Category Archives: weapons

Fortune Helps the Daring

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How about this amazing shot of a Fleet Air Arm Tarpon (Avenger) being spotted on the deck of armored carrier HMS Illustrious (87) in March 1945, some 80 years ago this month, while in operations with the British Pacific Fleet.

As noted by the Imperial War Museum, the Avenger’s war decorations include four bombing missions and one “unusual credit of a flying bomb shot down.”

IWM (A 29270)

The Avenger is likely JZ127 of 854 Naval Air Squadron, which was embarked on “Lusty” at the time.

Formed on 1 January 1944 at Squantum NAS in Massachusetts as U.S. Navy instructors were there to impart their knowledge of the quirks of the big TBM/F Avenger, 854 NAS saw its first combat under Coastal Command orders based ashore at RAF Hawkinge, running anti-shipping patrols above the Channel before, during and after the Overlord landings in Normandy.

During that time the squadron accounted for two unlikely air-to-air kills against V1 flying bombs including one by by Sub.Lt(A) David Pettit Davies, RNVR, on 10 July 1944, and a second by Lt(A) Allan Voak RNVR on 15 August 1944.

The Davies shoot-down, as chronicled in Osprey’s Aircraft of the Aces: V1 Flying Bomb Aces, by Andrew Thomas, page 33, should probably more so be referred to as the Shirmer shoot-down:

The early morning of 10 July also saw a claim credited to a more unusual type. Flying from Hawkinge on a ‘Channel Stop’ operation, a Royal Navy Avenger of 854 Naval Air Squadron, flown by Sub Lt D P Davies, was at the end of a long patrol when at 0510 hrs Telegraphist Air Gunner L/A Fred Shirmer spotted a V1 approaching from behind. The ‘Diver’ gradually overtook them, and as the flying bomb passed about 700 yards down the port side Shirmer fired on it with his turret-mounted 0.50-in machine gun. His aim was good, for although he only fired 20 rounds, the V1 went down. This was the first time a flying bomb had been destroyed by a Fleet Air Arm aircraft, and it resulted in Shirmer subsequently being Mentioned in Despatches.

Davies and Shirmer remained a team with 854 NAS, shipping out on Illustrious for service in Eastern waters with the pilot earning the DSC and the gunner receiving the DSM for actions over Palembang in May 1945.

Later becoming a noted Civil Aviation Authority test pilot post-war, logging 6,000 hours in 150 types of aircraft, Davies added an OBE to his blazer in 1957 and passed in 2003, aged 83.

Acting Temporary Petty Officer Airman Frederick Christian Shirmer, FAA/FX.115139, meanwhile, faded into history.

As for 854 NAS, they left their Avengers in the Pacific post-VJ Day and disbanded for 60 years until they were reestablished in 2006 to fly AEW Sea King ASACS Mk 7s until furling their flags once again in 2015.

The squadron’s motto is “Audentes Fortuna Juvat” (Fortune Helps the Daring).

Bren & Mills

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Offical caption: Gunner J. Hinchcliffe, of Sheffield, 30 years old, and upholsterer before the war, setting out on a “recce” patrol in the Dunkirk perimeter, 3 March 1945. The Bren Gunner is assigned to 12 Platoon, D Company, 5th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (West Riding) (600th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery).

Taken by SGT. C.H. Hewitt, No. 5 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit. Via IWM B 15107

Besides Hinchcliffe’s Bren gun recce rifle (!) he carries a couple of Mills bombs for those up-close and personal moments.

Although an RA regiment, the 600th, originally formed as the 43rd Garrison Regiment, saw a good bit of ground combat in Northwest Europe in 1944-45 and left behind the graves on the Continent to prove it.

Visiting an old friend for Mardi Gras

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Mobile has long had a “Mardi Gras Ship” tradition with the Navy and Coast Guard, where a transiting surface warfare asset or cutter stops in and ties up downtown by the Civic Center across from Austal for the week of Mardi Gras. The crews participate in the dozen assorted local parades (Mobilians claim to have started the modern MG parade tradition in the Gulf South with Joe Cain in 1868 and the Comic Cowboys in 1884) as well as opening the ship for the locals to tour.

While this duty is often delegated to LCSs coming out of Austal, this year the aging Flight II Burke, USS McFaul (DDG-74) was tapped, so of course I had to go visit her.

All photos by me.

Constructed at Ingalls between 1996 and 1998, I was at the yard at the time and attended her christening, having worked on subassemblies of the ship while I was a much younger man.

When McFaul joined the fleet, Creed, Semi-Sonic and The Verve were on the top of the rock charts.

Now part of the Greyhounds of Norfolk-based DesRon 2 along with four of her sisterships, she supports CSG-12 centered around the USS Ford, meaning she is very much a working tin can.

Still, at almost 30 years on active duty, she looks great.

Rare to see a twin CIWS Burke these days, but at least they are 1B series guns. However, her Harpoon cans, which were under this mount before the stern VLS cluster, are gone.

Now that’s a profile

Talk about a classic! The old Mk 45 5″/54 Mod 0-2 is getting rare in the fleet. It was installed pre-1999 in no less than 180 mounts across the Tarawa-class LHAs, California and Virginia class CGNs, Ticonderoga class CGs, Spruance class DDs, and Kidd class DDGs. Just the first 27 Burkes (slowly being swapped out for Mod 4s) and the last couple of active Ticos still carry them. 

But it still looks good and still works, just not as well as a Mod 4 5″/62

They had the starboard Mk32 uncovered

Along with the stbd Mk 38. Note it’s a remote-controlled and stabilized Mod 2 mount, which is far superior to the first series of Mk38s.

She had her .50s mounted as well, and they looked very clean. Excellent job by the GMs

Note she is rocking the new AS-4692 passive direction-finding antenna, picked up at NASSCO in a refit in 2021. Keep in mind she is an SM-3 capable ship. 

Meanwhile, across the river at Austal, the future USNS Point Loma (EPF 15), which was just recently launched, is fitting out.

And the final Independence-variant littoral combat ship, the future USS Pierre (LCS 38), is also nearing completion. She launched last August.

While a Navajo class towing/salvage/rescue ship, possibly the future USNS Billy Frank Jr. (T-ATS 11), is poking out of the yard’s main assembly building.

Already Cold F-16s and CF-18s Have a Chance to Get Colder in Greenland

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As part of NORAD’s recently completed Operation Noble Defender, Canadian CF-18s and USAF F-16s saw an expeditionary deployment from their bases in Quebec and Alaska across the Artic Circle to Pituffik Space Base (ex-Thule AB) in Greenland to operate from there for two weeks.

They were supported by assorted KC-135s, E-3s, C-150s and CH-149s.

Airmen that supported the 18th Fighter Interceptor Squadron from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, for Operation NOBLE DEFENDER, pose for a group photo at Pittufik Space Base, Greenland, Feb. 5, 2025. Operation NOBLE DEFENDER is an air defense operation under the direction of the North American Aerospace Defense Command designed to demonstrate the command’s ability to defend the approaches of North America from current and future threats while integrating across domains with partners and allies. NORAD routinely conducts sustained, dispersed operations in defense of North America through one or all three NORAD regions, including Alaska, Canada, and the continental U.S. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Christopher Ruano)

F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft assigned to the 18th Fighter Interceptor Squadron from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, are placed on the flightline during Operation NOBLE DEFENDER at Pittufik Space Base, Greenland, Jan. 29, 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Christopher Ruano)

A CF-18 Hornet from 425 Tactical Fighter Squadron out of 3 Wing Bagotville, Quebec, and a CC-150 Polaris from 437 (T) Sqn out of 8 Wing Trenton, Ontario, deployed in support of the Canadian NORAD Region (CANR) carry out air-to-air refueling during Operation NOBLE DEFENDER on February 3rd, 2025. (Capt Rachel Brosseau)

CH-149 Cormorant from 413 Transport and Rescue Squadron out of 14 Wing Greenwood, Nova Scotia, deployed to Pituffik, Greenland, in support of the Canadian NORAD Region (CANR), ready to respond to potential distress calls from NORAD assets during Operation NOBLE DEFENDER. (Capt Andrew Birchall)

As noted by NORAD:

During the operation, local temperatures were regularly below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, with the coldest days reaching minus 29 degrees F (-34 C) and a wind chill of minus 56 degrees F (-49 C). Maintenance and Civil Engineering airmen operated tirelessly in these conditions to ensure aircrews were able to conduct flying missions.

Mad Max of Chad…and Iraq

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A very Mad Max-looking (or possibly Le Dernier Combat) scene from 24 February 1986. It shows a bush patrol (patrouille en brousse) of 3e section du 8e régiment parachutiste d’infanterie de marine (8e RPIMa) near Moussoro, Chad, doing what they could to modify their uniforms in the 120 degree F heat.

Réf. : 1 986 072 34 13, Patrice George/ECPAD/Défense

Note the FAMAS bullpup of the assistant gunner and the holstered SACM pistol of the anti-tank man. Speaking of which, the pipe is a Luchaire Defense SA Lance-Roquettes AntiChar (LRAC) model F1 STRIM 89mm rocket launcher with a 3x APX M 309 optical sight and two spare rockets at the ready.

Introduced in the early 1970s as a marginally better (but 100 percent more French) weapon than the 90mm M20 Super Bazooka, the launcher weighed 11 pounds, sans sight, with HE rounds pushing another 7 pounds a pop. Capable of penetrating 400mm of armor, the French never confirmed or denied that it was used in combat in Chad.

The French Foreign Legion used the LRAC in Iraq as they served as the far left hook of the Desert Storm ground campaign. 

24-26 February 1991 Al Salman Iraq A two-man anti-tank rocket launchers (LRAC) of the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment (2e Régiment Étranger d’Infanterie, 2nd REI) sitting near a concrete hangar at the air base. Ref.: 1 991 001 239 17. Christian Fritsch/ECPAD/Defense

It was replaced by the MBDA Eryx after 1993, which is slated to be replaced by an updated 84mm Carl G.

As for 8e RPIMa, the “Chicken Thieves” (voleurs de poules) shown in the top image are still around and still specialize in light, fast-moving operations that often tend toward the desert environment, having deployed to Afghanistan (2008), Central Africa (2013) and the Sahel (2015) in recent years.

Argentina shows off first F-16, kinda

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We covered last year the U.S.-approved $300 million purchase of a group of 24 circa 1980s F-16A/B MLU Block 10/15s from Denmark to revitalize the country’s air power.

Argentine F-16BM Block 15 MLU ex-Royal Danish AF, seen in Denmark in April 2024

While the Argentine Air Force and Navy fielded a formidable force of over 130 combat aircraft that got involved in the Falklands in 1982– 27 IAI Dagger (Mirage Vs), 16 Mirage IIIEAs, 8 B.62 Canberras, 24 IA 58A Pucara COIN aircraft, 54 A-4B/C/Q Skyhawks, 6 Aermacchi MB.339As, and four Super Étendards– they are all gone.

About the only combat air assets available to the country these days are 15 FAdeA IA-63 Pampa III trainers of IV Brigada Aérea that have been optimized to carry ordnance and a handful of cranky A-4ARs that may or may not be operable.

That’s why the Danish F-16s, even though they are from the Reagan era, are such a big deal.

The Argentines have already had $941 million worth of U.S.-supplied ordnance and spare parts for the F-16s approved by the State Department including:

  • 36 AIM-120 C-8 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM)
  • 102 MK-82 500lb general purpose bombs
  • 50 MXU-650 air foil groups for 500lb GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bombs
  • 102 FMU-152A/B joint programmable fuzes with FZU-63A/B fuze systems
  • 50 MAU-169L/B computer control groups.

The first Danish F-16 (ex-ET-210, now M-1210), a two-seater B model, was shown off in Argentina this week with a very nice almost USAF grey-blue scheme. The bird was disassembled and shipped to Latin America aboard two Argentine KC-130Hs last December then reassembled with the help of Danish technicians at Tandil Air Base where it will eventually become part of VI Brigada Aérea. Right now it is non-flyable.

On arrival last December

And reassembled with a new livery and display ordnance this week

However, this mockup was shown with two AMRAAMs, another two Sidewinders, two drop tanks, and two domestically made FAS-850 Dardo 3 guided glide bombs, a new little gem that has a touted 200km range.

Note Dardo between the Sidewinder and drop tanks

The country is expecting to have a six-frame half-squadron ready to take to the air by the end of the year, when they will be the first supersonic fighters available since they retired the last of their Mirage IIIs a decade ago.

Holy Loch North

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One of the aces in the hole for the old-school Polaris Fleet Ballistic Missile submarines and their Trident descendants was Refit Site One, hidden in Holy Loch, Scotland near the Firth of Clyde.

Established as the forward base for SUBRON 14 around the tender USS Proteus (AS-19) and floating dry dock Los Alamos (AFDB-7) in 1961 with a small shoreside footprint, the tenders and SSBNs changed but Los Alamos endured and the base quietly closed after the thaw in the Cold War in 1991, capping its 30-year mission.

“Trident, The Black Knight.” USS Michigan (SSBN-727) rests quietly at the US Naval Base at Holy Loch, Scotland in 1988, waiting to be replenished for sea. Painting, Oil on Masonite; by John Charles Roach; 1984; Framed Dimensions 34H X 44W NHHC Accession #: 88-163-CU

Well, with Holy Loch long gone and the sub force still in need of some quiet out-of-the-way places to make occasionally needed pit stops on the surface, Iceland has become a friend indeed. Since April 2023, six SSNs– important to the Icelandic government nuclear-powered but not “officially” carrying nuclear weapons– have slipped into Eyjafjordur– a huge fjord in Northcentral Iceland some 15km wide and 60 km long, dotted by a few small villages and the town of Akureyri (pop 19,000)– for partial resupply and crew swaps.

For their part, Iceland provides logistical support and local security in the form of the cutters and crews of the Icelandic Coast Guard.

The ICG’s cutter Freyja recently assisted with one such service of one of SUBRON 12’s Block III Virginia-class hunter-killers, USS Delaware (SSN 791), over the weekend.

Via the ICG:

The service visits are part of Iceland’s defense commitments and an important contribution to the joint defense of the Atlantic Union. Their deployment here on land allows our allies to ensure continuity of surveillance, shorten response times, and send messages of presence and defense in the North Atlantic.

Meanwhile, down under…

In related news on the other side of the globe, the SUBRON15’s Guam-based Virginia-class hunter-killer USS Minnesota (SSN 783) arrived in sunny Western Australia on February 25, 2025, kicking off the first of two planned U.S. fast-attack submarine visits to HMAS Stirling at Freemantle in 2025.

250225-N-QR679-1011 ROCKINGHAM, Western Australia, Australia (Feb. 25, 2025) Sailors assigned to the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Minnesota (SSN 783) conduct mooring operations at HMAS Stirling, Western Australia, Australia, Feb. 25, 2025. Minnesota arrived in Western Australia kicking off the first of two planned U.S. fast-attack submarine visits to HMAS Stirling in 2025. Minnesota is currently on deployment supporting the U.S. 7th Fleet, the U.S. Navy’s largest forward-deployed numbered flee

250225-N-QR679-1002 ROCKINGHAM, Western Australia, Australia (Feb. 25, 2025) The Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Minnesota (SSN 783) prepares to moor at HMAS Stirling, Western Australia, Australia, Feb. 25, 2025. Minnesota arrived in Western Australia kicking off the first of two planned U.S. fast-attack submarine visits to HMAS Stirling in 2025. Minnesota is currently on deployment supporting the U.S. 7th Fleet, the U.S. Navy’s largest forward-deployed numbered fleet, operating with allies and p

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025: Walking the Beat

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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

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025: Walking the Beat

National Museum of Denmark photo THM-6216

Above we see the Danish inspektionsskibet— classed as a “fishery cruiser” at the time in Jane’s— Fylla in rough seas on her patrol route, likely off Iceland, in the late 1920s.

Armed with a pair of 4.7-inch guns and another set of 6-pounders, she replaced Denmark’s only proper cruiser just after the Great War but started her life under service to a different king.

The “Cabbage” Class

When the British slammed into the largest naval war in history up to that time, the Royal Navy found themselves in urgent need of small purpose-built fleet escorts and minesweepers and a class of ultimately 112 vessels in five distinct groups ordered under the Emergency War Programme would prove suitable to both needs.

British Flower (Arabis) class minesweeping sloop HMS Wisteria IWM SP 827

The so-called Flower or Cabbage-class minesweeping sloops were triple hulled forward to allow them survivability when working minefields or dodging torpedoes but still constructed to merchant rather than naval standards, allowing them to be produced quickly (typically in just five months from keel laying to delivery) by commercial yards while Royal Dockyards and the like could be left to the business of building “proper” warships for the Grand Fleet.

All were 250 feet long at the waterline (267 oal), with a simple two-boiler/one engine-screw-funnel power plant good for at least 15 knots. Designed to carry two medium-sized (3, 4, or 4.7-inch) and two light (3-pounder/47mm or 6-pounder/57mm) guns, there was much variation through the builds. Allowance was made for mechanical minesweeping gear, although not all were fitted with it.

The Flowers were built in five sub-classes spanning three in the original “slooper” format: 36 Arabis (sloop-sweepers with 2×4.7″/40 QF, 2×3-pdr/47mm), 12 Azalea (sloop-sweepers with 2×4″/40 QF, 2×3-pdr/47mm), 12 Acacia (sloop-sweepers with 2×12-pdr/3″ QF, 2×3-pdr/47mm) and two as “Warship Q” vessels: 12 Aubrietia (Q-ships with 2x 4″ guns, 1×3-pdr/47mm, depth charge throwers), and 28 Anchusa (Q-ships with 2x 4″ guns, 2x 12-pdr/3″ guns, depth charge throwers).

Arabis-class sloops of the Flower typeNo less than 15 yards built the Cabbages including Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Wallsend;  Earle’s Shipbuilding & Engineering Co, Kingston upon Hull; Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Greenock;  Barclay Curle & Company, Whiteinch;  Lobnitz & Company, Renfrew; Charles Connell and Company, Scotstoun; Napier & Miller, Old Kilpatrick; Archibald McMillan & Son, Dumbarton; Greenock & Grangemouth Dockyard Company, Greenock; Bow, McLachlan and Company, Paisley; William Simons & Company, Renfrew; D. & W. Henderson & Company, Glasgow; Workman, Clark and Company, Belfast; Richardson, Duck and Company, Thornaby-on-Tees; and Dunlop Bremner & Company, Port Glasgow.

Meet Asphodel

Named for the lily connected via Greek legend to the dead and the underworld, our sloop, HMS Asphodel, was one of six Cabbages (five Arabis type) built by D. & W. Henderson in Glasgow alongside the yard’s bread and butter– War Standard “A” tramp ships.

Asphodel was D&W Hull No. 498, completed with a T3Cy 22½”36½”60″x27″ 180psi 2,000ihp engine, launched 21 December 1915 and commissioned 28 January 1916, with CDR Reginald Gay Copleston, R.N., Retired List, as her first skipper. Copleston, who had voluntarily moved to the Retired List in 1911 after 15 years of service, was the Librarian at the Royal Naval War College when the War started. Asphodel was his first seagoing command since the old Apollo-class second-class protected cruiser HMS Sirius in 1909.

Ordered to the Mediterranean, Asphodel sailed into Alexandria on 19 March to join the East Indies and Egypt force under VADM John Michael de Robeck, First Baronet. There, she joined several other sloops including several sisters (HMS Amaryllis, Cornflower, Nigella, Verbena, and Valerian) supporting the old Majestic-class pre-dreadnoughts HMS Hannibal and Jupiter along with five monitors and seven cruisers.

A grey-painted HMS Jupiter in Grand Harbour, Valletta, Malta, March 1915. Jupiter, which joined the fleet in 1897, left the Med in November 1916 and paid off at Devonport to provide crews for antisubmarine vessels. Hannibal, who had given up her main battery of four BL 12-inch Mark VIII guns to arm the monitors HMS Prince Eugene and HMS Sir John Moore, would endure until 1919. Photo by Surgeon Oscar Parkes. IWM SP 77.

Asphodel had a quiet life, as she was typically used as a fleet messenger on the 1,000-mile run between Alexandria and Malta, leaving once a week for a round-trip back and forth, with Hannibal listing her arriving and departing in her logs over 200 times across the next 42 months.

Fleet Messengers at Malta: HMS Asphodel and HMS Ivy. By Frank Mason. IWM ART 3109

Copleston commanded Asphodel until being appointed Commander of Patrols, Malta on 18 August 1917, replaced by the younger CDR James Charles Wauhope, formerly of the unsuccessful Q-ship HMS Carrigan Head (Q4) out of Queenstown. Wauhope would command her for the remainder of her RN career.

Asphodel was assigned to the newly-formed Twelfth Sloop Flotilla in June 1918, a force that grew to as large as 19 such vessels.

She outlasted her consort Hannibal, which was paid off for disposal in Malta on 25 October 1919, and left Malta with her own paying off pennant in December 1919, bound for decommissioning on 27 April 1920 and storage in the Home Isles pending disposal.

Asphodel, as far as I can, tell never saw combat during WWI but she did lose three men at once– all outbound to the Devonport Naval Dockyard– drowned in Malta on 2 April 1918. They are among the 351 Commonwealth Great War burials in Malta’s Capuccini/Kalkara Naval Cemetery.

  • ADAMS, Charles W, Able Seaman, J 17911
  • CARROLL, John, Petty Officer 1c, 190285
  • GREEN, Cyril G, Armourer’s Mate, M 5081

A fourth Asphodel man, Able Seaman John Browning Smale, 21, died in an accident on 5 October 1918 and is buried with his shipmates at Capuccini.

The war was not otherwise kind to the Cabbages, with eight lost while on Q-ship duty and four on more traditional naval work, with Asphodel’s direct sisters HMS Arabis sunk by German torpedo boats off the Dogger Bank in 1916, HMS Primula sent to the bottom in the Med by SM U-35, and HMS Genista sunk by SM U-57 in the Atlantic the same year.

Post-war, most were paid off, sold either to the breakers or for mercantile use in the early 1920s and the few kept around were hulked as drill ships for the RNVR or tasked with ancillary uses such as fisheries patrol.

A few went on to be sold or donated to other governments, as military aid. This included HMS Zinnia heading to the Belgian Navy as a fishery protection vessel, HMS Pentstemon becoming the Chinese gunboat Hai Chow, HMS Gladiolus and HMS Jonquil becoming the Portuguese “cruisers” NRP República and NRP Carvalho Araújo, and HMS Geranium heading down south to become HMAS Geranium.

HMAS Geranium, 1930s. SLV 9916498703607636

This brings us to Asphodel’s second career.

Danish Service

For some 30 years, the Danes made steady use of the British-built 3,000-ton krydserkorvetten (cruiser corvette)  Valkyrien, a close cousin of the Armstrong-built Chilean protected cruiser Esmeralda. She cruised the world and waved the Dannebrog as far away as Siam and Hong Kong and is most notable for overseeing the Danish West Indies (Virgin Islands) to the U.S. in 1917.

The white-hulled Valkyrien in the harbor at St. Thomas as the Danish flag comes down in the Virgin Islands, 31 March 1917. Behind her is the Danish-flag-flying grey-hulled transport USS Hancock (AP-5), which carried American Marines to the islands for the transfer. DH009717

Denmark’s only true cruiser, by the early 1920s, the ram-bowed Valkyrien was hopelessly obsolete and needed replacement.

However, after a wartime mobilization that saw the Danish military swell to over 75,000 and construct the 23 km-long Tunestillingen line of defenses near Copenhagen, the Danish fishing and merchant marine fleets had to absorb the losses of more than 324 ships to both sides during the conflict, and the economic burden of the reunification of economically depressed Southern Jutland (Northern Schleswig) from Weimar Germany in 1920, the Danes were flat broke and had little appetite for more military spending.

This led the government to the bargain basement deal that was HMS Asphodel.

A good deal lighter than the Valkyrien (1,250 tons vs 3,000) as our sloop had zero armor plating other than the shields of her main guns, she was nonetheless the same length (267 feet oal) while a lighter draft (11 feet vs 18 feet) allowed her to enter more colonial ports and harbors. While Asphodel only carried two 4.7-inch guns and another pair of 6-pounders, Valkyrien by 1915 only carried two aging 5.86″/32s and six 3″/55s. But the substantial savings was in crew, with Valkyrien requiring a minimum of 200 men even in light peacetime service (albeit allowing space for another 100 cadets), while Asphodel could be placed in full service with only 75 men in her complement.

As a no-brainer, the surplus ex-Asphodel was acquired for her value in scrap metal from the Admiralty in June 1920 and then sent for an overhaul at Orlogsværftets in Copenhagen.

Following her last summer cruise to Greenland and Iceland in 1921, Valkyrien was laid up in 1923 and sold for scrap the next year. Her spot was taken by the newly dubbed Fylla— the fourth Danish warship to carry the name, with the first two being sail-powered frigates (fregaten) completed in 1802 and 1812, respectively.

The name had previously been carried by an Orlogsværftets-built 8-gunned steam-powered armored schooner that joined the Danish fleet in 1863– just in time to fight the Germans– but spent her career cruising as a station ship in the Danish West Indies and around the Faroes, Greenland, and Iceland.

The third Danish warship Fylla, a 157-foot armored schooner launched in 1862 and decommissioned in 1894, accomplished several polar mapping and exploration cruises, leaving at least one geographic feature named after her in Greenland. She was kept as a pier side trainer and barracks ship for another decade, scrapped in 1903. The name comes from an old Norse verb which means roughly to fill or complete. THM-18183

She was rearmed at least thrice in her career, shifting from 60- and 30-pounder muzzle-loading smoothbore cannons to 3-inch rifled breechloaders in her final form. THM-18182

Our Fylla’s first Danish skipper was CDR Prince Axel, a swashbuckling 32-year-old grandson of King Christian IX of Denmark and at the time the fourth in line to the throne. Axel, who nursed a love of sports, flying, and fast cars his whole life, was a career naval officer, having joined the service in 1909 and cut his teeth on numerous Danish coastal battleships including tense Great War neutrality patrols threading the needle between the British and the Germans, later becoming one of the Danish Navy’s first aviators. In 1918, he led the Danish Naval Mission to America and returned to Europe in company with the dynamic Assistant SECNAV, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Axel had married a popular Swedish princess in 1919 and had only narrowly avoided an effort to draft him to fill a nascent throne in newly independent Finland.

Her inaugural cruise in late 1920 was captured in photos.

Fylla riding light with signal flags, THM-3927

Fylla off Godthab, Greenland, 27 September 1920 ES-167772

Fylla at anchor off Iceland THM-13968

Inspection ship Fylla returning around 1920 from her first patrol THM-41465

Fylla typically was employed as the station ship in Iceland and would patrol the Faeroes to the southeast and Greenland to the northwest as well, with the occasional visits to Holland, England, and Norway.

At the time, the Danes only had two smaller inspection ships on the same beat and they were significantly older and less well-armed: Island Falk (entered fleet 1906, 730 tons, 183 feet oal, 13 knots, 2×3″ guns) and Besytteren (entered fleet 1900, 450 tons, 142 feet oal, 11 knots, 2x57mm guns), so Fylla was the queen of the overseas fleet.

Postcard Reykjavik, harbor area with, among others, the inspection ship Fylla, circa 1926

English trawler Lord Ernle who had lost its propeller, was taken in tow by Fylla in the Denmark Strait and towed to Reykjavik, in the summer of 1931. THM-6220

Fylla raising ensign circa 1933. Note her stern 4.7″ gun THM-18491

Fylla, THM-18471

Fylla, THM-18477

Fylla, with a 20mm Madsen AAA gun fitted late in her career THM-18849

Fylla Greenland THM-18891

Danish Flower-class sloop Fylla ex-Asphodel

Danish Flower-class sloop Fylla, Jane’s 1929, ex-Asphodel

Fylla in Icelandic waters 1920s via Sapur, Icelandic National Museum

Fylla in Icelandic waters 1920s via Sapur, Icelandic National Museum

She would carry King Christian X to the Faeroe Islands and Iceland in June 1930, one of the first visits by a sitting Danish monarch to the far-flung Atlantic colonies. On the return leg, escorting the coastal battleship ship Niels Juel, the ships visited Oslo and saluted King Haakon VII.

Niels Juel and Fylla in Oslo, Norway July 7, 1930. The paintings show the Danish coastal defense ship Niels Juel (left) and the gunboat Fylla saluting the Norwegian King in Olso. The two vessels carried the Danish king Christian X to the Faeroe Islands and Iceland from June 1930, so this visit must have been on their way home to Copenhagen. Benjamin Olsen seems to have been part of the entourage. By Benjamin Olsen 1930 via the Forsvarsgalleriet.

She was graceful enough in Danish service that she caught the eye of maritime artist Christian Benjamin Olsen who captured her in at least three of his period works, several of which are in the Royal Danish Naval Museum in Copenhagen. Of note, Olsen visited the Faroe Islands and Iceland in 1921, 1926, and 1930, having frequent chances to see Fylla in action.

Inspektionsskibet Fylla at sea by Christian Benjamin Olsen

Inspektionsskibet Fylla off Iceland by Christian Benjamin Olsen

However, all good things come to an end. When the two large new aircraft-equipped inspection ships, Hvidbjornen (1,050 t, 196 feet oal, 2x87mm, 1 floatplane, 14 knots, circa 1928) and Ingolf (1,180 t, 213 feet oal, 2×4.7″/45, 1 floatplane, 16.5 knots, circa 1932), were ordered in the late 1920s/early 1930s, the need to retain the aging Fylla was removed.

At that, Fylla was withdrawn from service in 1933, disarmed, and sold for scrap.

Epilogue

Little remains of our subject.

Of her RN skippers, Copleston returned to England after the war and reverted to the Retired List in December 1918. A cricketer from a family of cricketers, he died in Devon in 1960, aged 85.

Meanwhile, the younger CDR James Charles Wauhope would post-Armistice volunteer for transfer to the Royal Australian Navy from which he would retire in 1929. Returning to England pre-war after working a claim in the Wewak goldfield in New Guinea for years, he rejoined the RN in WWII, ultimately serving as Naval Officer in Charge, Stornoway. Capt. Wauhope died a pauper in General Hospital Paddington, London in 1960, aged 76.

The Royal Navy commissioned a second HMS Asphodel, appropriately a Flower-class corvette (K56) in September 1940. She was sunk on 10 March 1944 off Cape Finisterre by U-575, with only five survivors.

Flower class Corvette HMS Asphodel K56 under tow on the Tyne, circa 1943, IWM FL 1109

Fylla’s first Danish skipper, Prince Axel, continued his military service albeit from a desk and was appointed a rear admiral on the naval staff in 1939. He was also simultaneously the director of the Danish East Asiatic Company shipping concern from 1934 to 1953 and had previously commanded the 8,100-ton SS Alsia under the EAC flag. During the war, although under surveillance by the Gestapo, he reportedly endorsed the scuttling of the Danish fleet in 1943 to keep it out of German hands, and quietly blessed the work of EAC’s fleet-at-large in Allied service– with the company losing at least six ships during the conflict. He also cultivated contacts with several of the Danish resistance groups. Promoted to a perfunctory full admiral in 1958, his youngest son, Prince Fleming, a naval cadet in 1945, served on active duty with the Danish Navy for several years as a submariner. Axel passed in 1964, aged 75, and was buried in his naval uniform.

Prince Flemming Valdemar (L), son of Prince Axel, cousin of King Christian X of Denmark, with members of the Danish Resistance in Copenhagen Denmark – 7-9 May 1945. Note Flemming is armed with a Swedish M37/39 Suomi SMG, the resistance member behind him has a Sten Mk II SMG. IWM – Pelman, L (Lt) Photographer. IWM A 28475

The Danes commissioned a fourth Fylla, a 1,700-ton Aalborg-built inspection ship (F351) that entered the fleet in 1963. She served until 1991.

Inspection ship F351 Fylla, 1986, in Greenland’s Prins Christians Sund med Ministerflag

Of Asphodel/Fylla‘s 111 sister Cabbages, a dozen had been lost in the Great War, one (HMS Valerian) was lost at sea in a hurricane off Cuba in 1926, one sunk by the Japanese in 1937 (ex-HMS Pentstemon/Hai Chow), at least three (ex-HMS Buttercup/Teseo, HMS Laburnum, and HMS Cornflower) were sunk in WWII. The last in RN service– and the last active coal-burner on the Admiralty List– HMS Rosemary, had been a fishery protection ship interbellum then was pressed into service as an escort during WWII, was only sent to the breakers in 1947.

Just one Cabbage is believed to remain, the Anchusa group Q-ship HMS Saxifrage, which continued to serve as RNVR President from 1922 through 1982 as a moored drillship sans guns or engines. Sold to private interests, she has changed hands several times in the past few decades and, carrying a wild dazzle paint scheme, is currently owned by a charitable trust that is seeking to preserve her. Laid up at Chatham Dock with much of her topside razed, she may not be around much longer.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

 

***

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

***

 

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Got a light, bub?

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80 years ago today. One of the most iconic images from Operation Detachment. Marine Private First Class Wilfred Voegeli, of Wichita, Kansas, armed with a flame thrower, takes a break to light up his pipe during operations on Iwo Jima. 24 February 1945. The simple things while at work, right?

U.S. Marine Corps Photograph 127-GW-320-111147. Photographed by Campbell, now in the collections of the National Archives. National Archives Identifier 176250422

At least one other photo from the campaign catches PFC Voegeli, who was deployed on Iwo with the famed 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division, at work.

“The fighting continues and continues. For weary flamethrower operators Pvt Richard Klatt, left, and PFC Wilfred Voegeli the campaign is just one cave after another. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 110599.

By 1945, the Marines were fielding 243 portable flamethrowers per division. They came in very handy in close “blowtorch” operations in the Pacific, used in clearing out Japanese pillboxes, caves, and bunkers. It would appear that PFC Wilfrid Markus Voegeli survived the War, and returned to Kansas, passing there in 2000, aged 75.

M2 Days in Chad

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45 years ago this week. 22 February 1980. Opération Tacaud. Chad. “Batha,” a M101A1 (M2) 105mm howitzer in action during a live-fire exercise by 2ème batterie, 11e régiment d’artillerie de marine (RAMa). The location is likely Camp Dubut north of N’Djamena, the country’s capital.

Note the cannon is likely named for the Batha prefecture of Chad. Marc-André Desanges/ECPAD/Défense. F 80-115 L256

The handy 4,900-pound U.S. M2/M101A1 howitzer entered French service in 1943 as the HM2 10,5cm gun and it remained a standard in operations against the Viet Minh in Indochina, in Algeria, and in other places– such as Chad against the Libyans– until finally withdrawn from service in 1997.

While the gunners of 11e RAMa– a unit that dates back to 1622— are still in French Army service, based at Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier and equipped with Caesar 155mm guns, 120mm mortars, Mistral missiles, and VOA Griffons, the French have officially departed Chad after 70 years of post-colonial security assistance (and 60 years of colonial rule). 

It would seem the Chadians are pivoting towards Moscow. 

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