And here is a bonus in honor of all those who wore green to work today…
Ireland never really had that much of a firearms industry, but when you mention the AR18 across the pond, you should know that it was (almost) the most iconic rifle of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland during the last part of the 20th century
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Arthur Szyk
Born June 16, 1894 during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II in the Central Polish city of Łódź, then part of the Holy Russian Empire, Arthur Szyk (pronounced “Shick“) showed artistic promise as youth. His father, a textile factory manager, sent young Arthur abroad to the Académie Julian in Paris in 1909 for four years then traveled Europe and Asia, finding himself in Palestine when World War I erupted.
Drafted into the Tsar’s Army as a reserve ensign, he fought in many of the pivotal battles on the Eastern Front including the one for his vey own hometown. Artistically trained, he took to sketching what he saw.
Wounded Russian soldiers. Lodz itself lost some 40 percent of its population in the war while the Russian Army threw away one million soldiers in an effort to keep Poland in the Empire in 1915. Via the Arthur Szyk Society.
When Poland became independent once again at the end of WWI, he served as an officer in the newly formed Polish Army and fought against the Reds in the Russo-Polish War while also helping produce propaganda art for the cause.
1919 propaganda poster. Via the Arthur Szyk Society.
Once the war was over, he picked up his family and spent the next two decades in France, the UK and the states where he illustrated volumes of books, created postcards, created 38 watercolors in the Washington and his Times series, and produced the Haggadah.
Szyk’s inside cover illustration for Andersen’s fairy tales, 1944
Declaration of Independence. Note the Washington artwork– Library of Congress
When the Second World War of his generation came forth, he jumped into the effort with both feet. His old homeland overrun, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he began a war of the pencils against Hitler and his like.
“Liberty what the Nazis leave behind” Aug 1941. Szyk had no love for the Soviets and it should be remembered that Stalin agreed to split his homeland with Hitler, invading Poland from the East just 17 days after the Germans did.
1939 “For a total living space, comrades in arms”
Satan leads the Ball
1939, Two comrades were serving
1944, Warriors-of-the-Polish-1st-Division-Tadeusz-Kosciuszko-by-Arthur-Szyk
Wayside shrine
Tears of Rage, 1942
Two polish officers. Szyk knew firsthand the Polish army as he was one of its first officers in 1919.
The New Order
Poland Fights Nazi Dragon – Polish War Relief, 1943– Library of Congress
1939, German ‘Authority’ in Poland,
Colliers cover
His art of the time, propaganda pieces for the main part, likely did as much damage to the Axis as a battalion of Sherman tanks or a squadron of Lancaster bombers.
With the Soviets in Poland after the end of the War, Szyk made his stay in the West permanent and in 1948 became a U.S. citizen while championing Israeli independence.
He died in 1951
Arthur Szyk self portrait
“Art is not my aim, it is my means.” – Arthur Szyk
The U.S. Library of Congress as well as the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial maintain extensive collections of his work as do at least two private associations to include the Arthur Szyk Society and Szyk.com.
Thank you for your work, sir.
A WREN serving on a harbor launch in Portsmouth during World War II. Photo by Cecil Beaton, via the Imperial War Museum. (click to big up)
The Wrens were more officially the Women’s Royal Naval Service formed in 1917 then abandoned after the First World War– their 5,500 members thanked for their services and shown the door.
Reestablished in 1939, by the end of the Second World War a staggering 75,000 female sailors made up their ranks– or more than twice the current strength of the Royal Navy.
For more information visit the Association of Wrens.
Now thats cute…
A curious piece of Italian engineering, the “Motomitragliatrice blindata d’assalto” (“Motorised Armoured Assault Machine Gun”) was apparently designed in 1935 by the Ansaldo company, a national producer of equipment and guns for the Italian Royal Army.
Note the pioneer tools– and Brixa cannon…
Weighing a total of 470 Kg, its armor could protect the operator against all small arms´ fire, including 7.92mm Mauser (if shot from a distance greater than 50 metres). A tiny Frera 250 cc engine was to provide traction with a top speed of 4.9 Km/H, and a virtual autonomy of 100 Km.
If you saw this coming at you…the terror….the terror
Powered by a 250cc motor of all things…talk about a smoker
The “Mias” could be fitted with either 2 twin-mounted Scotti 6.5mm Machine Guns or a Brixia 45mm Cannon.
Are you kidding me?
The project never got past the prototype stage.
Royal Marine Commandoes from 42 Commando hit MAMYOKO BEACH from Sea King helicopters of 846 Naval Air Squadron, in a demonstration of amphibious power during Operation Silkman in Freetown, Sierra Leone 13 Nov 2000. MOD image by Royal Navy PO Jim Gibson (Click to big up)
The ‘Kings above are British Westland-made HC.4 Commandos that can carry 28 fully equipped troops– not bad for (at the time) 40-year old technology. When you look at the size of these huge birds, think of the 3000-sq.ft of disk area the 62-feet of rotors need to turn inside– that’s bigger than most single family houses! These leviathan 6-ton (empty) birds could land on water due to their hulls, carry their body weight in cargo and fuel, and travel an impressive 600+ nautical miles.
(Yes, we said, land on water) SW2007-0306-14 21 August 2007
Morris Lake, Nova Scotia .A CH-124 Sea King sits on Morris Lake in Dartmouth, N.S. as part of the annual “waterbird” training. The training is designed to prepare pilots to effectively manage in-flight emergencies over water. CF Photo by Corporal Sandra Garland
The Sikorsky S-61 (U.S. designation SH-3) Sea King first touched down on a carrier in 1961 while performing trials on the USS Lake Champlain (CV-39) and was the go-to ASW and seaborne support chopper of the NATO navies for more than thirty years.
Assigned to VC-5, this Sikorsky SH-3D – BuNo 148050 is seen conducting a drone recovery off the coast of California, 1981. Photo USN
Replaced in large part by the SH-60 Sea Hawk, they left the U.S. fleet altogether except for 11 VH-3 Sea Kings used by Marine Helicopter Squadron One (HMX-1) to transport the President and co.
Overseas they were largely put to pasture by the Westland Lynx, NH Industries NH90 and Agusta–Westland AW101 Merlin, but these big cold war choppers are still flown by Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Malaysia, Norway, Qatar, Spain, Pakistan, Peru, the UK (in limited numbers) Venezuela and oh yeah….Iran.
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger.
Warship Wednesday March 11, 2015: The Teller of Tales
Here we see the white hulled training ship Tusitala under sail in the 1930s in a painting by maritime artist Joseph Arnold. At which point she was the last commercial square-rigger in American service.
Built in 1882 by the Robert Steel & Co., Greenock, Scotland, as Yard No 130, she was an iron hulled, full-rigged ship. As such, she was in that last generation of elegant windjammers that carried cargo economically around the world. She was no steamship, and relied on the wind for her forward movement.
According to a 1952 article by Roger Dudley, “In rig she was a ship in the strictest sense of the word—a three-masted vessel, square-rigged on all three masts. Her total sail area was more than 20,000 square feet; the mainsail alone being 3,200 feet and the foresail 2,600. She carried single topgallant sails below fore, main and mizzen royals.”
Named originally Inveruglas, she flew a British merchant ensign and was British Reg. No. 87394 and signal PGVL in 1883.
As Inveruglas 1884– note the figurehead she would lose in 1917
Just three years later she was sold to the Sierra Shipping Co., Liverpool, and was renamed Sierra Lucena where she made regular runs from the home islands to Australia for wool and India on the jute trade.
As Sierra Lucena around 1900
Her British service came to an end in 1907 when, renamed Sophia, she was sold to the Norwegian shipping firm of Nielsen & Co., Larvik, Norway. The company was concerned in tramping work, but also had a steady grain trade from the River Plate to Europe.
World War I found her dodging both Allied and German warships as Norway was a strict neutral, however she did not come out of the conflict unscathed. While in the River Plate in 1917, she was ran over by a steamship that shattered her bowsprit and destroyed her figurehead. By 1921, she was laid up in Hampton Roads, with her backers unable to find suitable freights for her.
In May 1923, she was bought for a token price by the New York-based “Three Hours for Lunch Club” artists and writers association lead by Christopher Morley, and renamed Tusitala in honor of novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. The meaning is “Teller of Tales.” Stevenson was known to go by the moniker himself.
The one and only Joseph Conrad wrote a congratulatory letter to the new owners:
Joseph Conrad letter
“On leaving this hospitable country where the cream is excellent and the milk of human kindness apparently never ceases to flow, I assume an ancient mariner’s privilege of sending to the owners and ship’s company of the Tusitala my brotherly good wishes for fair winds and clear skies on all their voyages. And may they be many!
“And I would recommend to them to watch the weather,” it goes on; “to keep the halliards clear for running, to remember that any fool can carry on, but only the wise man knows how to shorten sail in time … “
The writers club wanted to use the ship to cruise among the islands so loved by Stevenson, but when that proved unlikely, James A. Farrell, a former president of U.S. Steel, acquired the ship from the writers and used her on a series of commercial voyages for his Argonaut Line from New York to Honolulu via the Panama Canal, completing one of the trips in just 76 days– all under sail.
When you consider the voyage was on the order of 5,452 miles, that’s pretty respectable for a 40+ year old vessel.
Furling the royal– four hands out on the yard passing the gaskets, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage
With main and mizzen royals furled and cross-jack unbent, the “Tusitala” makes the best of a fair wind (left) by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage
Outward boynd, the Tusitala’s sails are set and sheeted home one by one as the tug takes her to sea, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage
Out on the yardarm. Two of her crew, drafted by the old windjammer’s huge lower yard, are bending the main course to its jackstay, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage
Out on the yardarm. Two of her crew, drafted by the old windjammer’s huge lower yard, are bending the main course to its jackstay, by Roger Dudley from her 1932 voyage
On these trips, she would carry 2600 tons of nitrates to the islands and bring back sugar on the return trips. In 1925, she made a sprint from Honolulu to Seattle, WA, in 16 days and 9 hours.
Shot from port bow, 1920-30s
abeam shot under U.S. flag 1930s
Full rig
The full-rigged ship Tusitala returning to New York with cargo from across the South Atlantic has run out of wind. The steam tug Federal No. 1 is towing, while a second tug lies along the starboard side of the ship in order to assist in the docking. Via NYT
In 1932 she was laid up, her commercial career over. Farrell sold her to the breakers six years later when maintaining her pier side at New York’s Riverside Drive wharf proved too costly.
1938 laid up
However, naval purchasing agents on the East Coast came across the leaky old girl and acquired her in 1939 for $10,000 as a training ship.
Refitted at Staten Island for another $30,000 of MARAD funds, for the first time she carried an electrical system as well as a modern cafeteria and accommodations for up to 150 cadets.
Tusitala was turned over to the U.S. Coast Guard, who ran the government’s merchie training vessels at the time. Placed in commission but not given a pennant number, she was given an “unclassified” hull designation (WIX) which is the same as the current U.S. Coast Guard Training Barque Eagle (WIX-327) carries.
In May 1940 USCGC Mohawk (WPG-75) towed the sailing ship to St. Petersburg, Florida, where she was used during the conflict to instruct thousands of new merchant sailors and officers at the U.S. Merchant Service Training Station (USMSTS) there.
Oddly enough, one of her fellow training ships at St. Pete was the world’s last sailing frigate, the Danish-built Joseph Conrad.
According to the American Merchant Marine at War (www.usmm.org) :
Her masts were cropped, decks cleared of sailing gear, and she was towed into St. Petersburg to be tied up and used as a stationary training ship to augment class facilities. First classes held aboard this ship utilized the galley and mess room as class rooms for courses which included theory and practical instruction in cooking, baking, butchering, care and use of tools and equipment, sanitation, cooks and messmen duties at sea, and ship routine. In addition, there was instruction in boat drill, gunnery, physical education, regulations, customs, and traditions.
View of Training Station from the sea. Vessel on left TV Tusitala, right is the TV Vigil
Cadets seen in a postcard from the USMSTC– the stern of the white hulled Tusitala very visible to the left
Tusitala spent the war as part of the 7-ship USMM fleet at St. Pete under the overall command of CDR. G.F. Harrington, USMS, a World War I vet with some 40-years of swaying decks under his feet. During WWII, more than 25,000 mariners passed through St. Pete’s halls and tread the decks of the Tusitala.
When the Maritime Service took over all training functions from the Coast Guard after 31 August 1942 Tusitala was administratively decommissioned and transferred to Maritime Service control and operation– even though the latter had run her for two years already.
Trainee at the United States Maritime Service training station handling a life boat in an abandon ship drill– note the dark hulled Joseph Conrad in the background. LOC image
With the war over and the facility drawing down their fleet to just a handful of ships, she was offered free of charge to the Marine Historical Association of Mystic for their museum, who instead took the Joseph Conrad as that vessel was smaller and in more seaworthy condition.
With her last chance at salvation evaporated, the old Tusitala was towed one final time across the Gulf to Mobile, Alabama in 1948, where she was scrapped. In all she saw six decades at sea under the flags of three countries while inspiring legions of artists, writers, and mariners both young and old.
Today, the former Unites States Maritime Services Training Center facility, decommissioned in March 1950, is incorporated into the University of South Florida.
While the Tusitala is no more, the Conrad remains at Mystic Seaport and is still used for training young mariners.
Specs:
Displacement: 1200 tons nominal. 1746 GRT, 1684 NRT and 1622 tons under deck
Length: 261′ long between perpendiculars (310′ overall)
Beam: 39’5″
Draft: 23’5″ depth
Engine: Nope
Rig (1883-1938) Three masts, rigged with royal sails over double topgallant and top sails, spike bowsprit after 1917. Armament: private small arms as a commercial ship, 1940-47 various gunnery tools including 3-inch and 5-inch gun mockups.
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When the Germans took to realizing in 1940 that their ports and strategic manufacturing centers were very much capable of being targeted by Allied bombers, they began to move all sorts of things underground and hidden in the trees. In the Hartz Mountains there was a hidden airfield on a mountain top where new Messerschmidts would take off from just hours after being built. Other sites hid rocket construction. At Hamburg, Bremen, and Heligoland, giant covered bunkers for U boats were constructed, followed quickly by even more massive sites on the French Atlantic coast.
The Hamburg U-boat pen complex, Elbe II on the southern bank of the Elbe river at the Vulkanhafen, included covered locks, construction bunkers where new boats were made in dry dock, fitting out areas for after they were launched, and magazine and fueling piers.
In 1945 when the Brits took the port, they blew up the 20+ foot thick concrete roofs that had withstood multiple bomber attacks. In 1985 a group of researchers penetrated the bunker area, which was still filled with water at low tide, and found a trio of Uncle Donitz’s bad asses, the ultra-modern Type XXI U-boat, still at the docks.
treasure hunter with a torch hard at work…
These ships, U-3506, U-2505 and U-3004, had never seen service and had been in use mainly as training ships. That wasn’t unusual for the class as of the 118 that were built/building, just four actually saw a combat patrol. When the Allies got close to the bunker, their crews scuttled them on 2 May 1945 and they were largely unusable when the roof came down anyway.
If you don’t know about the Type XXI, it was among the most advanced of its day, with a 2000-ton submersible that could submerge to over 700-feet, travel 15,500 nautical miles, remain underwater for weeks due to their novel new snorkel systems, and hear 360-degrees due to their large sonar array. In fact they were so well made that the U.S. Navy took all the good parts of these boats and added them in GUPPY upgrades to Gato and Balao class subs while the Soviets and Chinese later just copied the whole design as the Whiskey, Zulu and Romeo/Ming series smoker boats of the Cold War era.
But don’t get your hopes up about going to Hamburg and getting to see this lost trio of Nassy subs. They were raided over the years by scrappers unknown who largely walked off with anything they could manhandle up a ladder, and in the 1990s the entire bunker, which today rests under a parking-lot, was filled solid with gravel and concrete, turning it into a sarcophagus.
Meh…
More on the Elbe bunker here, here and here
The former massive pens at Brest in France are off-limits as they are still on an active naval base but here is a video of them:
The Valentin submarine pens in Bremen, are still around too but don’t have any subs in them.
However the North Koreans and Chinese still operate a bunch of WWII-era technology Romeo/Mings, and they really do look fun…
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stands on the conning tower of a Romeo-class submarine during his inspection of the Korean People’s Army Naval Unit 167 in this undated photo released June 16, 2014.
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Watanabe Nobukazu
Japanese woodblock printing (moku hanga) goes back to the 1700s and had evolved into high art by the 19th century. One of the more noted artists who operated in this media was Watanabe Nobukazu. Born in Tokyo in 1872 as Shimada Jiro, he studied duteously under master Yōshū Chikanobu in the Utagawa school before taking his new name.
His art ranged from traditional pre-Edo period Imperial Japanese Ukiyo-e imagery, to that of the more modern era the country was rapidly moving into. The process for this art form is among the most complex and demanding.
Woman with an Umbrella
The Battle of Go-San-Nen
Nasu no Yoichi, Samurai of Genji side, tries to shoot down the fan placed atop the mast of his enemy Taira’s ship at the battle of Yashima in 1185 via SCRC Virtual Museum at Southern Illinois University’s Morris Library
Picture of Noble’s Imperial Ceremony, 1900
He later evolved his form to encompass a series of exquisite triptychs prints centering on the Sino-Japanese war of 1894. His use of vivid colors, glazes, and multiple transparencies gave his work a very characteristic depth of field.
The Second Army Bombarding and Occupying Port Arthur” by Watanabe Nobukazu, November 1894
Sino-Japanese Pitched Battles Two Generals Fighting at Fenghuangcheng
Sergeant Miyake’s Courage at the Yalu River” by Watanabe Nobukazu, 1895
Our Forces Crossing the Yalu River In Honor of Lieutenant General Nozu
Illustration of the Attack on the Hōōjyo
Battle of Yellow Sea
And the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05:
Torpedo boat attack on Port Arthur
torpedo boat attack on Port Arthur 1904
Russian soldiers
Picture of Our Valorous Military Repulsing the Russian Cossack Cavalry on the Bank of the Yalu River by Watanabe Nobukazu, March 1904
The Russian battleship Petropavlask sinks as Adm. Makarov stands bravely on deck
Illustration of Russian and Japanese Army and Navy Officers Watanabe Nobukazu, February 1904
As with many woodblock artists of his day, his art fell out of favor in the 1920s, a victim of increasing modernization in Japan. He died in 1944, largely forgotten in his own country. However, his body of work is seen as among the best of its genre.
MIT has an amazing gallery of woodblock prints by the artist and others in the same period from the Sharf Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston available here while another inspiring gallery is maintained by the Lavenberg and at Ukiyo-e.org .
Thank you for your work, sir.
…We’ll turn their den into a sea of flames (with the smoking wrecks of our squadron)
Devil Dogs just before the Tarawa landings doing what Marines normally do…
Tragically, Tarawa was a hard nut to crack for the 2nd Marine Division and these leathernecks deserved every bit of happiness they got prior to hitting the beach. In just three days the Marines suffered 1,009 killed and 2,101 wounded, a casualty rate of some 10 percent.
In the Roman times such a rate was called decimation.
