80 years ago today: The King George V-class battleship HMS Duke of York (17)in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, the day the instruments of surrender were signed by representatives from the Empire of Japanese aboard USS Missouri. Besides the flag of Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser (one of five different admirals who flew their flag on her during the war), the Ensigns of four Allied nations (Soviet, French, Dutch, U.S.) were flown for a ceremonial “Sunset.” Note the battlewagon’s two quad QF 2-pounder/40mm “Pom-Pom” gun mounts, her massive four-barreled BL 14-inch Mk VII stern turret, and five smart Royal Marine buglers (center) atop the guns ready to sound Sunset.
Cross, G W (Sub Lt) Photographer, IWM A 30511
Having sunk the Scharnhorst in open combat in the Barents Sea, the battleship was the 8th in the Royal Navy to carry the name. Notably, the chairs the delegates aboard Missouri sat on were supplied by the Duke of York’s wardroom.
During the surrender ceremony itself, a massive flight of Hellcats and Corsairs from the US Task Group 38.1, which was cruising off the south coast of Honshu Island, flew overhead, yielding a much better-known image of the above scene.
There are a lot of 250th anniversaries this year, looking back at 1775. One of the most overlooked is the Semiquincentennial of the founding of the Army’s Chaplain Corps (DACH).
Established during the Revolution, the Corps was created on 29 July 1775, when the Continental Congress authorized a Chaplain for each of the Continental Army’s 38 regiments.
In the shadow of Chaplain headstones and the four memorials to Chaplains’ service and sacrifice in our nation’s wars, Arlington National Cemetery’s Senior Army Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Ludovic Foyou recently welcomed a crowd of Chaplains, family members, and well-wishers, saying the cemetery was “where the legacy of our Corps is not just remembered, it is buried into the very soil we stand on.”
Foyou highlighted the significance of the memorials behind him, explaining their tributes:
One honors Chaplains killed in World War I.
Another commemorates 134 Protestant Chaplains who died in both world wars.
A third memorializes 83 Catholic Chaplains who lost their lives in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
And the most recent honors 14 Jewish Chaplains who died while serving their country.
“These stones do not simply remember the dead,” he said. “We follow in the footsteps that walked through the mud, fire and fear to reach those in need.”
3rd Marine Division AOR, Vietnam, 12 August 1967. “Army of the Republic of Vietnam Rangers dash from a Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 164 CH-46 Sea Knight [its ramp seen to the left] during Operation Cochise. The Ky Ha-based squadron transported the rangers to the operational area South of Da Nang.”
USMC photograph A 422604 by CPL Cowen. National Archives Identifier 26386815. Local Identifier 127-GVB-104-A422604
Note the hard-charging ARVN Ranger’s very handy M1 .30 Caliber Carbine in some of its final battlefield use, Nomex flight gloves, and the large battle dressing on the band of his M1 helmet, the latter complete with an ERDL camo cover. It seems he is using a 2-quart canteen carrier for spare mags, which isn’t a bad idea.
As noted of Operation Cochise by the history folder of the 1st Bn/4th Marines:
The ARVN rangers made the first significant contact. On the morning of the 12th, three battalions of the 21st NVA Regiment attacked the rangers. Heavy fighting continued throughout the day and by 1700 the rangers reported heavy casualties. Dangerously low on ammunition, with darkness approaching, and with no sign of a letup on the part of the enemy, the rangers requested an emergency re-supply.
At 1730, a CH-46 from HMM-165, accompanied by two UH-1E gunships from VMO-6 arrived overhead with the badly needed ammunition. The gunships scouted the intended landing zone and reported that the CH-46 could not land in the contested zone. The pilot, Captain Jack H. McCracken, well aware of what would happen to the rangers without ammunition decided to try to deliver his cargo anyway. He ordered his crew chief, Corporal James E. Bauer, to stack the ammunition on the rear ramp. Captain Mc Cracken nosed over his helicopter and raced for the landing zone. McCracken then hovered 30 feet over the zone, and Corporal Bauer lowered the ramp and most of the ammunition dropped into the zone. While repeated enemy small arms hits shook the helicopter, Corporal Bauer kicked out the rest of the ammunition. As the last box dropped, enemy bullets severely damaged the helicopter, but McCracken’s re-supply permitted the rangers to continue the battle.
At 2300, the NVA units finally pulled back, leaving 197 bodies behind. The ranger losses also had been heavy, 81 killed and 153 wounded.
As for Dr. Jack Hill McCracken, Ph.D, he earned both the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross in Vietnam and worked in both Marine and Army aviation for two decades following the conflict, “overseeing the development of a $29 billion lite helicopter project and simultaneously fighting vehemently against the proposed single-pilot helicopter program, which he successfully defeated in the interest of pilot safety and military effectiveness.” He passed at his Texas home in April 2023, aged 81.
The German DW network has just released (in English) a sobering and fairly honest look at the massive 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union by the Axis, an event now 84 years past.
It is two hours long in two parts and uses first-person accounts from both sides as well as extensive period color footage.
“Two North Koreans captured by men of F Co., 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, south of Chinju, Korea, are being searched and interrogated by a South Korean G-2 officer. 29 July 1950.”
Note the M1 Carbine-armed ROK officer’s rather unorthodox uniform capped by what could be a second-hand Australian bush (slouch) hat. Also, the Joe to the left has a muzzle cover on his carbine while the Soldier to the right is missing his canteen, which may have been loaned to the new EPOWs. Photographer: Butler. Signal Corps Archive SC 348779
After the armistice was signed in 1953, UN Command repatriated 70,183 North Korean prisoners of war as part of Operation Big Switch, which also included the return of 12,773 UN POWs to their respective countries; the latter figure contained just 7,862 South Korean POWs.
Another 22,959 Chinese/North Korean POWs elected to be sent anywhere else than home (mainly Chinese to Taiwan), with an Indian custodial force set to guard those defectors until they could be transferred abroad into 1954.
Some 7,614 Chinese and North Korean POWs died in UN custody during the war, mostly from tuberculosis and dysentery/diarrhea.
The ledger that recounts the number of Allied POWs that died in Chinese/Nork camps during the war has been forever lost to history.
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Warship Wednesday, July 16, 2025: Flat Iron Warrior
Above we see the Norwegian Gor-class gunboat-turned-minelayer KNM Tyr, all 102 feet long with a 4.7″/40 EOC gun forward and mines stowed aft. Downright ancient when the Germans came in 1940, she nonetheless proved a serious thorn in their side.
Norwegian Rendels
Starting in the 1870s, the Norwegians embarked on a program of modern warship construction, including steam engines and iron/steel hulls. Constructed locally at Carl JohansVærns Værft, Horten, they ordered eight 2nd class gunboats (Kanonbåt 2. kl) running between 250 and 420 tons, three first class gunboats of between 720 and 1,280 tons, a 1,045-ton steam corvette, an armed 350-ton minelaying “crane vessel” (Kranfartøy), and 14 assorted (45 ton-to-107 ton) 2nd class torpedo boats by 1902. Meanwhile, four 4,000-ton coastal battleships (Panserskibe) with 8.2-inch guns and up to 8 inches of armor would be ordered from Armstrong in the 1890s.
The eight 2nd class gunboats were all of the “flat iron” or Rendel type, a common format introduced by Armstrong in 1867 and built under contract for or copied by over a dozen fleets around the globe, including Norway’s neighbors Denmark and Sweden. Short and stubby, typically about 100 feet long with a 30-foot beam, they were flat-bottomed and drew a fathom or less, even under a full load. This hull form and their anemic compound steam engines only allowed for a speed in the 8-10 knot region, leaving these as defensive vessels ideal for guarding strongpoints and key harbors.
Armament was typically a single large (8-to-15-inch!) gun that could be lowered and elevated inside a shielded battery but not traversed, with the gunboat coming about to aim the horizonal.
The Norwegian Rendels included KNM Vale and Uller (1874, 1876, 250t); Nor, Brage, and Vidar (1897-1882, 270t); Gor and Tyr (1884, 1887, 289-294t); and Æger (1893, 420t). The first five carried a single Armstrong 26.67 cm (10.5-inch) RML forward and two 1-pounder Hotchkiss guns amidships.
Kanonbåt 2 kl Brage’s crew with her Armstrong 26,7cm RML.
Æger toted a more modern 8.3-inch Armstrong breechloader and three small (one 10-pdr and two 4-pdrs).
Æger. This 109-foot 420-tonner was the pinnacle of Rendel development. A one-off design, she was decommissioned in 1932 and her name recycled for a new Sleipner-class destroyer. NSM.000460
Gor and Tyr each carried a single breechloading Krupp 26 cm (10.2 inch) L/30 gun (606-pound shell, 192-pound charge, m/v 1805 ft/secs), the same model gun used on the 3,700-ton Japanese Armstrong-built protected cruisers Naniwa and Takachiho, backed up, like most of the other Norwegian Rendels, by two 1-pounder Hotchkiss guns.
Kanonbåt 2. kl. Gor (b. 1884, Karljohansvern Verft, Horten), note the large Krupp gun forward. NSM.000459
Japanese officers of the protected cruiser Naniwa posing near one of her 26 cm (10.2″) Krupp guns, 1885
Meet Tyr
Constructed as Yard No. 67 at Horten, Tyr was named for the one-handed Norse god of war who sacrificed his other hand to trap the wolf Fenrir. Laid down in 1884, she launched on 16 March 1887 and, fitting out rapidly, joined the Norwegian fleet shortly after.
Norwegian gunboat KNM Tyr from 1887
After 1900, with the looming formal separation from Sweden on the horizon and the prospect of a possible fight on their hands, the Norwegians upped their torpedo boat numbers rapidly to nearly 30 boats as their four new bathtub battleships arrived on hand from Britain. With that, the Rendels transitioned to more static support roles around this time, such as minefield tenders at strategic coastal fortifications and depot ships.
Around this time, most landed their obsolete main gun in exchange for something more contemporary, with most picking up a trainable QF 4.7″/40 Elswick 20-pounder behind a shield. This allowed the removal of their armored bow bulwark. Gor and Tyr also picked up a high-angle 76mm mount, while some of the older boats received a 47mm mount.
Gor as minelegger with mines aft.
After Norway got into the submarine business in 1909 with the small (128-foot, kerosine-engined) German-built KNM Kobben, Tyr became her tender until 1914.
K/B 2 kl Tyr as tender with Norwegian submarine Kobben alongside. MMU.944062
Tyr plan 1913, slick-decked as tender.
With the mine warfare lessons reverberating around the globe after the Russo-Japanese War, it became obvious how easy these broad-beamed shallow-draft craft could be converted to minelayers. This typically meant installing twin port and starboard rail tracks on deck running about 65 feet to the stern for easy planting either via boom over rail drop. On the Gor and Tyr, this allowed for as many as 55 mines stowed on deck.
Tyr as mine planter with her 4″/40 forward and two 37mm 1-pounders on her amidships bridge deck. Model in the Horten Marinemuseet.
Same model, note the mine arrangement. The model omits her 6-pounder 76mm gun.
mines on converted Norwegian 2c gunboat, pre-1940
Same as above
Same as above
1929 Jane’s abbreviated listing of seven of the old Rendel gunboats, including Tyr. Note that Gor is still listed with her old 10-inch Armstrong. The larger Aegir was listed separately and was disposed of in 1932.
War!
September 1939 brought an uneasy time to Scandinavia. The remaining seven Norwegian Rendals, all by this time working as minelayers, bided their time and clocked in on the country’s Nøytralitetsvakt (Neutrality Watch).
Tyr was placed under the command of Orlogskaptein (LCDR) Johan Friederich Andreas Thaulow “Fritz” Ulstrup and stationed at the outer ring Lerøy Fortress overlooking the narrow Lerøyosen south of Bergen. Ulstrup, 43, was a career naval officer who was minted in the Great War and, having studied in France from 1922 to 1924, was serving as an instructor at the Naval Academy in Bergen when the war started.
Ulstrup, who doubled as fortress commander at Lerøy, also had a flotilla of five small armed auxiliary guard boats– Haus (135grt), Lindaas (138grt), Alversund (178grt), Manger (153grt), and Oygar (128grt)– and an old (circa 1898) torpedo boat, Storm, under his control. However, the fort itself, slated in 1939 to receive a 120mm gun battery with four old L/40 French-built Schneider weapons from the decommissioned border forts of Vardasen and Gullbekkasen pointing toward Sweden, instead only had a couple of 65mm Cockerill guns and searchlights.
On the early morning of 9 April 1940, just after midnight, two cruisers appeared off Bergen and flashed that they were the RN’s HMS Cairo and Calcutta, when in fact they were the German Kriegmarine’s light cruiser sisters Koln and Konigsberg, each with nine 15 cm SK C/25 (5.9-inch) guns, as the Gruppe 3 invasion force under RADM Hubert Schmundt. The cruisers were followed by 600 troops of the Wehrmacht’s 69th Infantry Division on the 1,800-ton gunnery training ship (Artillerieschulschiff) Bremse with four 12.8 cm SK C/34s, the torpedo boats Wolf and Leopard, and the E-boat tender Carl Peters shepherding S19, S21, S22, S23, S24, and naval trawlers Schiff 9 and Schiff 18.
Tyr, loaded with live and armed mines picked up at Laksevåg, was at the ocean-front fishing village of Klokkarvik, directly in the path of the Germans.
Klokkarvik harbor during the neutrality watch in 1939/40. In the picture, you can see a mine-armed KNM Tyr at anchor with a Draug-class destroyer at the quay. Note the Royal Norwegian Navy’s Hover M.F.11 floatplane in the foreground. (Source: Naval Museum Horten)
When the Germans began to creep into the fjord and with word of other sets of foreign warships in the Oslofjord, Ulstrup, who had been arguing with Bergan’s overall commander, RADM Carsten Tank-Nielsen all day on the 8th to be able to sow his mines, finally obtained clearance at 0030 for Tyr to hurriedly drop eight mines between Sotra and Lerøy, closing Lerøyosen. However, the 10-14-hour time-delay safety features on the magnetic contacts of the mines meant they were still dormant when the German cruisers passed harmlessly over them. Storm, meanwhile, fired a torpedo at Carl Peters at 0220 but missed.
Ulstrup closed to shore so he could place a quick phone call to Tank-Nielsen to apprise him of the situation, then returned to his minelayer to beat feet toward Bjørnefjord, playing a cat and mouse game with German E-boats and reportedly landing a hit from her 4.7-inch gun on one, receiving several 20mm hits from the Schnellbooten in exchange.
Further up the fjord, batteries at the now-alerted Norwegian inner ring Forts Kvarven (3 x 210mm St. Chamond M.98s) and Sandviken (3 x 240mm St. Chamond L/13s) opened up on the passing Germans at 0358 and soon landed hits on both Konigsberg and Bremse in the darkness of pre-dawn, leaving the former adrift with flooded boiler rooms. While Tyr, Ulstrup, and company managed to withdraw further into the fjords– laying another 16 mines in the Vatlestraumen approaches north of Bergen– Bergen itself fell to the German seaborne force just hours later.
Meanwhile, Tyr’s mines near Vatlestraumen sank the packed German HSDG freighter Sao Paulo (4977grt) on the evening of the 9th, sending her to the bottom in 260 feet of water.
The 361-foot Hamburg-Südamerikanische Dampschiffahrts-Gesellschaft steamer Sao Paulo was lost to one of Tyr’s mines.
In trying to sweep the mines, the German naval auxiliary Schiff 9 (trawler Koblenz, 437grt), and the auxiliary patrol boat Vp.105 (trawler Cremon, 268grt), along with two launches from Carl Peters, were lost on the 11th. Some sources also credit the German steamer Johann Wessels (4601grt), damaged on 5 May, and the German-controlled Danish steamer Gerda (1151grt), sunk on 8 May, as falling to Tyr’s eggs.
Withdrawing down the 114-mile-long Hardangerfjord, Ulstrup was appointed the commander of this new sector on 17 April and, moving ashore to Uskedal, left Tyr to her XO, the 47-year-old Fenrik (ensign) Karl Sandnes. Ulstrup, stripping the 37mm guns from Tyr and two 65mm guns from auxiliary gunboats, mounted them on flatbed trucks as improvised mobile artillery.
A 1937 Chevy flatbed with a 65mm L35 Hotchkiss under Ulstrup’s dirt sailors, April 1940
The next two days saw a series of skirmishes around Uskedal, in which Tyr closed to shore to use her 4.7-inch gun against German positions in improvised NGFS, coming close enough to get riddled by German 8mm rifle fire in return.
A naval clash on the 20th involving the advancing Germans in the Hardangerfjord saw Tyr, under the command of Sandnes, shell the German auxiliary Schiff 18, which beached at Uskedal to avoid sinking. The same battle saw the Norwegian Trygg-class torpedo boat Stegg sunk by Schiff 221 while the Norwegian armed auxiliary Smart was sunk by Bremse. The German minesweeper M.1 went on to capture five Norwegian-flagged steamers that were hiding in the fjord.
With Ulstrup and his force ashore getting ready to displace inland under fire, and Tyr trapped in the fjord, Sandnes brought his command to the shallows and, attempting to camouflage her, hid the breechblock for her 4.7 and evacuated the old minelayer. By forced march, they made it to Matre, some 14 miles on the other side of the mountain, and soon rejoined Allied lines.
Meanwhile, Tyr was soon discovered by the Germans, who towed her back to Bergen and, along with her fellow Rendel gunboat-turned-minelayer cousin, Uller, were soon pressed into service with the Kriegsmarine.
On 30 April, Tyr and Uller left occupied Bergen with German crews on a mission to mine the entrance to Sognefjord, barring it to British ships. This service would be short-lived as a Royal Norwegian Navy Heinkel He 115 seaplane spotted the pair, now under new management, and bombed Uller seriously enough to have her crew beach on a reef and evacuate on Tyr. Uller later lifted off the reef and sank near Gulen, becoming a popular dive spot.
As for Tyr, she saw no further direct combat, although the Germans likely continued to use her in some form of coastal service for the rest of the war.
Post-war
Tyr was still afloat in 1945 when the Germans were run out, and was subsequently sold on the commercial market. Her old hull still in good shape, she was converted to an economical diesel plant and sailed for a time as a heavy lift steamship.
By 1951, she had been converted to the car ferry Bjorn West, a task she fulfilled for three decades. Further converted for service in a salmon farming operation.
Found in poor condition ten years ago, she recently passed to a consortium of Vestfold county municipality, the KNM Narvik Foundation in Horten, and the Bredalsholmen Shipyard and Preservation Centre, who, with Tyr safely in drydock in Kristiansand, plan on restoring her to her 1940 condition. At this point, she is believed to be the last Rendel-type gunboat.
They plan to make her sailable, which isn’t that far-fetched.
Epilogue
The Norwegian Navy has recycled our gunboat/minelayer’s name at least twice.
The first was an Auk-class minesweeper, ex-USS Sustain (AM-119), which was transferred in 1959 and served as KNM Tyr (N47). Three Auk-class sisters transferred with her (ex-USS Strive, Triumph, and Seer) were named Gor, Brage, and Uller, in a nod to the old Rendel boats that saw WWII service.
Ex-USS Sustain (AM-119) as KNM Tyr (N47). Commissioned 9 November 1942, she earned eight battle stars for her World War II service from North Africa to France to Okinawa, helping to sink at least one U-boat in the process. She served the Norwegians from 1959 to 1984.
The third KNM Tyr in Norwegian service, N50, was bought commercially in 1995 and spent two decades mapping and filming dozens of historic wrecks in the country’s waters with her ROVs, including Scharnhorst and HMS Hunter (H35).
The intrepid LCDR Ulstrup continued to resist the Germans after leaving Tyr in April 1940. He crafted a makeshift shoreside torpedo battery, the only torpedo available being salvaged from the wreck of an old torpedo boat, and managed to caravan mines from a storage facility in Sogn to Ulvik to surprise the occupation forces. Once the Allies pulled out in mid-June, he was left to his own devices with a resistance group that became known, logically, as the Ulstrup Organisasjon.
With the heat getting too close for comfort, Ulstrup and a dozen other patriots crowded on the sailing trawler MK Måken (M 366 B)on 19 September 1940 and set out from Alesund for the Shetlands, arriving at Baltasound 11 days later. Welcomed as a hero in London, he was soon in command of the old four-piper HMS Mansfield (G76)(former USS Evans, DD-78), which in April 1941 carried commandos for a raid on Oksfjord, Norway, where the herring oil factory was destroyed.
“HNMS Mansfield, Norwegian Town-class destroyer. She is an ex-U.S. destroyer (USS Evans) and is manned entirely by the Norwegian Navy.” Circa 1941. Note her Norwegian flag. Photo by Harold William John Tomlin, IWM A2725
Once Mansfield was passed on to the Canadians in March 1942 after the Norwegians rode shotgun on 17 Atlantic, Ulstrup, promoted to Kommandørkaptein, was given command of the 11th Department in the Ministry of Defense in London, then subsequently placed in command of the Norwegian forces in Iceland, where he spent the rest of the war.
Returning to Norway with a War Cross with Swords, Ulstrup was promoted to rear admiral in August 1952. After escorting Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie on his tour of Norwegian naval bases, including the Horten shipyards in November 1954, he was made a Grand Officer of the Order of the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II, rounding out his international awards.
Kontradmiral Johan Fredrik Andreas Thaulow Ulstrup, retired, passed in 1956, age 60, having wrapped up a 41-year career.
Tyr’s best-known “kill” of the war, the HSDG steamer Sao Paulo, packed with German military vehicles and stores that never made it to shore, is a favorite of wreck divers.
Meanwhile, in Klokkarvik, a memorial, complete with a mine and a seagull, was dedicated in 2021.
As noted in the town:
The seagull that takes off from the mine is a symbol of optimism. We should be aware of what war brings, but be most concerned with how we can secure peace. We should learn from history, – because it tends to repeat itself. The seagull draws our attention to the sea, the source of everything, our future.
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
***
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No, not the Q Lazzarus song made infamous by Ted Levine, we are talking about the Army’s latest initiative to divest itself of equines, something it has been doing in slow motion since 1917 despite a few half-hearted returns.
It could be argued that 1916 was the height of the U.S. Army’s post-Civil War (when the Union Army fielded 6 regular army and 266 volunteer cavalry regiments as well as 170 unattached squadrons) horse cavalry. At the time, during Pershing’s Punitive Expedition into Northern Mexico to chase Villa, the Army had 17 regiments of regulars– with the 16th and 17th Cavalry Regiments only organized in Texas in July 1916.
U.S. 5th Cav in Mexico, 1916
Add to this “practically all the serviceable cavalry” from the mobilized National Guard that included three cavalry regiments, 13 separate squadrons, and 22 separate cavalry troops, a force that required the immediate purchase on the open market of 1,861 cavalry horses by quartermasters to take to the field as most units were called up with less than half their stables full.
One Guard cavalry unit had no horses on call-up day except one privately owned mount, and in another that had 92 state-owned horses, only 23 passed inspection by a U.S. Cavalry remount officer.
“Making cavalry horses out of outlaws!”
While nearly 2 million Doughboys went “Over There” in the Great War, few were horse soldiers (just the 6th and 15th Cavalry Regiments arrived in France in March 1918, and were later sent to the trenches dismounted).
Instead, cavalry units were either repurposed into supply trains and artillery units or left to watch the border; the latter regiments organized into the short-lived 15th Cavalry Division.
At the same time, the Army went all-in on mechanization and established its first dedicated tank units.
The great cavalry farce of the 1920s-1930s
By the 1920s, the walk away from horses continued, and three regiments of regulars (15th, 16th, and 17th) were disbanded, as the regular cavalry increasingly became motorized (the 1st and 13th U.S. Cavalry were the first to hand in their horses, starting in 1932). In the Philippines, the 26th Cavalry regiment (Philippine Scouts), made up generally of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans, with a few seconded Regular Army officers and NCOs, was established in 1922 using horses and equipment left behind when the segreated 9th Cavalry shipped back home.
The interwar role of horse cavalry was increasingly transferred to the National Guard and Army Reserve.
However, it was a force largely just on paper, allowing much smaller “regiments” than those typically seen in an infantry format to exist (1,090 officers and men vs 3,500 by 1918 TOE, numbers even smaller by later standards).
Florida National Guard summer camp officer with 1902 pattern sword fooling on horseback, Jacksonville, 1930 time frame.
This saw the creation out of whole cloth of 20 NG horse cav regiments between 1921 and 1927: the 101st and 121st Cavalry Regiments in New York, 102nd Cavalry in New Jersey, the 103rd and 104th Cavalry in Pennsylvania, 105th Cavalry (Wisconsin), 106th Cavalry (Illinois), 107th Cavalry (Ohio), 108th Cavary (Georgia), 109th Cavalry (Tennessee), the 110th Cavalry in Massachusetts, the 112th and 124th Cavalry Regiments in Texas, 113th Cavalry (Iowa), 114th Cavalry (Kansas), 115th Cavalry (Wyoming), 116th Cavalry (Idaho), 117th (Colorado/New Mexico, never fully formed), 122nd (Connecticut and Rhode Island), and 123rd (Kentucky).
In 1927, each cavalry regiment at the time, when fully staffed and ready for service, included four lettered 123-man troops led by captains, organized into two numbered 248-man squadrons led by a major, plus a regimental headquarters, machinegun, medical, and service troops for 39 officers and 710 men including ferriers and veteranirians. Add to this 810 horses, 64 mules, three cars, three 1 1/2 ton trucks, a motorcycle (with side car), 38 assorted wagons, 10 M1917 water cooled MGs, 24 M1918 machine rifles (BARs), 501 M1903 Springfield rifles (with bayonets), 724 M1911 pistols, 16 M1903 medical bolos, and, of course, 425 Patton-style M1913 cavalry sabers.
These optimistically formed four NG Cavalry divisions, the 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th.
At the division level, there was a 103-man light tank company with 18 M1917 (Renault FT) tanks and 7 truck-pulled 37mm guns as well as an 89-man armored car company with 12 M1/M2 armored Scout cars, and a 520-man battalion of 12 horse-drawn 75mm field guns (in three batteries) and seven AAA MGs. While authorized, few divisions actually had these exotic bits of kit other than the Regular Army’s 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions, which each housed four active Cavalry regiments.
The 3rd Cavalry Division was openly just a “paper” division with its support units in the Reserve and never in its 19-year interwar history drilled as a unit.
`Troop A, 1st Squadron, 108th Cavalry Regiment, Georgia National Guard at Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. in 1930
It should be noted, however, that the TOE for each NG cavalry troop in peacetime would be just 65 officers and men (against the fully-manned wartime authorization of 123) but had only 32 horses, enough for training, yet still requiring a massive influx of trained horse flesh in wartime, followed by a good 6 months to a year of unit training before they could be deployed.
Further, these regiments were slowly reformatted as hybrid horse-mechanized units, with elements of both, with horse (and trooper) numbers dropping while traditional items like the saber were abandoned after 1934.
Wyoming National Guard’s 115th Cavalry Regiment in its final format, circa 1940, with jeeps, motorcycles, and trucks augmenting the regimental band and horse soldiers.
At the same time, the Army Reserve amazingly had 24 horse cavalry regiments, numbered 301st through 324th, in six divisions (!) numbered the 61st through 66th. With somehow even fewer horses on hand than the NG units, these regiments typically had to borrow NG horses, those from CMMG or ROTC units, or trek to the U.S. 3rd Cavalry’s stables at Fort Myers in the summer to train.
Meanwhile, the 2nd Cavalry Regiment pitched in to train Great Plains Army Reservists at Fort Riley, Kansas. The 14th Cav maintained a Cavalry riding school at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, specifically to train Midwestern Army Reservists, where, in 1936, their 2nd Squadron taught future president Ronald Reagan how to ride horses, by the numbers.
Reagan’s military service began with the U.S. Army Reserve via at-home Army Extension courses in 1935. He was a private in the Iowa-based 322nd Cavalry Regiment before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Officers Reserve Corps. He was later assigned to the 323rd Cavalry Regiment in California and in 1942 requested a transfer to the USAAF, where he helped produce 400 training films in the 1st Motion Picture Unit.
While it was estimated that the Army would need over 200,000 horses immediately in wartime if all 44 Guard and Reserve horse cav regiments and their 10 divisional organizations were fully-fleshed out, the service typically only procured between 1,500 and 2,500 new horses every year in the 1930s, including use for both active and reserve cavalry and artillery, and at the end of the 1941 fiscal year the remount depots only had 28,000 horses on hand.
By the fall of 1940, with the Guard federalized, of the existing 19 NG cavalry regiments, 7 were reorganized into mechanized regiments, 6 were converted to field artillery, and 4 to coastal artillery.
Only two, the Texas 112th and 124th, were given a reprieve as horse cavalry and would be brigaded together as the 56th Cavalry Brigade, which survived until March 1944 when they put their horses to pasture and became the 56th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, Mechanized, bound for the CBI theatre.
Likewise, the massive Army Reserve “cavalry” force saw its 24 regiments melt away by 1942 when they were hollowed out by having their assigned personnel called to active duty and reassigned to Regular Army and federalized National Guard units. The empty unit shells were typically reclassified into Signal Aircraft Warning (radar) battalions and Tank Destroyer battalions (notably the 62nd, 63rd, 65th, 66th, 70th, 71st, and 75th), then rebuilt with new personnel.
Most of the “U.S” branded horses were “loaned” to the USCG, who took 3,900 for WWII beach patrol work, while over 7,000 went overseas as military aid to allies.
The Constabulary
While there was a short resurgence of small horse-mounted recon detachments formed in divisions in 1944-45, notably with the 10th Mountain, who experienced possibly the final U.S. Army mounted cavalry charge, the 35,000-strong U.S. Constabulary force in occupied Germany from 1946-52 included much use of horses.
Organized into 10 regiments, the circa 1946 TOE of each allowed for a horse platoon with 30 horses to patrol difficult terrain.
Even afterward, the Army’s Berlin Garrison was authorized 56 horses for the use of the force there as late as 1958.
“One of the famous Constabulary regiment horse patrols”
Short-lived resurgence
The Army’s last dedicated pack horse unit, the 35th QM Pack Co., was deactivated at Fort Carson, Colorado, in the spring of 1957.
Man don’t those white horses glow at night! Green Berets from 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) ride horses to travel through rough terrain during a site reconnaissance training exercise on March 1, 2016 in Nevada. (U.S. Army photo by 3rd SFG (A) Combat Camera)
Plus, there was a steady resurgence post-Vietnam of ceremonial horse detachments on posts with a history going back to the Old West days.
The 11th ACR’s “Black Horse” Detachment at Fort Irwin
About that.
The Army last week announced that it was “streamlining its Military Working Equid program to align more resources with warfighting capability and readiness. MWEs include horses, mules, and donkeys owned by the Department of Defense and housed on Army installations.”
This means that, of its current seven horse detachments– often staffed by volunteers on collateral duty– just two will remain.
Starting in July 2025, the Army will sunset ownership, operation, and materiel support of MWE programs at Fort Irwin, California; Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Fort Riley, Kansas; Fort Sill, Oklahoma; and Fort Hood, Texas.
However, MWE programs will continue with The Old Guard Caisson units at the Military District of Washington and at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas.
“This initiative will save the Army $2 million annually and will allow the funds and Soldiers dedicated to MWE programs to be redirected to readiness and warfighting priorities.
An estimated 141 current Army horses will be moved out to new homes.
“Installation commanders will have one year to transfer, facilitate adoption, or donate the MWEs to vetted owners according to federal law. The Army Surgeon General’s MWE Task Force, comprised of equine veterinarian experts, will provide oversight to ensure the MWEs go to appropriate owners.”
Of note, the Caisson Platoon just resumed limited operations at Arlington last month.
A touching image, some 80 years ago today, with an almost unfathomable background.
Official period caption: “Lecco, Italy. PFC George Morihiro, Co I, 442nd Inf. Regt., adopted a little orphan, one of the group from the St. Joseph’s orphanage, which attended the 4th of July party at the Red Cross given by the members of the 442nd Regt., for the evening, and made sure that she had plenty of sweets to eat.”
U.S. Army Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-340940 by Menikheim, 3131st Signal Photo Platoon. National Archives Identifier 404791224
Just in case you didn’t immediately grasp it, the famed 442nd “Go for Broke” Regimental Combat Team was made up of Japanese American troops during WWII. One of the most decorated units in U.S. military history– including five Presidential Unit Citations, 21 MoHs, and 18,000 other individual decorations– the second-generation “Nisei” men who filled its ranks often hailed from families shamefully interned by the federal government under armed guard during the war.
Born in September 1924, in Tacoma, Washington, to Gunjiro and Tsuru Morihiro, George graduated from high school in Fife, Washington, and was eager to volunteer for the Army prior to Pearl Harbor. Following the start of the Pacific War, his family was removed to the Puyallup Assembly Center and the Minidoka Concentration Camp, Idaho, where 13,000 Americans were detained in the high desert.
Nonetheless, he joined the Army in late 1943, was sent to Camp Shelby, and, in what he thought was punishment for talking smack to a sergeant there, was promptly designated as a BAR man, toting the 21-pound M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle. As anyone can tell you, it sucks to carry a BAR to the range and back, I can’t imagine having to tote one through the gumbo mud of Mississippi or up a mountain in Italy, but George did it.
Earning a Purple Heart in action against the Gothic Line, Staff Sgt. Morihiro returned to Fife after the war. Attending photography school, he worked 20 years for Tall’s Camera Supply and 24 years as owner of GEM Photo Distributors. He was also active in the Nisei Veterans Association, speaking to school groups and community organizations about his wartime experiences, going on to leave a nine-part oral history in 1998.
George passed in 2009, aged 85, and left behind a son and grandchildren. Because, of course, he did.
It happened 80 years ago today. A recovered Japanese Type 94 tankette in Okinawa.
Official period caption: “Japanese tankette knocked out in battle for Shuri. The tank is about 10 ft. by four and about five feet in height, and carries two men. Relative size is shown by Lt. M. A. Miller of 94 Parkway Rd., Bronxville, New York. 30 June, 1945.”
Photographer: Henderson, 3240th Signal Photo Det. U.S. Army Signal Corps photo SC 211480.
Based on the British Carden-Loyd tankettes VIb of the early 1930s– with lessons learned from the domestic 3.5-ton Type 92 heavy armored car– the Japanese Army fielded just over 800 Type 94 light armored cars starting in 1935.
Japanese Special Naval Landing Force personnel with a Carden Loyd Tankette right and a Vickers Crossley Armored Car left military exercise in 1932
Some 3.4 tons and clad in just under a half-inch of armor, they were powered by a suitcase-sized 4-cylinder 32-hp Mitsubishi Franklin air-cooled inline gasoline engine capable of hurling the little tankette and its two-man crew at speeds of up to 25 mph over good roads. Armament was just a single 7.7mm Type 92 light machine gun. The follow-on, but less numerous, Type 97 Te-Ke tankette was slightly larger and carried a 37mm tank gun, giving it much more muscle.
The Type 94 was mainly deployed in Tankette Companies attached to infantry divisions for use in the reconnaissance role. They were primarily used in China, but American troops encountered the baby tank across the Pacific as well.
1942 in northern China. A column of Japanese Type 98 tanks followed by Type 94 tankettes
An American M4A2 Sherman carrying a Japanese Type 94 tankette on its back, Namur, 1944.
Fewer than a dozen remain today, with most of those in scrap/relic condition.
June 1945. A Marine F4U Corsair firing a salvo of eight five-inch forward-firing aircraft rockets, or FFARs, into an enemy crest of the mountain at Okinawa. Each 80-pound solid-fuel rocket, which preceded the famed Zuni, had a 45-pound HE warhead and a range of about a mile. “The terrific intensity is evident in the explosion of the rocket,” notes the original period caption of the photograph.
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, by Lieutenant David Douglas Duncan, USMCR, now in the collections of the National Archives 127-GW-520-126420
While the Corsair was a fierce dogfighter, earning an 11:1 kill ratio in the hands of U.S. Navy, Fleet Air Arm, RNZAF, and USMC aviators, their heavy use in troop support over the island earned them the nickname of the “Angels of Okinawa.”
A Vought F4U Corsair, of a U.S. Marine Corps fighter squadron, fires a salvo of eight five-inch rockets at a Japanese position in southern Okinawa, circa early June 1945. Photographed from the observer pod of a P-38 Lightning by Marine Corps combat photographer Lieutenant David Douglas Duncan, USMCR. The photo plane, only about 40-50 feet behind the F4U, was knocked out of control by the rocket blast and nearly crashed. U.S. Marine Corps Photograph. Catalog #: USMC 129356
FG-1D Corsair fighters of US Marine Corps squadron VMF-323 in flight over Okinawa, Japan, 10 June 1945 NARA
Although “obsolete” with the introduction of jet fighters, the rocket-carrying Corsair returned to the ground-support role with relish over the skies of Korea and Indochina in the 1950s.
Loading 5-inch rockets on F4U-4 Corsairs of VMF-323 aboard USS Badoeng Strait (CVE-116), off Korea, September 1950. USMC Photo A413601 National Archives Identifier 74237271
Black Sheep Squadron (VMF-214) – Korea. 1st MAW– The First Marine F4U Corsair fighter-bomber pilot to land at newly captured Kimpo Airfield was First Lieutenant John V. Banes, 18 September 1950. While flying off a carrier in close support of Marine infantrymen. Banes, hit while bombing the Communists, thanked his lucky stars and the ground troops for the ready, friendly airfield. The feeling was mutual with the troops on the ground. Marine Corps Photo A3725 by Cpl. R. J. Laitinen. National Archives Identifier 74242918, Local Identifier 127-GR-77-A3725
USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) ordnancemen loading rockets beneath the port wing of a Fighter Squadron 64 (VF-64) F4U-4B Corsair, during operations off the Korean coast, 21 May 1951. Note the different types of rocket warheads and details of carts used to transport the rockets. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-439903
