Category Archives: war

Warship Wednesday, June 30, 2021: Cleaning Up After the Queen

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger
 
Warship Wednesday, June 30, 2021: Cleaning Up After the Queen
 
 
Here, in this grainy still from a 16mm camera, we see one of the last organized surrenders of Japanese forces, some 70 years ago today– 30 June 1951– on the island of Anatahan to a whaleboat sent ashore by the Abnaki class fleet tug USS Cocopa, whose hull number (ATF-101) can be seen on the boat. The group of Japanese had previously refused to believe World War II ended in 1945, but surrendered to LCDR James B. Johnson, after losing their queen. 
 
But we will get to that. 
 
The 27 hulls of the Abnaki-class were intended for far-reaching ocean operations with the follow-on tail of the fleet. Constructed during the war, they were large for tugs, stretching out 205-feet in length and weighing almost 1,600 tons when fully loaded. Capable of 16.5 knots, they could steam a whopping 15,000 miles at half that clip on a quartet of economical GM diesels. Fairly well-armed for tugs, they carried a 3″/50 DP main gun, two twin 40mm/60 Bofors, and two Oerlikons. 
 

USS Abnaki (ATF-96) underway at Pearl Harbor, February 1952, showing the simple and effective layout of the class, which kept their WWII-era armament well into the 1950s. Cocopa surely emulated the above impression at Anatahan.

Named for Native American tribes, Cocopa carried the name of an Arizona tribe and was constructed by Charleston Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Charleston, S.C., commissioned 25 March 1944. 
 

Cocopas by Balduin Mollhausen, circa 1860. DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University

Her war history was largely skipped over by DANFS, with just 88 words dedicated it the period, but it was interesting if not the stuff of military legend, taking the tug from the Palmetto State to Shanghai with stops in the English Channel and brushes with German U-Boats while in two cross-Atlantic convoys. 
 
Via NARA: 
 
Amazingly, she did not earn a single battle star for her WWII service. 
 
Following a postwar overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, she was assigned to Alaskan waters, which at the time were still strewn in wartime wreckage and threats of mines. While operating out of Guam in 1951, she was dispatched to a far-off island to respond to the strange story of a group of Japanese holdouts that the war had forgotten. 
 

Anatahan

 
Located in the Northern Marianas, the natives there were removed by the Spanish in the 17th Century to turn the 8,300-acre volcanic island into a large coconut/copra plantation. This continued under the Germans, who picked up Spain’s remaining Pacific territories in 1899, and by the 1920s or so, the plantations had fallen into disrepair and, with the Japanese in charge, they stayed that way. 
 
 
Fast forward to June 1944 and U.S. air assets from the 15 carriers of VADM Marc A. Mitscher’s TF 58 found a Japanese convoy in the area, sailing from Tanapag to Japan.
 
 
Over the next three days, as a sideshow to the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” they had easy pickings, splashing the torpedo boat Otori, net layer Kokku Maru, transports Batavia Maru, Hinko Maru, Kamishima Maru, Imizu Maru, Nitcho Maru, Reikai Maru, and Tenryugawa Maru: the freighter Bokuyo Maru, Japanese Army cargo ships Fukoku Maru and Moji Maru, and the coaster Tsushima Maru.
 

Marianas Operation, 1944. Caption: Burning Japanese cargo ship that was attacked by USS LEXINGTON (CV-16) planes off Saipan, 14 June 1944. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-236902

In the aftermath, a group of some 31 Japanese soldiers and mariners including navy seamen, army privates, and four merchant ship captains, the survivors of several of the ships that were sunk, made it to the lush shores of Anatahan where they lived with a handful of locals who were leftovers from the old plantation days alongside Mr. Kikuichiro Higa, the Okinawan plantation manager, and one Japanese woman, Kazuko Higa, his common-law wife. The senior-most Japanese military member was Sgt. Junji Inoue. 
 
War came to the island when a Saipan-based B-29 Superfortress, T Square 42 (42-74248), from the 498th Bomb Group, 875th Squadron, 73rd Wing, crashed on 3 January 1945 on Anatahan, with no survivors. Meanwhile, the Japanese hid. 
 
On 10 May 1945, elements of the U.S. Army’s 24th Infantry Regiment, carried by the USS Marsh (DE-669), LCI(L)-1054 and LCI(L)-1082, landed on Anatahan and scouted around a bit, staying for a week. The Japanese continued to hide. 
 
In July 1945, the 6th Marine MP Battalion landed on the island and again the Japanese hid inland. They removed the 45 native Carolinians who remained in the village. Other Navy ships visited the island and, hailing the emperor’s remaining subjects there, urged them to surrender. 
 
After the war, in February 1946, a U.S. Army AGRS search party visited the island, located the crash site near the top of its 2,500 ft volcano, and recovered the remains of the crew. Still, the Japanese remained in hiding, despite messages to them that the war was over, including Japanese newspapers and magazines chronicling the peace, which were dismissed as a trick. 
 
As noted by the National Park Service, the Japanese eventually found the B-29, and their fortunes changed. 
 
Early in September 1946, Kazuko and Kikuichiro Higa were crossing the steaming 2,500-foot volcanic crater atop the island when they stumbled upon the wreckage of an American B-29.  Parachutes found in the aircraft yielded nylon for clothing and cord that was carefully unraveled, then rewoven into fishing lines. Using stone hammers, the men chopped away the duralumin plates and beneath them found aluminum, which was eventually formed into cooking utensils, razors, harpoons, fishhooks, spears, and knives. Wire from the springs in the machine guns was twisted into shark hooks. Oxygen tanks were modified for use as water catchments. Engine bolts were fashioned into chisels and other cutting and drilling tools. Plexiglass and strips of rubber were made into pairs of underwater goggles. Everything that could be carried away from this great prize was taken and zealously guarded.  When one man discovered a method for making a new implement, the less inventive of the group made copies. One man designed a model sailing vessel from duralumin and copper wire from the aircraft. Another produced several banjo-like samisens, traditional Japanese three-stringed instruments.
 
It also provided instruments of death: A pair of 45 caliber automatic pistols. The weapons were seized by two of Kazuko’s suitors. For the remaining months of their lives, the two reigned as kings of the island.
 
Soon, Kikuichiro was killed, as were no less than three other survivors, in a series of feuds over crab fishing and Kazuko, who became something of the Queen of Anatahan.  
 
In June 1950, LCDR James Johnson, Deputy Civil Administrator on Saipan, began to wage a hearts and minds campaign to get the Japanese on Anatahan to lay down their arms and go home. This included regular delivery of care packages under a white flag, amounting to letters from the soldiers’ relatives and Japanese authorities, Tokyo newspapers, magazines, food supplies, Japanese beer, and cigarettes.” 
 
This brought about the “surrender” of Queen of Anatahan, who was eager to leave her subjects behind. 
 

Kazuko Higa, the lone woman on Anatahan, the day of her surrender, June 1950. (N-1993.02). http://libweb.hawaii.edu/digicoll/ttp/ttp_htms/1993.html

 
Johnson kept up his efforts to get the last of the marooned Japanese off the island for eight months. After dropping leaflets promising the 18 men who were left would be returned to their families, a white flag appeared and our tug sailed from Guam, complete with a platoon of armed Marines and a LIFE journalist, Michael Rougier.
 
By Rougier, via the LIFE Archives: 
 
I found these two videos in the National Archives of the event and uploaded them to YT. They are silent but moving. 
 
 

Junji Inoue, the day of his surrender at Anatahan, June 1951. (N-1993.05). Inoue reads a document urging his compatriots to surrender. Scene aboard M.V. Cocopa, Anatahan, June 1951. Inoue’s personal implements. Note fiber zoris, coconut husk hat, knives fashioned from B-29 wreckage. (N-1993.07)

 
Once the men arrived in Guam, they were hospitalized for a week then flown to Japan. 
 

From the Aug. 1951 All Hands

 
The Lord of the Flies tale of shipwrecked soldiers and sailors fighting over a single queen while surviving on coconut wine and crabs was turned into several books and at least one internationally popular film, Josef von Sternberg’s Anatahan (1953).
 
 

Meanwhile, back to our ship!

 
With the war in Korea increasingly drawing in naval assets after the entrance of Chinese volunteers by the hundreds of thousands, USS Cocopa (ATF-101) was soon off to combat. Deployed to the region in the summer and fall of 1953, she was key in saving the Canadian Tribal-class destroyer HMCS Huron (G24), which had grounded while in range of Nork shore batteries. The mighty tug took the damaged Canuck, stern-first, to Sasebo. 
 
Cocopa did receive a battle star for Korea. 
 

USS Cocopa (ATF-101) moored pier side, date, and location unknown. Note The tug’s engineers have managed to paint their battle efficiency “E” on their ship’s tiny smokestack. NHHC

 
By 1954, she was supporting Operation Castle, a series of atomic tests at Bikini Atoll.
 
Then came numerous trips to Vietnam, deploying there five times between 1963 and 1972, earning five stars for her service in Southeast Asia. One of the most interesting taskings during her time there was as a “Yankee Station Special Surveillance Unit” to deceive and jam Soviet Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) and Electrical Intelligence (ELINT) trawlers that were monitoring American operations in the Gulf of Tonkin.
 

USS Cocopa (ATF-101) underway,1969, still with her 3-inch gun but with her Bofors and Oerlikons removed. L45-54.04.01

Decommissioned, 30 September 1978, she would go on to continue her service in more North American waters. 

Viva Armada!

 
Sold under the Security Assistance Program to Mexico, 30 September 1978, Cocopa was commissioned into the Republic of Mexico Navy as ARM Jose Maria Mata (ARE-03) until 1993, then as ARM Seri with the same hull number. 
 
She is still on active duty, based in Tampico. 
 

ARM Seri ARE03 Tampico Mexico 2016 via ShipSpotter IMO 7342691

Check out this video of her underway in 2017, looking good for her age. 
 
 

Epilogue 

 
Of Cocopa’s 26 Abenaki-class sisters, they have been very lucky with two exceptions– USS Wateree (ATF-117) was sunk during a typhoon, 9 October 1945 with a loss of eight crew members; and USS Sarsi (ATF-111) met her fate during Typhoon Karen in 1952 at the hands of a drifting naval mine off the coast of Korea. The rest lived to a ripe old age with the U.S. Navy, eventually being retired by Uncle Sam in the 1960s and 70s. While the last of her class in U.S. service, USS Papago (ATF-160), was disposed of in 1997, many were transferred overseas– such as Cocopa, who continues to serve alongside classmates ARM Yaqui (ex-Abnaki) and ARM Otomi (ex-USS Molala ATF-106). 
 
 
As for Anatahan, it is uninhabited these days but is still home to one very testy queen. Home to a stratovolcano that consists of the largest known caldera in the Northern Mariana Islands, it blew its top in 2003, producing a cloud that was seen 600 miles away and burying the island in ash. 
 
Specs:  
Displacement 1,205 t.(lt) 1,675 t.(fl)
Length 205′
Beam 38′ 6″
Draft 15′ 5″ (lim)
Propulsion: (As-Built) four Busch-Sulzer (mod 12-278) Diesel-electric engines, single propeller 3,000shp
Ship’s Service Generators: two Diesel-drive 100Kw 120V/240V D.C., one Diesel-drive 200Kw 120V/240 D.C.
Modernized: (the 1960s) four Alco Diesel engines driving four General Electric generators and three General Motors 3-268A auxiliary services engines
Speed 16.5 kts.
Radar: SPS-5
Complement 5 Officers, 80 Enlisted
Armament (as completed)
one single 3″/50 dual-purpose gun mount
two twin 40mm AA gun mounts
two single 20mm AA gun mounts
 
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
 
They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm 
 
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
 
With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
 
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MIG Alley

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70 Years Ago Today.

Air Guard in MIG Alley by William S. Phillips, via the U.S. Air Force National Guard’s Heritage Collection

MIG Alley, North Korea — June 26, 1951 — During the Korean War over 45,000 Air Guardsmen, in 22 wings and other units, were called into active Federal service. The 136th Fighter-Bomber Wing, Texas ANG, was among the first Air National Guard units to be called. Flying the F-84E Thunderjet, the Texas Guardsmen moved to Japan in May 1951 and, shortly thereafter, became the first Air Guardsmen to enter combat in the Korean War. During the winter and spring of 1951, the Chinese Communist Air Force mounted a major air offensive against the United Nations air forces. The major contested area were the skies over northwestern Korea known as MIG Alley.

The U.S. Air Force retaliated by mounting a counteroffensive aimed at destroying the enemy’s aircraft and bases. In June 1951 the 136th’s 182d Fighter-Bomber Squadron was given the mission of protecting B-29 flights on bombing missions over North Korea.

On June 26, 1951, the pilots of the 182d were escorting four B-29s to an enemy airfield near Yongyu when five MIG-15s attacked the American bombers. Although relatively new to combat, the pilots of the 182d turned back the veteran MIG pilots. During the ensuing dogfight, 1st Lt. Arthur E. Oligher, assisted by Captain Harry Underwood, shot down a MIG-15–the first Air Guard jet kill. The Air National Guard went on to make an impressive combat flying record.

Today’s 182d Tactical Fighter Squadron, Texas Air National Guard continues to add to its impressive flying record.

Scratch One of Donitz’s Sharks

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Original caption: Coast Guard Cutter sinks sub. Heaved up from below by the force of a depth charge, the Nazi U-Boat 175 breaks surface as the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter SPENCER, guns ablaze, bears down on it, full speed ahead. The submarine was sunk on April 17, 1943, in the North Atlantic, as it was approaching inside a convoy of ships ready to attack with torpedoes.

National Archives Identifier: 205574156 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/205574156

Original caption: Coast Guard Cutter sinks sub. Coast Guardsmen on the deck of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter SPENCER watch the explosion of a depth charge which blasted a Nazi U-Boat’s hope of breaking into the center of a large convoy. The depth charge tossed from the 327-foot cutter blew the submarine to the surface, where it was engaged by Coast Guardsmen. Ships of the convoy may be seen in the background.

National Archives Identifier: 205574168 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/205574168

USCGC Spencer (WPG-36), a 327-foot Treasury-class cutter, is shown above sinking KMS U-175, in position 47.53N, 22.04W, by depth charges and gunfire some 500 miles SW of Ireland. Assigned to 10. Flottille under skipper Kptlt. Heinrich Bruns, the Type IXC boat had chalked up over 40,000 tons of shipping before Spencer ruined her paint job. Some 41 Germans were picked up from the ocean that day and made POWs for the rest of the war while 13 rode the submarine to the bottom.

Official Caption: “NAZI SUBMARINE SUNK BY THE FAMED CUTTER SPENCER: Effect of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter SPENCER’S fire are visible in this closeup shot of the U-Boat, taken as the battle raged. The Nazi standing by the stanchion amidships disappeared a moment after this picture was taken by a Coast Guard photographer. The U-Boat had been trying to sneak into the center of the convoy.” Date: 17 April 1943 Photo No.: 1512 Photographer: Jack January? Description: The “Nazi” mentioned in the above caption was probably in fact a member of the Coast Guard boarding team–one of the first Americans to board an enemy man-of-war underway at sea since the War of 1812.

Official Caption: “OFF TO RESCUE THEIR BEATEN FOES: A pulling boat leaves the side of a Coast Guard combat cutter to rescue Nazi seamen struggling in the mid-Atlantic after their U-Boat had been blasted to the bottom by the cutter’s depth charges. Two Coast Guard cutters brought 41 German survivors to a Scottish port.” Date: 17 April 1943 Photo No.: 1516 Photographer: Jack January Description: The men in this pulling boat were in fact a trained boarding team led by LCDR John B. Oren (standing in the stern and wearing the OD helmet) and LT Ross Bullard (directly to Oren’s left). With the assistance of the Royal Navy they had practiced boarding a submarine at sea in order to capture an Enigma coding machine and related intelligence material. They were forced to take a pulling lifeboat when the Spencer’s motor lifeboat was damaged by friendly fire.

As for Spencer, named for President Tyler’s T-secretary, she would survive the war and go on to complete a 40-year career.

(Courtesy USCGC Spencer Association)

Decommissioned 23 January 1974 she was used for a further six years as an Engineering Training School and berthing hulk at the CG Yard in Maryland then fully decommissioned on 15 December 1980 and sold the following year to the North American Smelting Company of Wilmington, Delaware.

Her name is currently carried by a 270-foot Bear-class high endurance cutter (WMEC 905), which has been with the Coast Guard since 1986, a comparatively paltry 35 years.

Hitting the Beach: 60 Years Ago Today

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Porto Tramazzu, Sardinia: The first assault wave hits Blue Beach, landing the Teufelhunden of the Third Battalion, Sixth Marines (3/6) for an exercise, on April 27, 1961. The assorted LCVPs are from the Bayfield-class attack transport USS Fremont (APA-44) and the Andromeda-class attack cargo ship USS Muliphen (AKA-61/LKA-61).

The 3rd Battalion had just three years prior taken part in the landings in Lebanon and, four years after this image, would go on to take part in the wildly confusing intervention in the Dominican Republic. (National Archives KN-2431 via NHHC)

The scene looks much like the landings during WWII. Heck both Fremont and Muliphen were built during the war as were likely the landing craft, whose hull numbers look right out of D-Day.

Besides the easy propaganda purpose that such shots sent to Moscow during the Cold War, ops like this were also good fodder for camera crews to shoot high-quality B-roll for Hollywood movies on the war, which always helped as recruiting tools. Sure, the Devils are wearing ODs instead of HBTs or frogskins, but Tinsel Town wouldn’t care.

While the concept of such “wet” landings fell rapidly out of popularity with the USMC in favor of vertical envelopment via helicopter during the 1960s and the following on air-cushioned landings by LCAC, the use of landing craft never fully went away and, in the near future, Marines could once again be getting their feet wet more often.

Sunrise Service Among the Depth Charges

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Official Caption: Sunday Services on board a Coast Guard destroyer escort in the Atlantic, during the Easter Season, in 1944-45. Here, the ship’s Chaplain Leads the crew in prayer.

National Archives 26-G-3425

For reference, among the myriad of Army- and Navy-owned vessels the USCG operated during WWII in addition to their own, the Coasties ran no less than 30 destroyer escorts in five divisions, including the ill-fated USS Leopold DE-319, the first of its type to be lost in combat.

Happy National Napping Day

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“Rare and wonderful sleep,” a worn-out Marine M1918A2 BAR gunner catches a wink behind what looks like an overturned grade school desk during a break on the push out of the Pusan-Changwon perimeter, South Korea, 1950.

USMC Photo A2292, via National Archives https://catalog.archives.gov/id/74244434

Fearless French Mary

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Via Gettysburg National Military Park

#WomensHistoryMonth – Marie Tepe. Marie, born in France, immigrated to the United States in the 1840s. She married Bernhard Tepe and became a vivandiere (sometimes known as a cantinieres) for the 27th Pennsylvania Volunteers when he joined the war effort. Unfortunately, Marie’s time in the 27th PA Volunteers would be cut short after her husband, along with other men, would steal valuables from her tent.

After this, she left her husband and joined the 114th Pennsylvania (Collis’ Zouaves), where she became known to carry a keg of whiskey across her shoulder and established her title as “Fearless French Mary”. Marie received a Kearny Cross for her brave work at the Battle of Chancellorsville and fought alongside the men of the 114th Pennsylvania even in the height of danger, including Gettysburg, where the Zouaves met the head of Pickett’s Charge.

The Triple Nickels

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On 25 February 1943, the 555th Parachute Infantry Company was constituted. The unit, selected from volunteers from the Fort Huachuca-based 92d Infantry Division, was all-black, both enlisted men and officers.

While they never did make it to fight the Germans or Japanese directly, the “Triple Nickels” did see very dangerous stateside service in the Pacific West on Operation Firefly, jumping into remote forest areas to put out fires caused by Japanese Fugo incendiary bombs.

This mission led to today’s Smoke Jumpers.

Deactivated in 1947, the 555th’s members were rolled into the 82nd Airborne, making it the first integrated combat unit in the Army, and many saw service in Korea.

Lt. Clifford Allen, 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion.

Lawyer Turned Lookout: The Hooligan Navy

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–The 80th anniversary of the founding of the Coast Guard Reserve is this month. Of note, of the 214,000 personnel that served in the USCG during WWII, 92 percent were in the USCGR, with an additional 125,000 personnel serving in the Temporary Reserve.–

Feb 1943. Official caption: Coast Guard Auxiliary. Guardians of inland waters. The Marblehead unit of the Coast Guard Auxiliary includes among its members Bill Welch, a Boston lawyer, junior commander of the flotilla. He contributes twelve hours a week to patrol duty, during which time he assumes regular Coast Guard status as a temporary reservist.

Photo by Alfred T.Palmer, via Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress) LC-USE6-D-010130 

Welch and his flotilla were part of the so-called Hooligan Navy or Corsair Fleet, members of the volunteer Coast Guard Auxillary ordered on 4 May 1942 by Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Ernest J. King to organize into an anti-submarine patrol force officially termed the Coastal Picket Patrol.

Made up primarily of private yachts– the plan was advocated King by the Cruising Club of America– and fishing boats, crewed by their owners, and converted for ASW use, the small craft of all sizes made regular sorties along the American coast into October 1943. Equipped and outfitted with whatever arms and uniforms the service could spare, these vessels were assigned 15-mile patrol squares extending from the beach to the 50-fathom curve.

In all, a remarkable 2,067 converted private motor and sail craft, numbered CGR1 to CGR9040 served with the patrol, with missing numbers in that range for boats that were surveyed but not taken into service.

The program peaked November 1942 with 1,873 boats in commission with the Coast Guard Reserve, a figure that slowly declined from there, dropping below 1,000 in November 1943, under 500 in April 1944, and under 100 in June 1945, with the last craft disposed of at the end of that year. 

Private “Commuter Yacht” Aphrodite built by Purdy Shipyard in May 1937, serving as CGR557 Corsair Navy. Schena notes that CGR557 was 73 feet oal, was assigned to the 3rd Naval District, taken into service April 1942, and disposed of in July 1945, at which point there were only 80 CGR vessels left on the roster. She was reportedly used as a chase and security boat for the Elco PT-boat factory in Bayonne, New Jersey, and tapped from time to time during the war to transport President Roosevelt to and from his home at Hyde Park on the Hudson River. She was originally built for Wall Street financier and later Ambassador to the Court of St. James, John Hay (Jock) Whitney of Manhasset, Long Island.

Coast Guard schooner CGR 2502 of the Corsair Fleet on patrol for German submarines. Note the Coastie on the bow with a Thompson gun. The craft is listed as a 90-foot schooner, formerly the Duchess, that was taken into service in June 1942. She served in the 1st Naval District out of Boston until July 1944. NARA 026-g-014-057-003

Coast Guard Hooligan Fleet member, the 97-foot schooner CGR-2469, came to the Olson & Winge Marine Works yard as the Columbia for conversion during World War II. She had been built in 1914 as the King & Winge, one of the most famous ships ever constructed in Seattle, spending the 1920s as a well-known rum runner after her initial years as a halibut schooner. After the war, she would be a pilot boat, yacht, and crabber. She sank in high seas in the Bering Sea, without loss of life, in 1994. Image via the Museum of History and Industry, Seattle.

Coast Guard schooner CGR 2520 of the Corsair Fleet, with another behind her. This vessel is listed as a 52-foot schooner that was taken into service July 1942, decommissioned in December 1943, and disposed of, likely returned to its previous owner, in July 1944. During her wartime service, she served in the 1st Naval District (Maine-Massachusetts) on nearshore/offshore patrol. NARA 026-g-014-059-001

Humphrey Bogart, who served in the U.S. Navy during the Great War as a helmsman of the captured German liner SS Vaterland/USS Leviathan, tried to re-enlist during WWII. When he was rejected because of his age (74), Bogie volunteered for the Coast Guard Temporary Reserve and patrolled the California coast with his 55-foot staysail schooner, Santana, as part of the Hooligan Navy assigned to the 12th Naval District.

“Humphrey Bogart, who starred in Casablanca, Dead End, and The African Queen, first enlisted in the [tag] U.S. Navy during WWI on the USS Leviathan. In 1941, Bogart volunteered with the USCG Temporary Reserves (now the USCG Auxiliary) along with his 1935 Sparkman & Stephen’s designed 55-foot schooner, the Santana, to patrol the Balboa, California area of the West Coast as part of the Corsair Fleet. During this time, Bogart starred in Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, and To Have and Have Not. ” At Bogart’s funeral in 1957, a scale model of the Santana was present, Photo and story by The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary History Division.

Although actual combat with U-boats was slim for the group, they did provide lots of help in so far as OPSEC was concerned as they often shielded coastwise convoys from random small boat traffic and would board vessels to seal their radios in such instances so that random commo traffic wouldn’t accidentally give away positions to those who were listening for that type of thing. 

The nicknames of the force were fitting, as the volunteers, at least in the early days of the patrol, ran the gamut from semi-reformed smugglers and rumrunners to boy scout troops and yachtsmen such as the good Mr. Welch, our trusty lookout in the first image.

Hunter Wood, a skilled maritime artist in the New York City area, joined the Coast Guard in WWII and served as a combat artist. He captured a few of these CGR schooners at work. 

Eyes Off Shore, 6/7/1943, Coast Guard Reserve schooner of the Corsair Fleet by Hunter Wood NARA 205575831

Coast Guard Corsair on U-Boat Hunt, 2/11/1944, by Hunter Wood NARA 026-g-022-015-001

There was even something of an embrace of the term, with Disney pitching in to make an unofficial insignia, that sadly was never issued to the units and men involved. 

For a good doc on the Hooligan Navy, A&E– before they were all aliens and mermaids– had an excellent show called Sea Tales and they covered the USCGA in WWII, to include interviews with veterans of the force. 

 

Further, a number of those classic yachts and powerboats are still around. For instance, Aphrodite/CGR-557 is still stately at age 83. 

Looks different without the haze grey and machine gun!

Flak Boot!

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Heavy artillery ferry of the German Air Force’s Einsatzstab Fähre Ost parading at the Finnish mouth of the Aura River at Lahdenpohja, Laatokka, 13.08.1942.

Note the twin 88 mm flak guns, camo pattern, and her assembled crew. SA-Kuva

The above was a 143-ton “Siebel” pontoon ferry, named after designer Fritz Siebel. Some 23 of these shallow-draft vessels were constructed for the aborted Sea Lion invasion of England in 1940 but never used. Once Finland entered WWII on the side of Germany– against the Soviets only, not the Western Allies, an event known in Finland today the the “Continuation War” as something of the second season of the 1939-40 Winter War– the Luftwaffe moved a number of Siebels from Belgium in the summer of 1942 to Kiel by inner waterways then dismantled and transported by ship to Finland where they were put into service on Lake Ladoga, the huge inland sea just to the Northwest of Leningrad.

Other Siebel ferries served in the Black Sea against the Soviets. 

German Siebel Ferry with 8.8cm 88mm Flak Gun, operating in the Black Sea out of Romania. Photographer Horst Grund

Powered by a mixture of Ford truck engines and surplus aviation motors, the Siebel flak ferries were all-Luftwaffe manned and equipped with a variety of flak guns of all sizes.

By all accounts, these Air Force-crewed monstrosities did not have a good service record against the Soviets on the shores of Ladoga but at least one has been raised from those depths in recent years.

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