Here we see a Short-Magazine Lee-Enfield in .303 British that had a very curious history.
It was issued to a member of the Reserve/1st Garrison Battalion, Essex Regiment (formed in 1881 from the amalgamation of the 44th East Essex Regiment of Foot and the 56th West Essex Regiment of Foot) which fought at Le Cateau and Ypres before being sent on Winston Churchill’s attempt to knock the Ottomans out of World War I at Gallipoli. The unit came away relatively unscathed from the fiasco and went on to fight at Loos, the Somme, Cambrai, and Gaza.
However, our SMLE was left behind somehow in the evacuation of Gallipoli and was captured in very good condition by the Turks. Sent to Constantinople as a trophy, the Turkish Government had it engraved near the lock in gold in Turkish “Booty captured in the fighting at Chanak Kale.”
Enver Pasha then presented it to Emir Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi (then a Turkish subject representing the city of Jeddah for the Ottoman parliament and the guest of Jemal Pasha in Damascus) in 1916. It was then inscribed near the bayonet mount “Presented by Enver Pasha to Sherif Feisal” in Turkish.
Without any captured .303 British ammo to feed it, Feisal sent the rifle to Mecca for storage with the rest of his family’s trophies.
Then came Captain T. E. Lawrence, a junior British intelligence officer from Cairo to instigate rebellion in Arabia against the Ottomans. Meeting Feisal 23 October 1916 at Hamra in Wadi Safra, Lawrence supplied the leader with some nice, fresh .303 rounds (the Brit was fond of carrying a a M1911 Colt .45 ACP on his person and a Lewis gun in .303 in his baggage).
As the Lawrence/Feisal partnership blossomed to full rebellion against Constantinople, the Arab leader passed his Turkish trophy Enfield to the wild, blonde-haired rabble rouser on 4 December 1916 in a meeting near Medina.
Lawrence carved his initials and the date in the stock and carried the rifle till October 1918 when Damascus was captured .
Notice the knocks by the magazine well?
The gun has five notches carved into the stock near the magazine, with one in particular marking the death of one Turkish officer taken with the gun. After the war, the rifle was presented by then-Colonel Lawrence to King George V, passing to the Imperial War Museum upon the regent’s death.
The former princely owner, of course, became King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria of Iraq and was played in David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia by Alec Guinness.
A similar rifle (without the ‘Enver’ inscription) was given by the Turkish Government to Abdulla, Feisal’s brother, and is now in the possession of Ronald Storrs.
The IWM has a second Feisal trophy rifle in their collection as well.
The Turkish Model 1887 rifle was the first of a series of rifles produced for the Turkish Army by Mauser of Germany. Its design echoed that of the German Gewehr 71/84 service rifle, being a bolt-action weapon with a tubular magazine beneath the barrel.
This particular rife, made in 1892, was presented by the Emir Feisal to Captain WHD Boyle, Officer Commanding the Royal Navy Red Sea Squadron, in recognition of assistance rendered during the Arab Revolt against Turkey. Boyle later inherited the title of Earl of Cork and Orrery and rose to the rank of Admiral of the Fleet. He commanded the Royal Naval forces engaged in the Norwegian campaign in 1940.
Marked as follows: 1. Sultan’s Tugra stamped on top of chamber 2. Turkish proofs stamped on right of chamber 3. Arabic inscription commencing with 1308 (date) stamped on left of body 4. stamped on bolt 5. gold inlay on top of barrel 6. Arabic inscription commencing with 1326-1330 engraved on silver scroll-shaped plaque let into left of butt (detached).
Why were these Mausers and Enfields so treasured? Well, they were modern magazine fed bolt-action rifles and the standard gear in the desert just wasn’t.
The Ottomans armed the local Arab tribes with surplussed U.S. Providence Tool Company-made Peabody-Martini Model 1874s chambered in 11.3x59mmR blackpowder. (Though in 1912 Austria’s Steyr converted a lot of these into 7.65mm Mauser with the resulting kaboom risk, making the M74/12 which served through WWI with various guards and rear line units, freeing standard rifles for the front.)
As for the Brits, they gave their new Arab allies old 1870s Mk II Martini-Henry breechloaders taken from Indian troops headed to France and Egypt– who were themselves reissued new Enfields.
Three Bedouin warriors during the Arab Revolt, 1916-1918. They are armed with 1870s-vintage Martini-Henry rifles, typical of the outdated firearms the British supplied to the Arab forces
On 26 September 1921, the regulars of the 3d Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) set out for their newly assigned post– Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Due to the post-World War I cuts in defense, there was no funding for transportation. Nonetheless, the Regiment set out on a 938-mile road march to comply with its orders.
The 3rd had already been on the move that year, all by foot.
At the start of 1921, the Old Guard was stationed at Camp Sherman, Ohio, having left Camp Eagle Pass, Texas the previous year. In August 1921, orders came down from the War Department. The Old Guard was to march from Camp Sherman to Camp Perry, Ohio (173 miles).
At Camp Perry, the Regiment, along with the 2d Infantry Regiment, helped run the annual National Rifle Match (which continues today). On 24 August, the day after their arrival at Perry, regimental command passed from Colonel Paul Giddings to Colonel Alfred Bjornstad.
Once the rifle matches were completed on 25 September, both the 2d and 3d Infantry Regiments started their march to Fort Sheridan. Once at Sheridan, the Regiment stayed four days to rest and resupply. The Perry-Sheridan leg of the march would be 308 miles, taking the brigade just 19 days to cover (including two rest days).
They arrived at Sheridan on 15 October, some 95 years ago today, averaging 16.21 miles per day– a feat besting that of Stonewall Jackson’s “foot cavalry” of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign which covered 650 miles in 48 days (13.54 miles per day), though with slightly less gun play and with much better boots.
From Fort Sheridan, the 3d was to march on to Fort Snelling, where they would spend the next 20 years and earn the nickname, “Minnesota’s Own” before WWII service and finally duty in the Washington Military District where they endure today.
The Scottish war poet Capt. Charles Hamilton Sorley of the Suffolk Regiment was killed in 1915 at the Battle of Loos. He was the youngest of the major war poets, having been born in 1895.
He left this poem, probably his most famous, untitled at his death:
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you’ll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, ‘They are dead.’ Then add thereto,
‘Yet many a better one has died before.’
Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.
Sorley was killed 13 October 1915 (aged 20) Hulluch, Lens, France. The poem above was in his kit.
As for the Suffolk Regiment, whose device he wears in the image above, just short of their 300th birthday they were amalgamated with a number of other units to form the Royal Anglian Regiment, which continues to take the Queen’s schilling today.
Crewmen load a 16-inch shell aboard the battleship USS WISCONSIN (BB 64) as the vessel is readied for sea trials (Photo: National Archives)
The answer to that would be 15,595 live ones in 10 different variants including HC, armor piercing and practice.
The last battleship salvo was from USS Wisconsin 16 May 1991, with the last battleship transferred to museum life in 2012.
The Army’s last 16″/50cal Gun M1919 coastal artillery battery was disbanded in 1946.
Currently at AAAC, Crane:
Designation/Type Filler Number
D862 High Capacity Explosive D 3,624
D872 Armor Piercing Explosive D 2,430
D874 High Capacity Explosive D 591
D875 Armor Piercing 666 M46 GP Grenades 22
D875 Armor Piercing 400 M43A1 GP Grenades 234
D877 Armor Piercing Explosive D 1,743
D878 High Capacity Explosive D 2
D879 High Capacity Explosive D 411
D881 Practice Tracer only 272
D882 High Capacity Explosive D 6,266 Total 15,595
Anyway, I think they make great conversation pieces. Central City Surplus just redid a 1,900-pound D875 AP shell (and yes, that is a QH-50 DASH in the background).
Warship Wednesday October 5, 2016: The quiet behemoth of Toulhars
Here we see the French ironclad cuirasse Dévastation, leader of her two-ship class of early battleship. She had a quiet life, and has spent most of it on the beach.
In 1872, the huge central battery ship Redoutable was laid down at the Lorient Dockyard and was one of the most advanced composite-hulled (iron and steel) battleships in the world– sparking a naval building spree by possible foes Italy and Britain. With a wonky exaggerated tumblehome hull shape and full square rig, Redoubtable was a one-off vessel of some 9,500-tons with seven 270mm guns and 14 inches of plate armor with another 15 inches of plank composite timber backing.
With lessons learned from that vessel, a near sister, our Dévastation above, was laid down at Arsenal Lorient 20 December 1875 while a follow-on carbon copy of our hero, full-sister Courbet was laid down at Toulon.
Some 10,000-tons with a full 15 inches of armor in her belt, Dévastation mounted a quartet of 340mm (13.4-inch guns) which far outclassed Redoubtable, as well as a secondary battery of four 270mm pieces and 24 anti-boat guns. Four 14-inch torpedo tubes, two on each side of the ship, completed the outfit.
270mm gun on Devastation letting it rip
Commissioned 15 July 1882, her full dozen boilers exhausted through a very odd arrangement of twin side-by-side stacks under a two-masted square auxiliary rig. She could make 10 knots at best and was a beast.
Assigned to the ‘Escadre de la Méditerranée at Toulon, she carried the squadron flag of Vice-Adm. Thomasset, and gave quiet service in the Med for a decade before transfer to Brest.
She was a beautiful ship at the height of 19th Century indulgence as these series of shots from 1892 show. In particular, dig her Nordenfelt and Hotchkiss guns, her 270mm and the shot of the Marine.
Just look at the commanding field of fire from that clustered fighting top….
Talk about a wheelhouse
Note the bridge works and the Nordenfelt on the bridge wing
In 1896, her dated armament was changed to four 320mm/25 and another four 274.4mm guns.
She was placed in second-line service in 1898 and then in ordinary in 1901.
Afloat as a machinists school ship in Toulon after 1901, she was re-engined with two 3-cyl. compound engines and Belleville boilers, which enabled her to make 15-knots with a smaller number of stokers.
She was retained in nominal service until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, when she was repurposed.
Note her extensive fighting tops, filled with Hotchkiss guns
Her last cruise under her own power to Lorient in October 1914 saw Dévastation largely disarmed and transformed into a floating brig for incorrigible German prisoners of war, housing up to 500 troublemakers at a time under high security on the mole.
By 1919, with the Boche repatriated and little use for a 1870s ironclad, the French hulked Dévastation and in March 1922 sold her to one MM. Jacquard for her value in scrap iron– 180,000 francs.
Jacquard resold the rusty heap to a German breaker and two tugs, Achilles and Larissa, arrived from Hamburg on 7 May to pull the ironclad away but instead wound up running her aground on the sandy bottom of the Ecrevisse bench some 220 yards off the mouth of the channel marker.
Stuck embarrassingly all summer, the Germans sent the large tug Hercules to help the two smaller ones pull her off– unsuccessfully.
This wound up in a third sale to Albaret and Kerloc of Brest who attempted to break Dévastation in place in an operation run by former Tsarist Navy engineers in exile, removing hundreds of tons of topside armor plate in a risky effort to get her light enough to refloat that ended in the death of at least two workers though did get her to more pedestrian Larmor-Plage.
This operation continued for decades with ownership of the grounded scrap switching hands several more times until, by 1954, salvage operations halted.
While the ship is gone above water at high tide, her bones are still visible off Toulhars beach (47°42’417 – 003°22’643) at low tide and divers still poke around her submerged hull for souvenirs.
Her name has not been reused.
As for her sistership, Courbet was struck 5 February 1909 and sold for scrap the following year, in a more successful recycling effort than Dévastation.
Specs:
Displacement:
9,659 tonnes standard
10,090 tonnes full load
Length:
100.25 m (328 ft. 11 in) o/a
95 m (311 ft. 8 in) p/p
98.70 m (323 ft. 10 in) w/l
Beam: 21.25 m (69 ft. 9 in)
Draught:
7.51 m (24 ft. 8 in) loaded draught forward
7.80 m (25 ft. 7 in) 7.80 m loaded draught amidships
8.10 m (26 ft. 7 in) 8.10 m loaded draught aft
Depth of hold: 7.34 m (24 ft. 1 in)
Installed power: 12 boilers, 2 Woolf triple expansion engines totaling 6,000 ihp (6,000 kW), 900 tons of coal as built, 10 knots.
Re-engined 1899-1901 with two 3-cyl. compound engines and Belleville boilers, capable of 8,100 hp, and said to be good for 15 kts afterwards.
Propulsion: Twin screws (5.24 m diameter) + sail
Sail plan:
Ship rig
Sail area 1,833 m2 (19,730 sq ft.)
Speed: 10 knots as built, 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) at full load (steam) after 1901
Range: 3,100 nmi (5,700 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h) (steam)
Complement: 689 as completed varied until 1901 when dropped to ~200 plus 300 trainees.
Armament:
As built:
4 × 34cm/18 model 1875
4 × 27cm/18 model 1870M
6 × 14cm model 1870M
18 × 37mm Hotchkiss revolving cannon
4 × 14in torpedo tubes
May 1896:
4 × 320mm/25 model 1870-81
4 × 274.4mm model 1875
6 × 138.6mm
2 × 65mm
6 × 47mm QF
20 × 37mm QF
2 × 14in torpedo tubes
After March 1902 refit:
4 × 274.4mm model 1893
2 × 240mm/40 model 1893/96
10 × 100mm model 1891 and 1892
14 × 47mm QF
2 × 37mm QF
Largely disarmed after 1914
Armor:
Wrought iron
38 cm (15 in) belt amidships
24 cm (9.4 in) redoubt
6 cm (2.4 in) main deck [1]
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Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library
Biplane above the clouds. Handwritten on photograph front: “France, 1918, De Haviland ‘4.’” Handwritten on photograph back: “De Haviland – Liberty Motor, Dear Mum: Put this away for me. Maybe Adam helped make this engine. Ted.”
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of James Arthur Pownall
Not much is known of James Arthur Pownall, coming from the landed gentry and born in to a family of cotton merchants. Pownall apparently eschewed work in the cotton concern to take up painting full time.
Soon afterward, starting around 1882, his work chronicling British and Indian military units began to circulate and continued to do so until the early 1930s.
A Mounted Sowar in Drab Full Dress, Guides Cavalry, James Arthur Pownall, 1902, National Army Museum. Note the Martini rifle while the rest of the empire was going Lee-Metford. The Corps of Guides was raised in 1846/1847 by Lieutenant (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Harry Lumsden (1821–1896). In 1886, as part of the later nineteenth-century reform of the Indian Army, the Guides were transferred from the control of the Governor of the Punjab to that of the Commander-in-Chief. The cavalry regiment was later numbered 10th in the 1922 reorganization of the Indian Army.
Bringing Up the Guns, James Arthur Pownall, 1898,Atkinson Art Gallery Collection
Indian Corps of Drums,1918, James Arthur Pownall, Cheshire Military Museum
Mounted Lancer, James Arthur Pownall, 1918, Cheshire Military Museum
On exhibit extensively in the UK, a number of his pieces have also passed into private collections in recent years and has appeared in a number of books about the Indian Army (Soldiers of the Raj: The Indian Army 1600-1947, et. al)
Today we have narco subs (self-propelled semi-submersibles, or SPSSs) to deal with but they are an idea that is almost a century old.
The Volstead Act in 1919 came at a time of technological innovation and, with a lot of Great War era soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines out of work, some quickly fell into the quick and easy field of bootlegging. While there were plenty of overland smugglers, rum row operations where speedboats (often powered by surplus Liberty aircraft engines) zipped up and down the coast, and some aerial smuggling, there also seems to be at least some evidence of submarine ops.
The photo appears in the chapter “Rum Row”—the name of the smuggling area of the Atlantic coast from Nantucket to New York City and New Jersey. Lawson writes:
“News of a submarine being used on Rum Row appears to have some substance to it. One smuggler testified in court that he saw a submarine emerge on the Row with a German captain and a French crew. Newspapers in 1924 reported that submarines were smuggling liquor to New Jersey and Cape Cod. An aerial photo, taken by a commercial Manhattan map-making firm that same year, suggested submarines were thirty miles up the Hudson River near Croton Point. (German submarines were kept out of the river during World War I by a steel net strung low across the bottom of the Narrows.) The photo purported to document two submarines below the surface of the Hudson River, each 250 feet long [as big as a German Type U-93 class boat or a UE-II minelaying sub] and 600 feet apart. The aerial firm sent the photograph to the U.S. Navy, which had no submarines in the area, and the startling image was given to Coast Guard Intelligence and filed away.”
A firearms blog also contends that, “During prohibition a syndicate of bootleggers operating out of Puget Sound somehow managed to acquire a World War I German U-Boat. They used the submarine to smuggle booze from Canada to Seattle.”
As Roy Olmstead, the “King of the Puget Sound Bootleggers,” was very well connected and financed, it may have been theoretically possible.
So there is that.
The only thing is that at this time the U.S. Navy (as well as those of France, Britain and Italy) were really stingy with selling surplus subs to the public with the exception of established ship breakers and other subs that may seem like there were floating around on the open market just weren’t.
Former Warship Wednesday alumni, the obsolete Lake-built submarine USS USS O-12 (SS-73) was stricken after being laid up during Prohibition and was soon leased for $1 per year (with a maximum of five years in options) to Lake’s company for use as a private research submarine– as far as I can tell the first time this occurred. But, as part of the lease agreement, she was disarmed and had to be either returned to the Navy or scuttled in at least 1,200 feet of water at the conclusion of her scientific use.
Further, in 1919 the Allied powers agreed that Germany’s immense U-boat fleet should be surrendered without the possibility of return and, while some boats were kept for research, the majority were dismantled and recycled or gesunken in deep water in the 20s. Of course, there is always the possibility that a scrapper may have resold a scratch and dent U-boat for the right price, but good luck keeping that quiet as subs of the era had to spend most of their time on the surface and most certainly would have been noticed by some busy body.
Then there is the crew, and a former bluejacket or unterseeboot driver who worked on such a project–providing he didn’t wind up in Davy Jones locker with said rum sub– would be sure to pass on the wild tale to their family post-Prohibition leading to the inevitable “my great uncle told me about his whisky U-boat” anecdotal recollection on a Ken Burns’ documentary.
Build your own
A 1926 newspaper article tells a similar tale of a towed submersible caught coming across the U.S./Canadian border via Lake Champlain.
“[S]ubmarine without motors, has been seized at Lake Champlain with 4800 bottles of ale. The seizure was made by the Royal Canadian Boundary Waters and Customs officials. It is pointed out that bootleggers have been using every known method of conveyance to run contraband liquor from Canada to the United States, including automobiles, motorboats, aeroplanes, and submarines. The latter have been known an mystery boats, having a length of 28ft., with a device for submerging and rising to the surface, but without any propelling mechanism, they being towed by the hawser 175ft. long. Air and vision are obtained by periscopes. The authorities say these vessels are extremely expensive, but they have successfully conveyed so much liquor that they have quickly paid for themselves.”
A history of the anti-smuggling patrol from U.S. Customs on the Lake, collected by the Vermont Historical Society, relates a similar tale, with a better take on a smaller unmanned semi-submersible:
While in the main channel of the lake a bit west of the Rutland Railroad fill, we saw an object which, from a distance, looked like a floating log. Whenever we found logs or other floating hazards to navigation, we dragged them ashore. As we approached the presumed log, to our surprise we saw instead a sort of barge anchored in such a way that the top of it lay awash. About 10 feet long, 6 feet wide and 4 feet deep, it had a hatch on the top which, when removed, disclosed a cargo of sacks of beer which weighted the barge sufficiently to keep it awash. Presumably towed by a small boat in stages over several nights, we assumed that the smugglers would tow it as far as they dared during the night hours and would then anchor it in the hope that no one would discover it during the day. We towed the barge with its contents back to St. Albans Bay and again destroyed the alcoholic contents. The 1932 clippings from the St. Albans Messenger refer to a “submarine” bought at auction. Jack Kendrick later told me that this was the same barge which we had found floating in 1926.
To disguise themselves on the water, some bootleggers tied a long rope to one end of the bags of alcohol and towed it behind them in a hollow log under water like a submarine. The disadvantage here, however, was that the log would immediately float to the surface and become visible if the boat were to be stopped by an officer. The method that worked best was to tie the bags of alcohol to one end of a rope and tie a box of rock salt to the other: if chased, the bootleggers could push the setup overboard, the bags and box would sink to the bottom, and later, as the rock salt dissolved, the box would float to the surface and act as a buoy-like marker for bootleggers to recover their lost cargo.
A look at an alleged effort on the Detroit River complete with oil drum diving helmets
Apparently the one-man submarine was powered by a Model T Ford Engine and used during the early Prohibition period to bootleg whiskey and rum from Davis Island to Vicksburg.
A turn of phrase
Another popular action of the period (and even today), moon-shining, saw the advent of “submarine stills” large black pot stills with a capacity of up to 800-gallons of mash.
Submarine stills…like Japanese midget subs waiting for the 7th Fleet
This led to the inevitable possibility of bootleggers passing off bottles of hootch that, when asked where they came from, would be told “From a submarine”….which may have made the legend of surplus U-boats full of whisky more popular than the reality.
Len Dyer of the National Armor and Cavalry Restoration Center discusses the World War I era Mark VIII Tank, of which just two are still in existence, both in the possession of the U.S. Army.
The Mark VIII was more advanced than the planned British Mark VI, though it was larger, male only (as in gun mounts, with 6-pounder 57 mm gun on each side), had a central crew compartment, and used a Liberty V12 aircraft engine for power. Designed as a joint Anglo-American project, the French were in on it as well. As such, it was called the Liberty or International at the time and some 1,500 were planned to swamp the German lines and tweak the Kaiser’s mustache in 1919.
A beast with a 10 man crew, the two aforementioned Hotchkiss 6-pounders (with 208 shells) and five Browning M1917 water-cooled machine guns (with 13,848 machine gun rounds), it weighed 38 tons, a figure not soon seen again in a main battle tank.
In comparison, the WWI British “Flying Elephant” super heavy tank weighed 100 tons but never left the drawing board while the German’s Großkampfwagen or “K-Wagen” 120-ton leviathan was only a non working prototype when the war ended. Only 10 experimental French Char 2Cs, at 75-tons each were built in 1921, leaving the Mark VIII as the heaviest production tank in the world until the Soviets put the 45-ton T-35 into regular production in 1935)
In the end, just 100~ Mark VIIIs were made by Rock Island before production was halted, and they never saw combat. The Army did, however, maintain them for training use until WWII.
Warship Wednesday Aug. 31, 2016: The Nebraska stiletto
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 97970
Here we see the four-piper Omaha-class light (scout) cruiser, USS Omaha (CL-4) besieged by pelicans in harbor, 8 December 1923. She was fast, could hit hard, chase down enemy steamers, and do it all with an air of efficiency.
With the United States no doubt headed into the Great War at some point, Asst. Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt helped push a plan by the brass to add a 10 fast “scout cruisers” to help screen the battle line from the enemy while acting as the over-the-horizon greyhound of the squadron, looking for said enemy to vector the fleet to destroy.
As such, speed was a premium for these dagger-like ships (they had a length to beam ratio of 10:1) and as such these cruisers were given a full dozen Yarrow boilers pushing geared turbines to 90,000 shp across four screws. Tipping the scales at 7,050 tons, they had more power on tap than a 8,000-ton 1970s Spruance-class destroyer (with four GE LM2500s giving 80,000 shp). This allowed the new cruiser class to jet about at 35 knots, which is fast today, and was on fire in 1915 when they were designed. As such, they were a full 11-knots faster than the smaller Chester-class scout cruisers they were to augment.
Artist’s conception of the final class design, made circa the early 1920s by Frank Muller. Ships of this class were: OMAHA (CL-4), MILWAUKEE (CL-5), CINCINNATI (CL-6), RALEIGH (CL-7), DETROIT (CL-8), RICHMOND (CL-9), CONCORD (CL-10), TRENTON (CL-11), MARBLEHEAD (CL-12), and MEMPHIS (CL-13).Catalog #: NH 43051
For armament, they had a 12 6″/53 Mk12 guns arranged in a twin turret forward, another twin turret aft, and eight guns in Great White Fleet throwback above-deck stacked twin casemates four forward/four aft. These guns were to equip the never-built South Dakota(BB-49) class battleships and Lexington(CC-1) class battle cruisers, but in the end were just used in the Omahas as well as the Navy’s two large submarine cruisers USS Argonaut (SS-166), Narwhal (SS-167), and Nautilus (SS-168).
Besides the curious 6-inchers, they also carried two 3″/50s in open mounts, six 21-inch torpedo tubes on deck, four torpedo tubes near the water line (though they proved very wet and were deleted before 1933), and the capability to carry several hundred mines.
Mines on an Omaha class (CL 4-13) light cruiser Description: Taken while the ship was underway at sea, looking aft, showing the very wet conditions that were typical on these cruisers’ after decks when they were operating in a seaway. Photographed circa 1923-1925, prior to the addition of a deckhouse just forward of the ships’ after twin six-inch gun mount. Donation of Ronald W. Compton, from the collection of his grandfather, Chief Machinist’s Mate William C. Carlson, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 99637
Triple 21-inch torpedo tubes on the upper deck of an Omaha (CL 4-13) class light cruiser, circa the mid-1920s. The after end of the ship’s starboard catapult is visible at left. Donation of Ronald W. Compton, from the collection of his grandfather, Chief Machinist’s Mate William C. Carlson, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 99639
Omaha had been ordered during the war but she was not laid down at Todd Dry Dock & Construction Co., Tacoma, Washington until 6 December 1918. Built for a cost of $1,541,396, she was commissioned 24 February 1923 and her nine sisters all joined the fleet within two years after, replacing several prewar designs including the Chesters.
Photographed circa 1923, immediately after completion. Note her peculiar stacked casemates. These ships proved top-heavy in operation. Go figure, huh? Catalog #: NH 43052
Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, she spent the early 1920s in calm peacetime service, showing the flag, making training and gunnery cruises, crossing over into the Pacific a few times to visit Canada and Hawaii, and other typical fleet operations. Later she was used to escort the body of the U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, J. Butler Wright– who died at his post after an operation at age 62– from Havana to the Washington Navy Yard.
Passing through the Panama Canal, circa 1925-1926. Note the tropical awning over her stern. Her aft casemates are clear. Catalog #: NH 43054
Boxing match held between the aircraft catapults of an Omaha (CL 4-13) class light cruiser, circa the mid-1920s. View looks forward, with the ship’s after smokestack in the left center background. Donation of Ronald W. Compton, from the collection of his grandfather, Chief Machinist’s Mate William C. Carlson, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 99640
Great overhead shot. Anchored in the Hudson River, near New York City, 2 May 1927. Catalog #: NH 43059
Putting the “screen” in screening! Omaha Class Light Cruisers lay a smoke screen during maneuvers in about 1930. Courtesy of Chief Photographer’s Mate John Lee Highfill (retired) Catalog #: NH 94898
In 1932, Omaha set a record for a naval crossing between San Francisco and Honolulu– just 75 hours and change to cover 2,400 miles, humming along at an average speed of 32~ knots for three days and nights. Not bad for 1920s technology.
In 1933, she was given an overhaul that included removing her mine handling capability and lower torpedo tubes, but adding more AAA guns and aircraft handling capabilities.
Underway, circa the early 1930s. The original photograph is dated 20 October 1936, but it was actually taken prior to Omaha’s 1933 overhaul, during which her topmasts were reduced and a bathtub machinegun platform was fitted atop her foremast. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 97971
6″/53 casemate gun on USS Omaha CL-4 Picture taken in August 1933 after overhaul at the Puget Sound Navy Yard. Note newly installed machine gun bathtub atop Omaha foremast, rangefinders, and other fire control facilities on and about the mast, voice tubes running down from the masthead, and Battle Efficiency E painted on the pilothouse. Courtesy of Don S. Montgomery, USN (Retired). U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 93507
However, not all was joyous:
Aground in the Bahamas, 18 July 1937. Note lighthouse at right and vessels alongside Omaha. Meh, these things happen. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 43061
USS OMAHA (CL-4) Post 1933. Courtesy of Mr. Donald M. McPherson, Corte Madera, California, 1969 Catalog #: NH 68319
When World War II loomed, the aging cruiser and her sisters were far outclassed by the newer Brooklyn and St.Louis-classes, but they were uparmed by adding 20mm and 40mm anti-aircraft guns and radar while landing some of their older casemates and 1.1-inchers fitted in the 1930s.
On 6 November 1941, while on neutrality patrol in the mid-Atlantic near the equator with her escort, the USS Somers (DD-381), Omaha spied an American flagged ship, the freighter Willmoto out of Philadelphia, and closed to inspect her. When a boarding team came close, the freighter’s crew started abandoning ship, signaling it was sinking.
Taking quick action, the Omaha‘s team went to salvage work and saved the ship, which turned out to be the 5098-tonner Odenwald owned by the Hamburg-American Line. Enroute to Germany from then-neutral Japan when she was seized, she was packed with 3,800-tons desperately needed rubber and tires that never made it to the Third Reich.
Odenwald, NH 123752
USS OMAHA/ODENWALD Incident during World War II. Autographed Portrait of Salvage Detail. American Flag and emblem of the Nazi party/ Swastika flag on ship with Salvage Detail portrait signed by each member of Salvage Detail.NH 123757
Odenwald was escorted to Puerto Rico and made a big splash when she arrived.
According to the U-boat Archive, Odenwald contained the first German military POW taken by the U.S. though they didn’t know it:
Helmut Ruge was a Kriegsmarine radioman aboard the Graf Spee when that ship was scuttled after the battle of the River Plate. He escaped from internment crossing the Andes on foot to Chile and then on to Japan where he joined the crew of the Odenwald for the return to Germany.
During his initial interrogation both U.S. Army and Navy interrogators failed to discover that Helmut Ruge was not a civilian merchant marine officer but in fact was a German Navy sailor or that he was an escaped internee from the crew of the Graf Spee. Throughout his captivity he was interned with the civilian crews of German merchant ships and not with other German Navy personnel.
When the war kicked off for real, Omaha remained in the Atlantic doing patrol and escort work.
USS Omaha (CL-4) In New York Harbor, 10 February 1943. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Note the added AAA suite. Catalog #: 19-N-40594
In the lead up to the Dragoon landings in Southern France, Omaha sailed to the med and gave naval gunfire support to the troops going ashore in August 1944, for which she was awarded one battle star, the only one she would receive.
When the war ended, the writing was on the wall for Omaha and she was decommissioned 1 November 1945, stricken four weeks later, and sold for scrap the following February.
Of her sisters, they proved remarkably lucky, and, though all nine saw combat during the war (including Detroit and Raleigh at Pearl Harbor), none were sunk. The last of the class afloat, USS Milwaukee (CL-5) was sold for scrap, 10 December 1949 mainly because after 1944 she had been loaned to the Soviets as the Murmansk.
In one last laugh, a federal court in 1947 awarded the members of the boarding party and the salvage crew $3,000 apiece while all the other crewmen in Omaha and the Sommers at the time picked up two months’ pay and allowances.
Although it has been reported this was prize money “the last paid by the Navy,” the fact is that the ruling classified it as salvage inasmuch as the U.S. on November 6, 1941, was not at war with Germany.
In all, the court found that the value of the Odenwald was the sum of $500,000 and the value of her cargo $1,860,000, which was sold in 1941 and, “As a matter of law, the United States is entitled as owner of the two men of war involved in this case to collect salvage and the officers and members of the crews of the U.S.S. Omaha and U.S.S. Somers are also entitled to collect salvage. This is not a case of bounty or prize. The libelants are entitled to collect salvage in the aggregate sum of $397,424.06 with costs and expenses.”
So there is that.
One enduring curiosity of the Omaha‘s crew was the issue of V-42 combat knives to some of her boarding crew.
A descendant of the Fairbairn-Sykes combat knife, the V-42 Stiletto was designed with input from members of the First Special Service Force, the joint American/Canadian arctic and mountain warfare unit that is considered one of the forefathers of modern American Special Forces. While the majority went to the 1st SSF, around 70 were diverted to the Navy, and were among the armament issued to the U.S.S. Omaha.
Now that’s something you don’t see every day.
Specs:
Displacement: 7,050 long tons (7,163 t) (standard)
Length:
555 ft. 6 in (169.32 m) oa
550 ft. (170 m) pp
Beam: 55 ft. (17 m)
Draft: 14 ft. 3 in (4.34 m) (mean)
Installed power:
12 × Yarrow boilers
90,000 ihp (67,000 kW) (Estimated power produced on trials)
Propulsion:
4 × Westinghouse reduction geared steam turbines
4 × screws
Speed:
35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph)
33.7 knots (62.4 km/h; 38.8 mph) (Estimated speed on trials)
Crew: 29 officers 429 enlisted (peacetime)
Armor:
Belt: 3 in (7.6 cm)
Deck: 1 1⁄2 in (38 mm)
Conning Tower: 1 1⁄2 in (38 mm)
Bulkheads: 1 1⁄2–3 in (38–76 mm)
Aircraft carried: 2 × floatplanes
Aviation facilities:
2 × Amidship catapults
crane
Armament: (1923)
2 × twin 6 in (152 mm)/53 caliber
8 × single 6 in (152 mm)/53 caliber
2 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 caliber guns anti-aircraft
6 × triple 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
4 × twin 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
224 × mines (removed soon after completion) (1945)
2 × twin 6 in/53 caliber
6 × single 6 in/53 caliber
8 × 3 in/50 caliber anti-aircraft guns
6 × triple 21 in torpedo tubes
3 × twin 40 mm (1.6 in) Bofors guns
14 × single 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon cannons
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It was issued to a member of the Reserve/1st Garrison Battalion, Essex Regiment (formed in 1881 from the amalgamation of the 44th East Essex Regiment of Foot and the 56th West Essex Regiment of Foot) which fought at Le Cateau and Ypres before being sent on Winston Churchill’s attempt to knock the Ottomans out of World War I at Gallipoli. The unit came away relatively unscathed from the fiasco and went on to fight at Loos, the Somme, Cambrai, and Gaza.
