boom and caused superficial damage, with no injuries on either ship.
Sailing to Ulithi Atoll at the end of July in company with the escort carrier USS Chenango, she attached to TG. 30.8, a third fleet service squadron, to provide them with air cover. It is with this group that on 10-15 August, Capt. Rice, as senior officer afloat, was given command of half the group, TU 30.8.2– the oilers USS Kankakee, Cahaba, Neosho, and Cache; the destroyer USS Wilkes and the escorts USS Willmart, Leray Wilson, Lyman, and William C. Miller; and four tugs, to get on the run from an approaching typhoon.
F4U-1D Corsair VMF-512 White 24 behind typhoon barrier, USS Gilbert Islands
USS Gilbert Islands (CVE-107) in rough seas, circa 1945 NNAM 1996.488.253.1578
Vectoring in a big box, heading north at first, then southeasterly, then south and west, “The maneuver was successful, no heavy weather was encountered, and no damage was sustained by any of the vessels.”
By the time the storm was gone, the war was over, and the message that Japan had surrendered unconditionally was received at 0850 on 15 August 1945.
She then performed occupational duty. Sent to Okinawa with Carrier Division 27, she once again had to go to sea to dodge an incoming typhoon.
Carrier Division 27 successfully weathering China Sea Typhoon. Taken by USS Salerno Bay (CVE 110). Ships shown are: USS Block Island (CVE 106); USS Siboney (CVE 112) and USS Gilbert Island (CVE 107). 80-G-354604
Carrier Division 27 successfully weathering China Sea Typhoon. Taken by USS Salerno Bay (CVE 110). The ships shown are: the USS Block Island (CVE 106) and USS Gilbert Island (CVE 107). Photographed October 1945. 80-G-354600
CarDiv27, Gilbert Islands included, then appeared off Japanese-occupied Formosa on 15 October to have their planes as a “show of force” over the island and covering the landings of the Chinese KMT 70th Army at Kiirun on 16-17 October. “Observation over Formosa indicated enemy activity was non-existent.” She nonetheless spent a week off the island until the 20th, firing over 18,000 rounds of 20mm and 40mm ammunition in AAA drills while her planes expended 16 bombs and 32 5-inch rockets.
Dispatched to Saipan, she arrived there on the 23rd, then, with stops at Pearl Harbor and San Diego along the way, arrived at Norfolk on 7 February 1946. Her war was over, and the Marine Carrier Groups disbanded. She would decommission on 21 May and then would be mothballed, first in Norfolk and then in Philadelphia.
Of her sisters, all survived the war, and 15 of 18 (excepting Block Island, Sicily, and Mindoro) were all laid up following the conflict.
In the course of her career during World War II, Gilbert Islands received three battle stars.
Cold War recall
With the Korean War kicking off in June 1950, following a round of inspection among the mothballed CVEs, Gilbert Islands were selected and recommissioned on 7 September 1951 at Philadelphia. She was not alone, as nine of her sisters were also reactivated.
Following six months of overhaul at Boston Naval Yard while her new crew was pieced together, her first assignment was to head back to the Pacific and, carrying a jam-packed load of USAF F-86E Sabre fighters to Yokoyama from 8 August to 22 October 1952, she arrived back with the Atlantic Fleet, based at NS Quonset Point, and would operate the big AF-2 Guardian ASW aircraft.
AF Guardian on the deck of USS Gilbert Island (CVE-107) during ASW near Rhode Island, 1953-1954
Tasked with ASW carrier training duties, she carried VS-24’s AF-2Ws and AF-2Ss along with a flight of HRS-3s from HS-3 in January 1953, followed by four other short cruises with VS-31 (April-May 1953), VS-22 (June-July 1953), VS-39 (August 1953), and VS-36 (October-November 1953).
USS Gilbert Islands (CVE-107) moored off New York City on 10 November 1953, NH 106714
She would then get operational with VS-36 on orders for a short (10-week) Sixth Fleet deployment to the Med that ran from 5 January to 12 March 1954.
USS Gilbert Islands (CVE-107) and USS Hailey (DD-556) were underway at sea in 1954, likely during Sixth Fleet operations
USS Gilbert Islands (CVE-107) is underway at sea. Gilbert Islands, with assigned Air Anti-Submarine Squadron 36 (VS-36) and Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 3 (HS-3), was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea from 5 January to 11 March 1954.
Then, as noted by DANFS, “She became the first of her class to have jets make touch-and-go landings on the flight deck while she had no way on, a dangerous experiment successfully conducted on 9 June 1954.”
Her service as a carrier was completed after two wars. Gilbert Islands left Rhode Island on 25 June for Boston and decommissioned there on 15 January 1955. At the time, just five of her sisters were still on active duty, and all would join her in mothballs by May 1957.
While laid up a second time, she was reclassified as Cargo Ship and Aircraft Ferry (AKV)-39 on 7 May 1959, and her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register in June 1961. She would surely have been scrapped, the fate all 18 of her sisters met between 1960 and 1971.
But the Navy had one more mission for the old girl.
Conversion
Ex-Gibert Islands was towed to Brooklyn Navy Yard in August 1962 down the river from her berth with Reserve Group Bayonne for conversion, reclassified as a Major Communications Relay Ship (AGMR-1) on 1 June 1963.
This saw all her old aircraft handling gear removed, as was the rest of her WWII-era armament, replaced by four 3″/50 twin Mk 33s on sponsons. Her flight deck saw a hurricane bow added.
Then came the real changes– turning her topside into a floating antenna farm.
The flight deck was converted to an antenna array with two directional and two omnidirectional antennas. The aircraft hangar bay was converted into communication spaces although one aircraft elevator was retained to allow servicing of equipment and boat storage. In the communication spaces were installed 24 radio transmitters with low through ultra-high frequencies. To provide the necessary cooling of equipment in the communications spaces, three 120-ton air conditioning units were installed with 130 tons dedicated for the communications spaces. The remaining air conditioning tonnage was routed to the other interior spaces of the ship.
She was renamed USS Annapolis, the third warship on the NVR to carry the name after a SpanAm-era gunboat (PG-10) that remained in service until 1940 and a Tacoma-class frigate (PF-15) that remained in service until 1946. Fittingly, her new motto became “Vox Maris” (Voice of the Sea).
Commissioned at Brooklyn Navy Yard on 7 March 1964– capping 19 months of conversion– her skipper would be Capt. John Joseph Rowan (USNA 1942).
Annapolis commissioning, March 7, 1964, Brooklyn Navy Yard from her cruise book
Those attending the commissioning service included RADM Bernard Roeder, Director of Naval Communications, and the Mayor of Annapolis, Maryland, Joseph H. Griscom. The latter presented the ship with an ornate silver service.
AGMR-1 Annapolis Inclining Experiment. Note she has four twin 3″/50 radar-guided rapid-fire mounts installed in place of her old 40mm/20mm fittings. NARA 19nn-b1543-0004
USS Annapolis (AGMR-1) Underway at slow speed in New York Harbor, 12 June 1964, soon after completing conversion from USS Gilbert Islands (AKV-39, originally CVE-107). Staten Island ferryboats are in the left and center backgrounds. NH 106715
Following Operation Steel Pike, an 80-ship U.S.-Spanish exercise held in October 1964, Annapolis soon transferred to (officially) Long Beach the long way, via the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean, and by September 1965 was off Vietnam.
She would spend the lion’s share of the next 48 months there, conducting relay operations on 19 communications patrols, averaging 270 days at sea per year. By December 1968, she had sent more than 1.5 million messages and steamed 150,000 miles as Annapolis.
She would typically intersperse her ~55-day patrols with short port calls around the West Pac, with individual crewmembers rotating out for home every 12-14 months.
As described by AGMR-1.com:
Annapolis, while on station off the coast of Vietnam did drop anchor every 10–15 days for a few hours outside Cam Ranh Bay to receive mail and transfer priority crew. During those brief stops, Navy swift boats would come alongside to receive much appreciated ice cream in 3-gallon containers that were prepared by the ships cooks the night before.
In a key event in Naval history, on 18 August 1966, while in Subic Bay, she used Syncom 3, the first geostationary communication satellite, to transmit the first documented ship-to-shore satellite radio message, a dispatch from Yankee Station off Vietnam back to Pacific Fleet Headquarters at Pearl.
The USS Annapolis
The USS Annapolis at Subic Bay, September 5, 1967, the former Gilbert Islands
Returning to Philadelphia on 1 October 1969 via Portuguese Angola, the Cape of Good Hope, Dakar, and Lisbon– including two months of operations with Sixth Fleet out of Naples, Annapolis decommissioned for a third and final time on 20 December 1969.
She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 October 1976 and sold for scrap to the Union Minerals & Alloys Corp. on 19 December 1979.
Annapolis received a Meritorious Unit Commendation and eight battle stars for her service in the Vietnam War.
She was the last of her class in operation, and her relay role was key in the development of the Blue Ridge class LCC command ships (which entered service in 1970-71, effectively replacing her) and the later big deck LHA and LHD phibs.
Epilogue
Little remains of our subject. I cannot find where her bell endures, or a monument or marker exists to her.
The jeep carrier’s only WWII skipper, Les Rice, would continue to serve into the 1950s– earning the Legion of Merit as commander of the Essex-class fleet carrier USS Valley Forge (CV-45) during Korea– and lecture on the role of aircraft in ASW warfare, retiring from the Navy in 1958 as a rear admiral in the post of Commander Naval Air Bases First Naval District.
Rice as skipper of the Gilbert Islands, 1944. His first tour of duty was on the battleship USS Idaho in 1924. He capped a 34-year career following Korea.
Meanwhile, Gilbert Islands has Adam’s Planes, which have been dedicated to the ship and hersquadrons.
The Navy hasn’t reused the name “Gilbert Islands” for a second warship, although two USS Tarawas (CV-40 and LHA-1) and a USS Makin Island (LHD-8) were named after battles that occurred during the Gilberts campaign.
However, there has been a fourth USS Annapolis (SSN-760), a Los Angeles-class submarine commissioned in 1992 and currently part of the Guam-based SubRon15, although she is slated to decommission in FY27.
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
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Going past that, two guns that I thought were just great are the new Special Edition Undercover sries shrouded hammer snub-nosed revolvers, designed to honor the Army’s MAC-V-SOG group of Vietnam fame.
Lightweight & performance-focused, these defensive revolvers feature OD Green G10 grips, brass bead front sight, and the iconic Special Operations logo. A portion of proceeds supports the Special Operations Association (SOA).
They are offered in .38 (Model 442-UC SOA) and soft recoiling .32 (Model 432-UC SOA)
Further, I think these are very appropriate as my grandfather, who did three tours in Vietnam and had to often go to remote firebases to fix commo gear, said he always carried his personal all-stainless steel S&W Model 60 with him everywhere he went.
And, as told by Major John Plaster, who spent time as an operator in SOG during the conflict, all the Recon Team (RT) and Hatchet Force men typically carried handguns as backups to their primary rifle system:
SOG’s most used handgun certainly was the Browning 9mm Hi-Power. Many recon men packed the 45 U.S. Government model. although just about any handgun might be encountered, from a Walther P-38 to Colt Commando airweight or hammerless Smith & Wesson snub nose.
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Warship Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025: Saigon Beauty
Above we see the Dugay Trouin-class light cruiser Lamotte-Picquet (also seen as La Motte Picquet) steaming sedately atop the Saigon River in French Indochina on 31 January 1939. Note the GL-810 series floatplane on her stern.
Twin masted with twin funnels, all with a slight rake, she was lovely and would win France’s last sea battle and go on to suffer a tragic ending at the hands of an ally, some 80 years ago this month.
The Trouins
The first large French warships designed after the Great War, the three sisters of the Dugay Trouin class were fairly big for naval treaty-era “light” cruisers, hitting the scales at 7,360 tons standard (9,350 full). Some 575 feet long at the waterline (604 feet overall), they would be considered destroyers by today’s standards.
Their draft was 17.25 feet (20 at full load) and they had a stiletto-like 1:10 beam-to-length ratio.
Powered by an eight-pack of Guyot high-pressure oil-fired boilers trunked through two funnels and feeding four Parsons geared turbines, they had 100,000 shp on tap– also about the same as today’s destroyers. This allowed all three sisters to sustain over 33 knots on trials while hitting 115,100-116,849 shp with top speeds over 34 knots. Further, they could steam at speed over distance– able to make 30 knots sustained for 24 hours straight– an important requirement for screening the battlefleet or chasing German or Italian surface raiders.
When dialed down to a more economical 15 knots, they could make 4,500nm, an unrefueled range that allowed them to span the Atlantic if needed or, with a pitstop in any of France’s numerous African or Caribbean colonies, to make the Indian and Pacific Oceans with ease.
The main armament was eight 6.1″/55 Modele 20 guns in four twin mounts. With this main battery able to fire 32 125-pound shells out to 23,000m in the first minute of operation, these guns were considered to be superior to the 7.6-inch breechloaders on older French cruisers and battlewagons and equal to contemporary designs afloat anywhere on the globe, the guns were also used on the training cruiser Jeanne d’ Arc and the carrier Bearn.
Bow Turrets on Lamotte-Picquet. Note the director and large searchlight above it. ECPA(D) Photograph. Besides the Duguay Trouin class, the French only used the 6.1″/50 Model 1920 on the training cruiser Jeanne D ‘Arc and the carrier Bearn.
Look at those hull lines. Here, Lamotte-Picquet seen in drydock.
French Duguay-Trouin-class light cruiser Primauguet on 28 Juli 1939. Note her twin forward 6-inch gun turrets, the gunnery clock on her tower, and the tropical dress of her crew
Secondary armament for period cruisers was considered their torpedo battery and the Trouins carried 24 heavyweight models able to be fired in any one of a dozen 21.7-inch topside torpedo tubes, arranged in four triple mounts on turnstiles.
Lamotte Picquet torpedo drill, Haiphong, 1939. Note the tropical service pith helmets.
Unusually for vessels of this type, there was also allowance for depth charges and mechanical minesweeping gear (paravanes).
Their anti-aircraft batteries– four 3″/60 Mod 22 AA singles clustered around the funnels amidship and another quartet of 13.2mm Hotchkiss heavy machine guns– were felt adequate for the 1920s but would be woefully underwhelming by 1939. Auxiliary armament included a pair of older 3-pounder 57mm guns for use in saluting and a 37mm landing gun on a wheeled mount along with enough small arms to send a 180-man landing force ashore if needed.
They were designed from the outset to carry two single-engine floatplanes for scouting use and had a centerline stern-mounted Penhoët-type air-powered catapult capable of handling them. It seemed the French used or evaluated at least a dozen distinct types of aircraft across the mid-1920s through 1942 on these cruisers with mixed results. The country fielded no less than 50 assorted “Hydravion de reconnaissance” types (!) in the first half of the 20th Century and I’ve seen or read of the Duguay-Trouin class with CAMS 37, Donnet-Denhaut, Loire 130 and 210, Gourdou-Leseurre GL-810/812/820 HY and GL-832, FBA 17 HL 2, Latecoere 298, and Potez 452 types aboard.
Visitors aboard the French light cruiser Lamotte-Picquet in East Asia. Note the tropical helmets on her crew and the single-engine flying boat (she carried a couple Potez 452 in 1936-39) on her catapult. The marching band is dressed in outlandish tropical grass skirts and seems to be leading a parade, which may be the start of a crossing-the-line ceremony.
Fast and with a decent armament, something had to be sacrificed and it was protection. These cruisers had an arrangement of 21 watertight bulkheads and used only double skin plating abreast of their machinery– hardly what could be described as a torpedo blister.
A scant 0.75 inches of armor protected their main deck and box citadel which covered the magazines and steering gear while the vital main turrets and conning tower only had one inch of armor, a plan capable of defeating splinters only. In all these cruisers only carried 166 tons of armor plate, which is something like 1.9 percent of its standard tonnage. By comparison, the American Omaha class light cruisers which were being built at the same time and were roughly the same size/armament (7,100 tons, 12×6″/53 guns) carried 572 tons of armor in a 3-inch belt.
Little wonder why Jane’s described the Dugay Trouin class’s armor at the time as “practically nil.”
Nonetheless, these ships were generally considered successful and seaworthy in peacetime service, with sisters Dugay Trouin and Primaguett constructed at Arsenal de Brest while middle sister Lamotte-Picquet would be built at Arsenal de Lorient. The first ship was laid down in August 1922 and all three were completed within a few weeks of each other in September-October 1926.
Jane’s 1931 listing on the class.
The Duguay Trouins proved the basis for French cruiser design throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.
As mentioned above, the type was shrunk down to create the training cruiser Jeanne D ‘Arc, and it was also upsized to make the first French heavy cruisers (croiseur de 1ere classes), the Duquesne and Tourville (10,000t std, 627 oal, 62 ft beam, 8×8″/50, 118,358.4 shp to make 34 knots). These Duquesne and Tourville used almost the same engineering suite (8 guyot boilers, 4 turbines, trunked through two funnels), the same thin bikini-style light armor plan that only covered gun magazines, deck, and the CT; arrangements for two scout planes on a single rear catapult, and the same 4×2 main gun arrangement for the main battery with torpedo tube clusters amidship.
Then came the later heavy cruisers Suffern, Colbert, Foch, and Dupleix which were basically just the Duquesne class with slightly better armor arrangement in exchange for a lower speed.
A French Navy recruiting poster, featuring the country’s modern style of light and heavy cruisers. Beautiful, fast, modern, but very lightly armored.
Meet Lamotte-Picquet
Our subject is the third French warship named in honor of the 18th century Admiral Comte Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte who famously took part in 34 naval campaigns and sea battles across a half-century of service to his king. In addition to several single-ship commands and sea duels, this included commanding the French squadron at the Battles of Martinique and Cape Spartel and capturing a massive 22-ship British convoy in the Caribbean in 1781.
All in all, the good Comte de Lamotte-Picquet had a very successful career.
Importantly to Americans, on Valentine’s Day 1778, he ordered his flagship, the mighty Bucentaure-class 80-gun ship of the line Robuste, to fire a 9-gun salute to the incoming 18-gunned Continental Navy sloop of war Ranger under John Paul Jones, as the latter warship entered at Quiberon Bay, France. This was the first salute to the American flag given by a foreign ship and has made sure he is remembered as a hero of the American War of Independence only just behind the Comte de Grasse.
“First Recognition of the American Flag by a Foreign Government” 14 February 1778, French ship Robuste salutes Ranger. Painted in 1898 by Edward Moran. NHHC 80-G-K-21225
The first Lamotte-Picquet in French service was a 179-foot steam aviso that served in the 1860s-80s, followed by a 167-foot Jacques Cœur-class colonial gunboat/seaplane tender that served in the early 1920s before being renamed so that her moniker could go on to be used by our subject cruiser.
Before the Great War, a 10-ship class of 6,000-ton light cruisers– the first of the type in French service– was to have been led by a La Motte-Picquet, but these vessels never got further than design plans.
Our La Motte-Picquet was completed on 1 February 1926 and was able to begin its first test runs under the command of Capitaine de Vaisseau Jean Émile Paul Cras. A career officer born in Brest to a family of naval officers, Cras graduated fourth in his class from the Ecole Navale in 1898 and was a bit of a polymath. He designed several navigational instruments that are still in use today, developed electronic signaling gear earned a Legion of Honour in combat during the Great War as commander of the destroyer Commandant Bory on the Adriatic Campaign, served as a professor at the naval academy, and composed more than 60 symphonic and chamber music works– some of which were quite popular.
Capitaine de Vaisseau Jean Émile Paul Cras, Lamotte-Picquet’s very metropolitan plank owner skipper.
Peacetime service
Assigned to the 3e division légère at Brest after she joined the fleet, Lamotte-Picquet spent just over six years on a series of squadron maneuvers and summer cruises to the Mediterranean.
French cruiser Lamotte-Picquet at Brest 3 May 1927 BnF Btv1b53179908r
Le Havre 3/7/1928, Lamotte-Picquet et Revue_navale Agence_Rol_btv1b53201896j
Lamotte-Picquet lit up at night.
Crew of Lamotte-Picquet sur le cours Dajot Brest Bastille Day
Manoeuvres navales la_vedette Duquesne Provence and Lamotte Piquet BNF 1b532305530_1
County Class Cruiser HMS London Duguay-Trouin Class Lamotte Picquet Worlds Fair Barcelona May 14 1929
French cruiser Lamotte-Picquiet Cherbourg 30 July 1933 BnF btv1b9027179r
Far East Service
Then came an overseas deployment when, on 8 January 1936, La Motte-Picquet became the flagship of the French Far East Squadron (Forces Navales d’Extreme Orient), based in Indochina.
Crossing the line:
Marine Française, Croiseur Lamotte Picquet. Baptême de la Ligne plein Océan
She was easily the largest ship and most powerful member of the squadron.
The rest of the assets amounted to a pair of newer Bougainville class aviso (gunboats), Amiral Charnier and the Dumont d’Urville (1,969 tons, 15.5 kts, 3x138mm guns, 4x37mm guns, 50 mines, 1 Gourdou 832 seaplane) and two old colonial gunboats, Marne (601 tons, 21 kts, 4x100mm, 2x65mm) and Tahure (644 tons, 19 kts,2x138mm, 1x75mm guns).
Two large (302-foot) Redoutable-class deep-sea patrol submarines deployed to Indochina were deleted from the squadron before 1941, with L’Espoir recalled to Toulon in December 1940, while the second, Phenix (Q157), was lost with all hands during an accident in June 1939 off Saigon while in ASW exercises with Lamotte Picquet.
A force of 10 shallow draft river gunboats (Mytho, Tourane, Vigilante, Avalanche, Paul-Bert, Commander Bourdais, Lapérouse, Capitaine-Coulon, Frézouls, and Crayssac) was busy on constabulary duties along the brown waters of Indochina.
There was also a naval aviation squadron with eight lumbering Loire 130 flying boats, unwieldy beasts that were slow (89-knot cruising speed) and lightly armed but could at least stay aloft for almost eight hours.
This left our cruiser as a big fish in a little pond.
Duguay-Trouin class light cruiser LAMOTTE-PICQUET in Ha Long Bay Vietnam, 22-26 February 1937
French cruiser Lamotte-Picquiet, Indochina
French cruiser Lamotte-Picquiet, Indochina
Lamotte Picquet pre-war in the Far East.
Lamotte-Picquet in Saigon, note the extensive awnings.
Arriving at the station in early 1936, La Motte-Picquet spent much of her time showing the flag around the tense Western Pacific, ranging from Japan to China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, leaving the smaller gunboats to police the waters of Indochina. The French fleet had two gunboats/station ships in China, the Rigault de Genouilly in Shanghai and the Argus in Canton, to which regular visits by the much more impressive cruiser were no doubt welcome.
Hong Kong Harbor circa November 1936 with ships of the British, French,h and U.S. Navies present. Ships are (in the most distant offshore row, left to right): French light cruiser Lamotte-Picquet, British submarine tender HMS Medway with several submarines alongside, and British aircraft carrier HMS Hermes. (in the nearest offshore row, left to right): two destroyers (unidentified nationality), a French colonial sloop, USS Augusta (CA-3,1), and USS Black Hawk (AD-9) with two destroyers alongside. Alongside dockyard wharves (left to right): British heavy cruiser Berwick with two or three destroyers outboard, and British heavy cruiser Cumberland. Inside the dockyard basin (clockwise from entrance): Two destroyers, three submarines, and an Insect class gunboat. Offshore of, and to the right of, the dockyard (left to right): USS Isabel (PY-10) alongside a U.S. destroyer, two British destroyers, three U.S. destroyers, and three U.S. destroyers. Courtesy of Lieutenant Gustave Freret, USN (Retired), 1972. NH 80422
Shanghai November 11 1938 heavy cruiser USS Augusta, HMS Dorsetshire, Lamotte-Picquet in background.
Lamotte-Picquet at Shanghai, 1930s. University of Bristol – Historical Photographs of China reference number: Ro-n1005.
“Man of War Row” in the Whangpoo (Huangpu) River, Shanghai, China, in late May or early June 1939. The U.S. Navy heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) is moored to the left. The Siccawei Observatory signal tower is in the foreground. The old Japanese cruiser Izumo is in the distance, beyond Augusta’s bow. Next is the British Royal Navy light cruiser HMS Birmingham (C19), which has large Union Jacks painted atop her awnings and turrets to assist identification from the air, and carries a Supermarine Walrus aircraft amidships. What appears to be a British Insect-class gunboat is near shore in the center background. The French light cruiser Lamotte-Picquet is moored astern of Birmingham. The U.S. Navy troop transport USS Chaumont (AP-5) is moored in the most distant row, ahead of the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni and astern of Lamotte-Picquet. The merchantman moored in the nearer offshore row including the British Shantung (left) and the Italian Enderia (center). The British merchantman Yingchow is moored in the distance, beyond Chaumont’s bow. U.S. Navy photos NH 81985, NH 81986, NH 81987, and NH 81988.
War!
Going into 1939, Lamotte-Picquet’s new skipper, Capt. Marie Daniel Régis Berenger– a Knight of the Legion of Honor who served on the battleship Patrie on the Dardanelles gunline in 1915 and commanded the landing craft Polypheme in 1916 during the Serbian landings on Corfu– was celebrating 33 years in the service.
Once WWII erupted in Europe, our cruiser spent eight months on regular patrols around the Tonkin Gulf on the lookout for German merchant vessels at large. Her only brush with such contraband-carrying vessels was to take over the seized Soviet steamer Vladimir Makovsky (3972grt) on 26 March 1940 near Hong Kong, which had been taken into custody in the Sea of Japan by the Australian armed merchant cruiser HMAS Kanimbla (C78), because the freighter was carrying a cargo of copper from the U.S. to Germany. Lamotte Picquet escorted the Soviet merchantman into Saigon, arriving on 1 April.
Mayakovsky and her 40-man crew sweated it out at Saigon under French guns for six months then were allowed to leave after the local administration relieved its cargo of coffee and ore. The ship somehow survived WWII and was only removed from Soviet service in 1967.
When France entered into an Armistice with the Germans and Italians in June 1940, the situation changed in Indochina. While the French colonies of Polynesia and New Caledonia had declared for De Gaulle’s Free France movement, Indochina remained aligned to the Vichy regime of Marshal Petain, with our cruiser and its squadron along with it.
While French colonial officials in Saigon were concerned about an increasingly aggressive Japan and their allies in Siam– which started pushing militarily on Indochina’s borders before the end of the year– they made efforts to remain on watch against the British in nearby Burma and Malaysia, especially after the shameful attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, Algeria by the Royal Navy (Operation Catapult) in July 1940.
Nonetheless, some members of her crew released themselves on their own recognizance to make it back to the fight in Europe.
In November 1940, three of her junior officers, led by LV Andre Jubelin, eager to get back in the war, managed to join a local civilian aviation club and, packed into a single-engine Caudron Pélican– which required sitting on spare gas cans in place of the seats to refuel in flight– flew 600 miles across the Gulf of Siam from Saigon to Singapore. They managed to make it from there in an epic 10-hour flight and then to England where they joined the Free French forces.
Lts. Andre Jubelin, Jean Arnoux, and Louis Ducorps dramatically deserted their post in Indochina for Singapore and, subsequently, London.
When the Siamese were eventually enticed into making a move against the French in Indochina over territorial aspirations along the Mekong frontier led to a mutual exchange of air raids, a ground campaign launched in early January 1941 that saw a 60,000-man Thai army sweep into French Laos. As the French colonial forces mobilized for a counter-attack, Berenger’s cruiser-gunboat squadron, sailing as Groupe de travail 7 (TF 7), was ordered to the Gulf of Siam, sailing from Saigon late on 14 January, with the slow sloops scouting ahead and Lamotte-Picquet following.
By dawn of the 17th, with the positions of the Thai fleet pinpointed the previous evening by French flying boats, the combat was soon joined at the anchorage of the former Thai fleet near Ko Chang. The French force squared off against the Japanese-built Thai armored coast defense vessels Thonburi and Sri Ayudhya (2,540 tons, 4×8″/50, 4x75mm guns), two British-built Thai gunboats (1,000 tons, 2×6″/50), a dozen assorted torpedo boats, and a small submarine.
On paper, you would say the odds were on the Thais.
However, luck flew with the French.
In the short 40-minute battle, Thonburi was severely damaged by 6-inch shells from Lamotte-Picquet to the point that fires spread out of control and, towed to Laem Ngop to be beached, she would instead capsize a few hours after the order to abandon ship was given, her captain, Luang Phrom Viraphan, killed in the engagement.
The French cruiser also landed hits on the torpedo boats Chonburi and Soughkla which sent them to the bottom, and shelled the base at Ko Chang, destroying its telephone exchange.
Responding land-based Thai air force Vought O2U Corsairs and Curtiss Hawks bracketed Lamotte-Picquet with small bombs, which lightly damaged her with shrapnel.
Lamotte-Picquet fired 454 6-inch and 280 3-inch shells, including 117 anti-aircraft shells, during the battle.
Casualty figures vary widely between French and Thai sources, but all agree that the French losses were negligible (11 killed) while Thai losses ran as high as 300 killed, wounded, captured, and missing with the latter including several Japanese officers serving as advisers.
Berenger reported his victory and praised his crew, saying “Under the bombs of airplanes, amid the roar of shells of an adversary who fought valiantly, you have all given an example of courage worthy of our ancestors,” withdrawing in good order back to Cam Ran Bay.
Shortly after, between the naval action at Ko Chang and the responding French colonial forces in Cambodia, the Japanese sponsored a ceasefire that took effect by the end of January which ended the conflict– with some territorial concessions to Bangkok.
Ko Chang is remembered as the last French naval ship-to-ship clash and, along with the even more forgotten Battle of Dakar (Operation Menace) in September 1940 against the Royal Navy, as the only French naval victory in WWII.
Berenger was made a Commander of the Legion of Honor and promoted to rear admiral shortly after the battle.
Ignoble End
Cut off from the possibility of dry docking in Hong Kong, Australia, Surabaya, or Singapore due to the bad blood between the Vichy regime and the Allies, the French negotiated a shipyard maintenance period in Osaka in August 1941 to clean the cruiser’s hull. At the same time, the Japanese had come to an agreement with Vichy to allow the basing and transshipment of troops and aircraft in Indochina, a factor that led to the birth of the Việt Minh.
Returning to Saigon in October 1941, the cruiser’s boilers were in a sad state of affairs and, although two new boilers were available, other parts and components were not and by 1942, suffering additional damage from typhoons that had come ashore, the mighty Lamotte-Picquet found herself laid up, with most of her officers and crew reassigned. The ship was turned into a floating school for colonial naval cadets (Ecole des marins Annamites), men who would go on to found the Vietnamese Navy.
Her turrets and superstructure were largely removed, and many of her guns were planned to be re-established ashore as coastal artillery.
In January 1945, as part of Operation Gratitude, the fast carriers of VADM “Slim” McCain’s Task Force 38 paid Indochina a visit to destroy Japanese ships and aircraft sheltering there.
Formation of TBF Avenger Aircraft of Carrier Air Group Four, USS Essex (CV-9), Task Group 38.3, approaching the coast of French Indochina on their way to bomb and torpedo airfields and shipping in the Saigon area, 12 January 1945 80-G-300673
Japanese Ships burning and sinking in Saigon River, Saigon Town, French Indochina after an aerial strike by planes of Carrier Air Group Four, USS Essex (CV-9), Task Group 38.3 on 12 January 1945. 80-G-300660
Lamotte-Picquet, her tricolor still flying, was caught in the melee and took several bombs through her decks, leaving her at the bottom of Saigon Harbor at Thanh-Tuy-Ha. She suffered 10 of her French cadre and 60 of her colonial cadets killed. The hydrographic survey vessel Octant was sunk alongside.
USS Essex strike photo of the former French cruiser La Motte-Picquet capsized in Saigon Harbor, French Indochina (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), 12 Jan 1945. The cruiser’s turrets and superstructure were previously removed, NNAM.
TBF Avenger Aircraft of Carrier Air Group Four, USS Essex (CV-9), Task Group 38.3, leaving the coast of French Indochina as they return to their carrier after strikes on the Saigon area, 12 January 1945 80-G-300666
To add insult to injury, in March 1945 the Japanese revoked French colonial rule in Indochina in a coup executed by the Japanese 38th Army, termed Operation Bright Moon, that left over 4,000 French troops dead and 15,000 interned, including Berenger and most of the former crew of Lamotte-Picquet.
Japanese troops entering Saigon
Most of the French sailors were housed in the notoriously bad Martin-des-Pallières camp in Saigon.
One petty officer who served there, Maurice Amant, formerly a signalman aboard the Lamotte-Picquet, recounted after the war that in July 1945, inside a courtyard surrounded by a wall, he was made to dig a series of holes 25×25-inches wide, three feet deep, and spaced six feet apart. It was only after liberation that he learned the purpose: the Japanese had placed electrically wired anti-tank mines and wheelbarrows of scrap metal in each of these holes, and in the event of a resisted Allied landing, they would have gathered all the prisoners in the courtyard to send them collectively on their “final journey” with the clack of a firing switch.
C’est la vie.
Epilogue
Our lost cruiser was slowly salvaged between 1947 and 1959, by which time the management in Saigon had changed a few times.
An online record of her travels, in particular her period in the Far East in the late 1930s, is maintained by the grandson of Claude Berruyer, a sailor who served aboard her and had a proclivity for photography.
French light cruiser Primauguet beached off Casablanca, Morocco in November 1942. She had been badly damaged during the Battle of Casablanca on 8 November and is largely burned out forward. What appears to be shell damage is visible at her main deck line amidships, just aft of her second smokestack. In the left distance are the French destroyers Milan (partially visible at far left) and Albatros, both irreparably damaged and beached closer to shore. The latter is flying a large French flag from her foremast. 80-G-31607
Class leader Duguay-Trouin was interned with the British in June 1940 in Alexandria, and sat out the war until early 1943 when she was turned over to the Free French following the fall of the Vichy regime. Refitted by the Allies in time for the Dragoon Landings along the French Riveria in August 1944, she was ordered to Indochina after the war and participated in NGFS operations there against the Viet Minh insurgents until 1952– the ghost of Lamotte-Picquet returned to exact vengeance.
French cruiser Duguay-Trouin 1946 Janes
One of the few pre-Revolutionary military heroes still honored in the Republic, ADM Picquet de la Motte has a street named after him in Paris (Avenue de La Motte-Picquet) as well as a rail station and a slew of buildings.
The French Navy has dutifully issued the name for a fourth warship, a Georges Leygues class ASW frigate (D645) commissioned in 1987. Her 100mm main gun bore the name “Ko Chang.”
The French Georges Leygues class ASW frigate La Motte-Picquet (D645) is seen in her prime. She served until 2020, including seeing a bit of action in the Bay of Kotor during the Kosovo affair, numerous deployments to the Persian Gulf, and counter-piracy operations off Somalia, capping a 33-year career.
As for Lamotte-Picquet’s skippers, her plank owner composer Jean Cras, went on to command the battleship Provence and died an untimely death from cancer at age 53 as a rear admiral in 1932. His Trio de Cordes (String Trio) No.3, one of the pieces he composed while on the cruiser, remains.
Her most famous captain, Berenger, the victor of Ko Chang, survived a Japanese POW camp and was released in September 1945. Placed on the retirement list post-war as a vice admiral after 39 years in uniform, he passed in 1971, aged 82. Ko Chang is still regarded by many as near-flawless surface action. In his memoirs, De Gaulle describes it as a “brilliant naval victory.” The battle is commemorated in numerous square and street names in France, for example in Brittany and Vendée.
Marie Daniel Régis Berenger passed in 1971, aged 84.
The young aviator from the cruiser who borrowed a single-engine aircraft to fly from Saigon to Malaysia with two passengers, Andre Jubelin, went on to fly Spitfires with No. 118 Squadron RAF and in 72 combat sorties downed two German aircraft. Returning to naval service, he commanded a destroyer on convoy duty in the Atlantic then the French carrier Arromanches off Indochina against the Viet Mien in 1948, and retired as a rear admiral in 1967, head of the French Navy’s air arm.
He made sure the borrowed Pelican made it back to the Saigon Flying Club, packed as cargo on a steamer, at his own expense.
RADM André Marius Joseph Jubelin passed in 1986, aged 80. He penned a memoir, The Flying Sailor, which is very entertaining, as well as the more mauldin J’étais aviateur de la France libre, which covers his war years, among other works.
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
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Some 81 years ago this month, January 1954, Dien Bien Phu, French Indochina, members of the newly-formed 5e BPVN (5e bataillon de parachutistes vietnamiens) of Groupe d’Opération Nord-Ouest (GONO), operate their American-made M2 60mm mortar.
You have to love the mix of TAP 47/52 lizard camo jackets and American M1 helmets as well. Réf. : NVN 54-9 R61, Daniel Camus/ECPAD/Défense
Based, ironically, on the French Brandt 60mm Mortier Modèle 1935 and licensed by that company for production in America, the U.S. M2 mortar was a hit with light infantry of all strokes for the last half of the 20th Century. Weighing just 42 pounds all-up (which is light for a mortar), a five-man crew (two in a pinch) could land 3-pound shells out to a mile away for as long as the ammo held out, even topping 30 rounds per minute if the rounds are staged and ready.
The French paras loved it in Vietnam.
Légionnaire du 2e bataillon étranger parachutiste (2e BEP) Roger Chapel, working a 60mm M2 mortar in Indochina, 10 May 1952. Note the crowd-pleasing belt of M49A2/3 HE mortar bombs around his waist– some 18 pounds of shells– and the M4 Collimator sight on the left of the mortar. Réf. TONK 52-123 R12, Jean Péraud/ECPAD/Défense
The French developed a light mortar shell vest with segmented front and back canvas pockets to carry 8 rounds of 60mm mortar ammunition (24 pounds of shells) for use in Indochina and later Algeria. These could be used to carry extra machine gun magazines too like 16 Bren .303/MAC 24 7.5mm magazines, a cool 16 Ba mươi ba “333” beer cans, or 8 magnum-sized ‘Foster’s lager’ beers!
The M2 was replaced in U.S. service by the new and improved (47 pounds!) M224 60mm company mortar after 1978, but you can be sure that thousands old the old “Yankee Brandts” still linger on in arsenals across the Third World.
Some 70 years ago. With her 5″/38 hood ornament up front, the white-hulled 255-foot Oswego-class USCGC Klamath (WPG-66, later WHEC-66) is shown winning hearts and minds while on her inaugural Being Sea Patrol in the late summer of 1955.
USCG Photo. NARA 26-G-5700. National Archives Identifier 205573861
Official period caption:
Anchored off Unalakleet, Alaska, under a late summer sky, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Klamath (WPG-66) prepares for the health mission phase of the 1955 Bering Sea Patrol. To the locals living here, she delivers the annually awaited medical and dental services, not readily had in this region. In serving here as a floating dispensary, the Klamath assisted the Territorial Department of Health and the Alaska Native Service in their health program for natives in isolated areas. Aboard the Klamath, Public Health Service officers attached to the Coast Guard, Thomas W. Dixon, surgeon, and Fred Abramson, dentist, dispensed treatments from modernly equipped medical and dental offices.
During her four months of work on the patrol, just recently completed, the Klamath stopped at villages in the Aleutian chain, Pribilof Island, Nunivak, St. Lawrence, and others along the main coastline as far as Wainwright near the top of Alaska. Lieut. Commander Gerhard K. Kels, USCG, commanded the 255-foot cutter and acted as roving commissioner. A crew of 14 officers and 115 enlisted men manned the ship for the patrol.
Arriving at her homeport in Seattle, before the Arctic sun began hibernating, the Klamath became one of many cutters that have been familiar and welcome sight to natives along the 26,000-mile coast of Alaska since its purchase in 1867. This was the Klamath’s first Bering Sea Patrol.
(The main U.S. Coast Guard functions performed by the Klamath on the annually conducted Bering Sea Patrol consisted of law enforcement duties. The cutter also furnished supplies, exchange services, equipment, medical and dental aid to Coast Guard men at installations along the way. In addition, the Klamath accommodated other government services in whatever way possible, such as assisting in the health program for Alaskan natives.)
Built during the tail-end of WWII at the Western Pipe & Steel Co., San Pedro, to replace cutters that had been given by FDR to the Royal Navy in 1940, Klamath was homeported at Seattle her entire career from 19 June 1946 to 1 May 1973, during which she frequently pulled Bering Sea Patrols.
She also got some trigger time in, spending 10.5 months deployed with CGRON Three off Vietnam from 14 May 1969 to 31 January 1970.
Klamath was decommissioned on 1 May 1973 and was sold for scrap on 18 November 1974.
Official caption: “Mekong Delta, Republic of Vietnam. US Navy Gunner’s Mate Third Class Barry Johnson returns enemy fire with the M-60 machine gun on board his US Navy River Patrol Boat (PBR). The enemy opened fire on the PBR as it moved along a canal near Tan Dinh Island during Operation Bold Dragon III, 26 March 1968.”
U.S. Navy Photo 428GX-K46404
Note the C-ration can used to keep the ammo belt in line without an assistant gunner, a common hack in Vietnam.
There is also another from the same angle.
U.S. Navy Photo 428GX-K46403
Note the locally-made River Div 532 (Navy River Division Five Three Two) patch, a PBR group of 10 boats that typically worked from moored gator mother ship USS Harnett County (LST-821) in the Mekong Delta.
Marolda and Dunnavent mention 532 at least twice in their work on the Brown Water Navy, most notably in this section, covering operations in Feb. 1969’s Operation Giant Slingshot on the Vam Co Dong River:
River Division 532 commanded by Lieutenant George Stefencavage was one of the most successful units in Giant Slingshot. Between 8 February and 4 April, the PBR unit killed more than 100 of the enemy while suffering the loss of two PBRs and four Sailors. Stefencavage and over half of the men in his command were wounded during the period. On 28 February, in a typical action, the PBRs surprised and dispersed a Viet Cong ambush force but then took heavy fire from another position nearby. Without hesitation, Stefancavage, even though he was already wounded in several places, led his command against the threat and silenced the remaining guerrillas. The Navy awarded him a Silver Star for his bravery.
CDR Stefencavage (Moorhead ROTC ’52) retired from the Navy in 1984, with his last command being the XO at Philadelphia Naval Base. He passed in 1990.
Sailors work on NP-441 (BuNo 147011), a Vought F-8C Crusader (originally F8U), aboard the Essex-class carrier USS Hancock (CVA 19)during the ship’s 1965 West Pac deployment to Vietnam. Note the open panel showing the feed chute for the starboard pair of the F-8’s four Colt-Browning Mark 12 autocannons. Capable of firing 1,000 rounds per minute per gun, an F-8 only carried 144 rounds per gun, giving the Crusader just nine seconds worth of joy.
Photo courtesy of Stan Swanigan via U.S. Navy in the Vietnam War
As detailed by Baugher, 147011 entered the fleet in 1963 with the “Fighting Red Checkertails” of Fighter Squadron (VF) 24, first as NE-453, then as NP-441. She was lost 60 years ago today, 13 January 1965, while trying to trap on Hancock when her tailhook broke and the aircraft slid into the sea. The pilot ditched safely and was rescued by a Navy helicopter.
The Checkertails became one of the Navy’s first “Ace” squadrons during Vietnam, with its aviators downing five confirmed enemy MiGs (two on 19 May 1967 and three on 21 July 1967)– using a combination of Sidewinders and 20mm cannons. That’s almost a third of the 18 F-8 air-to-air victories over Southeast Asia.
