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One of the Kaiser’s boats no longer unaccounted for

Posted on January 22, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

When SMS U-31 of the Kaiserliche Marine‘s IV Flotilla sailed from Wilhelmshaven on 13 January 1915, and disappeared shortly thereafter, it was assumed, she had struck a mine and sunk with all hands, somewhere in the North Sea.

Well, it turned out they were right.

Now, 101 years after her disappearance, her final resting place is known. In 2012 an engineering team plotting the site of a new offshore wind farm about 55 nautical miles off the coast of East Anglia found a wreck on the ocean floor.

Digital scan of the sunken U boat, which has been found off the East Anglian coast. See Masons copy MNWRECK: The wreckage of a First World War German submarine has been found by divers 90km off the East Anglian coast. Video footage shows the sunken U-boat, which went missing 1915, on the sea bed under about 100 feet of water. The submarine, which had more than 31 crew onboard, is believed to have hit a mine about 55 miles off Caister on Sea in Norfolk. The 58 metre long wreck was found by a survey team from energy companies Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall, who are currently drawing up plans for the new East Anglia ONE wind farm.

Digital scan of the sunken U boat, which has been found off the East Anglian coast. The wreckage of a First World War German submarine has been found by divers 90km off the East Anglian coast. Video footage shows the sunken U-boat, which went missing 1915, on the sea bed under about 100 feet of water. The 58 metre long wreck was found by a survey team from energy companies Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall, who are currently drawing up plans for the new East Anglia ONE wind farm.

Initial investigation thought it to be a lost Dutch sub from the WWII-era, so the Dutch Lamlash wreck-diving team was called in last year and they have identified the vessel as U-31.

She was on her first patrol and, under the command of 28-year-old Oblt.z.S. Siegfried Wachendorff, she carried 33 souls.

More here

Warship Wednesday (on a Friday): The Tennessee peace cruiser

Posted on January 15, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Sorry about the late posting this week, in the effort to get to SHOT Show in Vegas this weekend and with the winter weather making horse care more pressing, its been busy this week!

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 (on a Friday): The Tennessee peace cruiser

Image by Robert M. Cieri via Navsource

Here we see the Denver-class protected cruiser USS Chattanooga (C-16/PG-30/CL-18), port bow view, while in New York harbor, 1905. You can tell by her fine lines and ornamental brightworks, she was meant more to impress colonial locals and less to sink enemy ships.

Though she never fired a shot in anger, the hardy little Chattanooga was around for a quarter century and saw immense changes to the fleet she was a part of, changes that eventually left her out of step, though her relics are now a part of the more asymmetric war on terror.

In 1899, Pax Americana found herself suddenly a colonial power after picking up the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and a host of other scattered territories as part of spoils in the Spanish-American War. Further, President McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution which annexed Hawaii in 1898 while the Tripartite Convention of 1899 split up the Samoan islands between the U.S., Germany and Britain– though neither the native Hawaiians nor the Samoans were really happy about either.

With all of these far-flung possessions added to the 45-state Union, the Navy needed some warships to go wave the flag there without depleting the main battle fleet as outlined by the good Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan. These ships need not slug it out in naval combat with a determined foe, they only needed long legs; a few guns to impress the locals while being capable of sending potential pirates, rabble-rousers and armed merchant cruisers to the bottom; and a high mast to show a flag.

This led to the six-pack of Denver-class vessels, peace cruisers if you will.

USS Des Moines (C-15, CL-17, PG 29), a good postcard reference to the Denver class. Note the schooner rig and fine lines.

The Denvers didn’t have much armor (about the thickness of a good butter knife in most places), nor did they have large guns (10 5″/50 Mark 5 single mounts, able to penetrate just 1.4-inches of armor at 9,000 yards though their 50-pound shells were capable of a 19,000 yard range overall which made them perfect for shelling uprisings on shore or warning off undesirable foreign ships creeping around colonial ports), nor were they particularly fast (they were designed but not fitted with an auxiliary Schooner sail rig).

One of ‘Nooga’s 5″ deck guns, probably port side forward. From the collection of H.G. Froehlich, CPO, USN provided by Herman B. Froelich, via Navsource

However, they were 308-feet of American soil that could self-deploy and remain on station with little support when needed while still being able to float in 15 feet of seawater.

In short, they were the littoral combat ships of 1899.

The six ships, in what seems to be shipyard welfare from Uncle Sam, were built in six different yards near-simultaneously, all commissioning within about 18 months of each other.

The hero of our story, USS Chattanooga, was laid down at Crescent Shipyard, Elizabethport, New Jersey, a new shipyard whose historical claim to fame was in building the USS Holland (SS-1), the nation’s first official modern submarine and a number of the follow-on A-class pigboats. She was named for the city in Tennessee and was the second Chattanooga on the Navy List, the first being a Civil War steam sloop that was holed and sunk at her dock by floating ice in 1871.

Commissioned 11 October 1904 during the tensions of the Russo-Japanese War, Chattanooga headed for Europe where she joined the squadron there and helped escort the body of Scottish-American Capt. John Paul Jones, late of the Continental Navy, from an unmarked grave in a Parisian cemetery to a magnificent bronze and marble sarcophagus at the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis.

Starboard side view, anchored, 12 OCT 1906. Photo 0-G-1035139 from The National Archives.

Port side view at anchor in Genoa, Italy in the early 1900’s. Giorgio Parodi via Navsource

For the next seven years she cruised the Pacific (via the Suez), the Med, the Caribbean and helped train Naval Militia before entering into layup in 1912.

An early 63-foot A-class submarine, likely USS Grampus (SS-4) or Pike (SS-6) on the Willapa River, at Raymond, Washington, circa 1912. The stern of the USS Chattanooga can be seen in front of the sub. Photo provided by Steve Hubbard of the Pacific County Historical Society, Washington State via Pigboats

When 1914 came about, a new crew manned the rails and brought her back to life for the tensions in Mexico, sailing off the Pacific coast of that country, protecting American interests, chiefly from the port of La Paz through early 1917.

Starboard side view while in San Diego, 1915. Caption on the back of the photo reads: “This photo was taken after were secured from coaling ship and were cleaning her up.” Via Navsource

Nooga’s shipboard naval landing party drills with M1909 Benet Mercie light machine guns. During the Mexican crisis, her landing team and those of the other Pacific fleet ships sent to babysit ports in Mexico drilled non-stop, though did not wind up going expeditionary. A ship Chattanooga’s size could muster 80-100 men for action ashore, a common tactic in those days. Photo via Navsource from the collection of H.G. Froehlich, CPO, USN.

In April 1917 with the U.S. entry into the ongoing Great War with Germany, Chattanooga chopped to the Atlantic Fleet and cruised the Caribbean for enemy shipping for a while before joining in convoy duties across the big pond. While vital, her brief wartime service was unexciting.

Following the end of the conflict, she remained a fixture in European ports with a concentration on the Black Sea, where the former Russian Empire was tearing itself apart in a civil war, and around Greece and Turkey, who were warming up a conflict of their own.

USS CHATTANOOGA (C-16) in a European port circa 1919. Courtesy of Paul H. Silverstone, 1983. Catalog #: NH 94980, via Naval History and Heritage Command. She was reclassified as a gunboat, PG-30, 17 July 1920. Her place in the fleet was taken by much more powerful modern cruisers. Note her darker and more smudgy haze gray scheme and simplified rigging. Also note the huge ensign on her mast. That’s what she did.

Chattanooga most importantly helped supervise the liquidation of the former Austro-Hungarian Navy (kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine) in the Adriatic.

She provided support to the Naval Reservist prize crew on the 15,000-ton Radetzky-class pre-dreadnought battleship USS (ex-SMS) Zrinyi at Spalato (Split) in Dalmatia. On the morning of 7 November 1920, Zrínyi was decommissioned and Chattanooga took her in tow across the sea to Italy where, under the terms of the treaties of Versailles and St. Germain, Zrínyi was turned over to the Italian government at Venice.

Bluejackets on the American/Austro-Hungarian Radetzky-class pre-dreadnought battleship USS (ex-SMS) Zrinyi, View of the ship’s bow, looking forward from the bridge. This photograph was taken at Spalato, Yugoslavia, while the ship was in US Navy custody pending conclusion of peace treaties. The ship was commissioned in the US Navy from 22 November 1919 to 7 November 1920, when it was handed over to Italy. The ship never got underway while in US hands except for the delivery voyage under tow by Chattanooga in November 1920. Photo Catalog #: NH 43536, Naval History and Heritage Command

Ordered back to the U.S., Chattanooga was decommissioned at Boston on 19 July 1921 and, though reclassified as a light cruiser, CL-18, the next month, never saw active duty again.

She was stricken in 1929 and sold for her value in scrap the following year. As for her five sisters, one, USS Tacoma was lost January 16, 1924 after she ran aground, while the other four vessels were all laid up like Chattanooga and subsequently scrapped.

While a frigate and later a cruiser were both laid down during WWII with intention of continuing her name, they were not commissioned as such and the Naval List has not seen another Chattanooga since 1929.

However, relics of her do exist and have found new importance.

Plaques commemorating the World War One service of the protected cruiser USS Chattanooga (C-16, PG-30, CL-18) on display in the Douglas MacArthur Memorial, in downtown Norfolk, Virginia. One of the ship’s commanders was Arthur McArthur III, brother of the famed general. Image via Flckr. Ironically, Art Mac Arthur also served on the submarine Holland, built in the same shipyard as Chattanooga and the Grampus, shown near the cruiser in the 1912 image above.

Her bell, image by the Shelbyville Times-Gazette http://www.t-g.com/story/2233377.html . The bell was made in Chattanooga by the Fischer Evans works. The bell will be displayed at the Navy Ball in Chattanooga this year

Her bell, image by the Shelbyville Times-Gazette. The bell was made in Chattanooga by the Fischer Evans works. The bell will be displayed at the Navy Ball in Chattanooga this year

Her 200-pound bronze magnesium ship’s bell has been first at the Lions Club hall then the recently shuttered American Legion Post 23 in Shelbyville, Tennessee for more than 85-years. Recently, following the terror attack on the Naval Reserve Center in Chattanooga that claimed the lives of five naval personnel, a reservist from the base, CS1 Gowan Johnson, was able to track the bell down and reclaim it for the center.

From Stars and Stripes

While the Navy’s reserve center quarters here are being modified, the USS Chattanooga’s bell has found a temporary home inside the National Medal of Honor Museum in Northgate Mall, where it is displayed along with vintage photos of the ship and crew.

“It’s open to the public to view, and touch, if they like,” explains Charles Googe, a museum volunteer.

Meanwhile, Johnson is hard at work preparing the bell for a more permanent home at the Reserve Center. A cast-iron yoke is being fabricated for the bell, he said, and the shrine will be anchored to a black granite base with a plaque honoring the dead. The emblems of the U.S. Navy and Marines also will be part of the exhibit, he said.

“We are thinking that we could toll the bell five times on July 16 when the names are read for the [shootings anniversary] ceremony,” Johnson said.

In the meantime, Petty Officer Johnson has begun to muse about another possibility, now that the Navy is commissioning a new class of ships bearing the names of American cities.

“How about another ship called the USS Chattanooga?” Johnson said.

Perhaps people in high places will get wind of his idea and answer the bell.

Specs:

Displacement:
3,200 long tons (3,251 t) (standard)
3,514 long tons (3,570 t) (full load)
Length:
308 ft. 9 in (94.11 m) oa
292 ft. (89 m)pp
Beam: 44 ft. (13 m)
Draft: 15 ft. 9 in (4.80 m) (mean)
Installed power:
6 × Babcock & Wilcox boilers
21,000 ihp (16,000 kW)
Propulsion:
2 × vertical triple expansion reciprocating engines, 4700 shp
2 × screws
Sail plan: Schooner
Speed:
16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph)
16.75 knots (31.02 km/h; 19.28 mph) (Speed on Trial)
Range: 2200 nmi at 10 kts
Complement: 31 officers 261 enlisted men
Armament:
10 × 5 in (127 mm)/50 caliber Breech-loading rifles
8 × 6-pounder (57 mm (2.2 in)) rapid fire guns
2 × 1-pounder (37 mm (1.5 in)) guns
Armor:
Deck: 2 1⁄2 in (64 mm) (slope)
3⁄16 in (4.8 mm) (flat)
Shields: 1 3⁄4 in (44 mm)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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I’m a member, so should you be!

Finally, to see where the Chattanooga ranks among U.S. cruiser development, the U.S. Naval Historical Command put out the below infographic.

Click here for the full size and go here for more historical information on USN cruisers.

Twilight Zone Colt

Posted on January 5, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here we see a Colt Government Model Serial # C8792 and it shows all the classic signs of the initial M1911s including the double-diamond grips, the lanyard loops on the frame and magazine, early patent numbers and C-prefix serial that traces back to a 1914 commercial run of these guns.

The gun is currently in the NRA Museum in Fairfax, VA, but has a rather spotty history from 1917-2007.

Note the marking, “1st ~~Reserve Park~~ Division” CANADA, Storer’s original unit before he transferred to the flying corps. The 1st Canadian Division embarked for France during February 1915 and was soon holding the line near Ypres.

After over a year of sitting in the trenches as a member of the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps, young Lt. Hume-Storer had endured enough and put in for re-assignment to the Royal Flying Corps. In December of 1916, pilot officer candidate Hume-Storer passed his flight training in Britain and soloed.

On February 17, 1917, Captain John Cameron Hume-Storer R.F.C.(C.A.S.C.), took off on a routine morning patrol from Ramsgate to Dover on the English Channel, a short 15-mile journey. He was never heard from again. No trace of wreckage from his plane was ever found and no ground reports indicated that the young pilot had experienced any adverse weather.

Did he overshoot Dover and wind up ditching in the English Channel? Did he make it all the way to the Western Front and wind up behind the lines somewhere, forgotten in some shell hole?

Did he fly into limbo?

All we know for certain is that John Cameron Hume-Storer’s battered pistol was to turn up in an American gunshop in 2007. Did he pass it into the care of a friend for safekeeping during his routine flight? Or perhaps only this pistol was destined to return from whatever place his plane traveled to on that fateful day in 1917?

As for the good Captain himself, he is memorialized at Hollybrook Cemetery, Southampton and is recorded on page 260 of the First World War Book of Remembrance

Warship Wednesday Dec.23, 2015: The lost jewel from Bizerte

Posted on December 23, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Warship Wednesday, Dec.23, 2015: The lost jewel from Bizerte

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Here we see the French Émeraude-class diesel-electric submarine (Sous-Marin) Turquoise (Q46), captured by the Turks, in a dry dock undergoing repairs in Constantinople, 1916.

The French got into the submarine business about the same time as the Americans, launching Admiral Simeon Bourgois’s Plongeur in April 1863.

Before the turn of the century, the Republic had flirted with a half dozen one-off boats before they ordered the four boats of the Sirene class in 1901 followed quickly by another four of the Farfadet-class, the two Algerien-class boats, 20 Naiade-class craft in 1904, Submarines X, Y and Z (not making it up), the two ship Aigrette-class and the submarine Omega.

All told, between 1900-1905, the French coughed up 36 submersibles spread across nine very different classes.

After all that quick learning curve, they proceeded with the Emeraude (Emerald) class in 1903. These ships were an improvement of the Faradet (Sprite) class designed by Gabriel-Émile-Marie Maugas. The 135-foot long/200-ton Faradet quartet had everything a 20th Century smoke boat needed: it was a steel-hulled hybrid submersible that used diesel engines on the surface and electric below, had 4 torpedo tubes, could dive to 100~ feet, and could make a stately 6-knots.

Farfadet-class boat Lutin (Q10), leaving port in 1903.

While they weren’t successful (two sank, killing 30 men between them) Maugas learned from early mistakes and they were significantly improved in the Emeraudes. These later boats used two-shaft propulsion– rare in early submarines–and were 147 feet long with a 425-ton full load. Capable of making right at 12 knots for brief periods, they carried a half dozen torpedo tubes (four in the bow and two in the stern). They also could mount a machine gun and a light deck gun if needed.

Again, improvements!

Profile of the Emeralds surfaced.

Class leader Emeraude was laid down at Arsenal de Cherbourg in 1903 followed by sisters Opale and Rubis at the same yard and another three, Saphir, Topase, and the hero of our story, Turquoise, at Arsenal de Toulon in the Med.

Launching 1908

Turquoise was commissioned on 10 December 1910 and, with her two Toulon-built sisters, served with the French Mediterranean Fleet from the Submarine Station at Bizerte.

She repeated the bad luck of the Farfadet-class predecessors and in 1913 lost an officer and several crew swept off her deck in rough seas.

When war erupted in 1914, the jewel boats soon found they had operational problems staying submerged due to issues with buoyancy and were plagued by troublesome diesels (hey, the manufacturer, Sautter-Harlé, was out of business by 1918 so what does that tell you).

To help with surface ops, Topase and Turquoise were fitted with a smallish deck gun in 1915.

Saphir probably would have been too, but she caught a Turkish mine in the Sea of Marma on 15 January trying to sneak through the straits, and went down.

Topase and Turquoise continued to operate against the Turks, with the latter running into trouble on 30 October 1915. Around the village of Orhaniye in the Dardanelles near Nagara there were six Ottoman Army artillerymen led by Corporal G Boaz Deepa who spotted a periscope moving past a nearby water tower.

Becoming tangled in a net, the submarine became a sitting duck. With their field piece, they were able to get a lucky shot on the mast, and, with the submarine filling with water, she made an emergency surface.

French submarine captured at Dardanelles by Charles Fouqueray

There, the six cannoneers took 28 French submariners captive and impounded the sub, sunk in shallow water.

Turquoise’s skipper, Lt. Leon Marie Ravenel, was in 1918 awarded the Knight of the Legion of Honour as was his XO. These sailors suffered a great deal in Turkish captivity, with five deaths.

German propaganda postcard, note the Ottoman crew and markings

“Das frühere französische U-Boot Turquoise welches von den Türken gefangen genommen wurde und jetzt als Mustedjb oubaschi in türkischen Diensten steht.” (The former French submarine Turquoise which was captured by the Turks and is now in Turkish service as Mustedjb oubaschi.) Paul Hoffman & Co. postcard in the NYPL collection

The Turks later raised the batter French boat and, naming her Mustadieh Ombashi (or Müstecip Ombasi), planned to use her in the Ottoman fleet.

The news of her capture and use under new management flashed through the Central Powers. This is from the Austrian archives:

“Französische Unterseeboot Turquoise” via Osterreichisches Staatsarchiv

Ottoman Uniforms reports her conning tower was painted with a large rectangle (likely to be red), with the large white script during this time.

Via Ottoman Uniforms

However, as submariners were rare in WWI Constantinople, she never took to sea in an operational sense again and in 1919 the victorious French reclaimed their submarine, which they later scrapped in 1920.

Her wartime service for the Turks seems to have been limited to taking a few pictures for propaganda purposes and being used as a fixed battery charging station for German U-boats operating in the Black Sea.

As for the last Bizerte boat, Topase, she finished the war intact and was stricken on 12 November 1919 along with the three Emeraudes who served quietly in the Atlantic.

Turquoise/Mustadieh Ombashi has been preserved as a model, however.

If you have a further interest in the submarines of Gallipoli, go here.

Specs:

1884×1543

Displacement 392 tons (surfaced) / 427 (submerged)
Length, 147 feet
Bean 12 feet
Draft 12 feet
No of shafts 2
Machinery
2 Sautter-Harlé diesels, 600hp / electric motors (440kW)
Max speed, knots 11.5 surfaced / 9.2 submerged
Endurance, nm 2000 at 7.3kts surfaced / 100nm at 5kts submerged
Armament:
6×450 TT (4 bows, 2 sterns) for 450mm torpedoes with no reloads
1x M1902 Model 37mm deck gun, 1x8mm light Hotchkiss machine gun (fitted in 1915)
Complement 21-28
Diving depth operational, 130 feet.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday Dec. 16, 2015: The Long Legged Bird of the Java Sea

Posted on December 16, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015: The Long-Legged Bird of the Java Sea

Naval History and Heritage Command#: NH 85178

Here we see the humble Lapwing-class minesweeper USS Heron (AM-10/AVP-2) while fitting out at her builders in late 1918, being rushed to completion to help serve in the Great War. While her service “over there” was rather quiet in the end, her trip to the other side of the world and experiences in another world war would prove more exciting.

When a young upstart by the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt came to the Navy Department in 1913 as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he helped engineer one of the largest naval build-ups in world history. By the time the U.S. entered World War I officially in 1917, it may have been Mr. Wilson’s name in the role of Commander in Chief, but it was Mr. Roosevelt’s fleet.

One of his passions was the concept of the Great North Sea Mine Barrage, a string of as many as 400,000 (planned) sea mines that would shut down the Kaiser’s access once and for all to the Atlantic and saving Western Europe (and its overseas Allies) from the scourge of German U-boats. A British idea dating from late 1916, the U.S. Navy’s Admiral Sims thought it was a bullshit waste of time but it was FDR’s insistence to President Wilson in the scheme that ultimately won the day.

While a fleet of converted steamships (and two old cruisers- USS San Francisco and USS Baltimore) started dropping mines in June 1918, they only managed to sow 70,177 by Armistice Day and accounted for a paltry two U-boats gesunken (although some estimates range as high as 8 counting unaccounted-for boats).

And the thing is, you don’t throw that many mines in international shipping lanes without having a plan to clean them up after the war (while having the bonus of using those mine countermeasures ships to sweep enemy-laid fields as well).

That’s where the 54 vessels of the Lapwing-class came in.

Review of the Atlantic Fleet Minesweeping Squadron, November 1919. USS Lapwing (AM-1) and other ships of the squadron anchored in the Hudson River, off New York City, while being reviewed by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels on 24 November 1919, following their return to the United States after taking part in clearing the North Sea mine barrage. The other ships visible are USS Lark (Minesweeper No. 21), with USS SC-208 alongside (at left); and USS Swan (Minesweeper No. 34) with USS SC-356 alongside (at right). Heron was there but is not seen in the photo. U.S. Navy photo NH 44903. Note the crow’s nest for sighting floating mines.

Inspired by large seagoing New England fishing trawlers, these 187-foot long ships were large enough, at 965-tons full, to carry a pair of economical reciprocating diesel engines (or two boilers and one VTE engine) with a decent enough range to make it across the Atlantic on their own (though with a blisteringly slow speed of just 14 knots when wide open on trials.)

They could also use a sail rig to poke along at low speed with no engines, a useful trait for working in a minefield.

Lapwing-class sister USS Falcon AM-28 in Pensacola Bay 1924 with the Atlantic submarine fleet. Note her rig

Not intended to do much more than clear mines, they were given a couple 3-inch pop guns to discourage small enemy surface combatants intent to keep minesweepers from clearing said mines. The class leader, Lapwing, designated Auxiliary Minesweeper #1 (AM-1), was laid down at Todd in New York in October 1917 and another 53 soon followed. While five were canceled in November 1918, the other 48 were eventually finished– even if they came to the war a little late.

This leads us to the hero of our tale, USS Heron.

Laid down at the Standard Shipbuilding Co. in Boston, she was the first U.S. Navy ship to carry that name, that of a long-legged seabird of the Gulf Coast. Like all her sisters, they carried bird names.

Commissioned 30 October 1918, the war ended 12 days later but she was still very much needed to help take down that whole barrage thing. Therefore, she arrived in the Orkney Islands in the spring of 1919 where, along with 28 of her sisters and a host of converted British trawlers, she scooped up Mk.6 naval mines from the deep for the rest of the year.

When she returned home, she was transferred to the far off Asiatic Fleet, sailing for Cavite PI in October 1920.

There, she was laid up in 1922, with not much need of an active minesweeper.

Then, with the Navy figuring out these economical little boats with their shallow draft (they could float in ten feet of seawater) could be used for any number of side jobs, started re-purposing them.

Six of the “Old Birds” were reclassified as salvage ships (ARSs) while another half-dozen became submarine rescue ships (ASRs). The Coast Guard picked up USS Redwing for use as a cutter during Prohibition while the U.S. Coast & Geographic Survey acquired USS Osprey and USS Flamingo and the Shipping Board accepted USS Peacock as a tug.

A few were retained as minesweepers in the reserve fleet, some used as depot ships/net layers, one converted to a gunboat, another to an ocean-going tug, three were sunk during peacetime service (USS Cardinal struck a reef off Dutch Harbor in 1923 while USS Curlew did the same off Panama in 1926 and USS Sanderling went down in 1937 by accident in Hawaii) while nine– Heron included– became seaplane tenders.

While these ships could only carry 1-2 seaplanes on deck, they typically milled around with a converted barge alongside that could park a half dozen or more single-engine floatplanes for service and support.

U.S. Navy Small Seaplane Tender USS Heron (AVP-2); no date. Note the floatplane service barge alongside. Image via navsource http://www.navsource.org/archives/11/02010.htm

U.S. Navy Small Seaplane Tender USS Heron (AVP-2); no date. Note the floatplane service barge alongside. Image via USNI collection.

Recommissioned in 1924 (later picking up the hull number AVP-2, as a Small Seaplane Tender), Heron was photographed with a variety of floatplanes including Grumman JF amphibians and Vought O2U-2 scout planes in the 20s and 30s.

Carrying two Vought O2U-2 scout planes of Scouting Eight (VS-8) while serving in the Asiatic Fleet on 15 December 1930. Photo No. 80-G-1017155 Source: U.S. National Archives, RG-80-G

Serving as an aircraft tender before 1936. Note the aviation roundel on her bow.

She continued her quiet existence in the South China Sea and elsewhere in Chinese and Philippine waters, filling in as a target tower, survey ship, and gunboat when needed.

U.S. warships inside and outside the breakwater, circa the later 1930s. Color-tinted photograph by the Ah-Fung O.K. Photo Service. Among the ships present are USS Black Hawk (AD-9), in the left-center, with a nest of four destroyers alongside. USS Whipple (DD-217) is the outboard unit of these four. USS Heron (AM-10) is alongside the breakwater, at right, with a Grumman JF amphibian airplane on her fantail. Another JF is floating inside the breakwater, toward the left. Two Chinese sampans are under sail in the center foreground. The four destroyers outside the breakwater are (from left to right): USS Stewart (DD-224), unidentified, USS Bulmer (DD-222), and USS Pillsbury (DD-227). Collection of James E. Thompson, 1979. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 90544-KN

Stationed at Port Ciego, Philippines when the balloon went up, Heron was luckier than several of her sisters in the same waters, with six sunk in six months.

USS Tanager (AM-5), Sunk by Japanese shore battery fire off Bataan, 4 May 1942.
USS Finch (AM-9), Damaged by Japanese bomb (near-miss), 9 Apr 1942 while moored at the eastern point of Corregidor. Abandoned, 10 Apr 1942. Salvaged by Imperial Japanese Navy; renamed W-103. Sunk for good by US carrier aircraft in early 1945.
USS Quail (AM-15) Damaged by Japanese bombs and guns at Corregidor, she was scuttled 5 May 1942 to prevent capture.
USS Penguin (AM-33) Damaged by Japanese aircraft in Agana Harbor, Guam, 8 Dec 1941; scuttled in 200 fathoms to prevent capture.
USS Bittern (AM-36) Heavily damaged by Japanese aircraft at Cavite Navy Yard, Philippines; scuttled in Manila Bay to prevent capture.
USS Pigeon (AM-47) sunk by Japanese aircraft at Corregidor, 4 May 1942.

Heron was ordered to leave the PI for Ambon Island, part of the Maluku Islands of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), a strategic key to the area held by some 3,000 Dutch and Australian troops. There, along with USS William B. Preston (AVD 7), she supported PBYs of Patrol Wing TEN until the going got tough and the island was overrun in February 1942.

It was during this time at Ambon that Heron became a legend. Upon hearing that the four-piper USS Peary (DD-226) was damaged, she sortied out to help assist or tow if needed but was caught by Japanese flying boats and proceeded to fight them off over several hours.

As noted dryly in the combat narrative of the Java Sea Campaign:

The Heron, which was sent north to assist the Peary, was herself bombed in a protracted action in Molucca Strait on the 31st. Shrapnel from near hits penetrated the ship’s side and started fires in the paint locker and forward hold. About the middle of the afternoon, a 100-pound shrapnel bomb struck the foremast near the top and sprayed the ship with splinters, which did considerable damage. The Heron acquitted herself well, however, in spite of her 12-knot speed, and succeeded in shooting down a large enemy seaplane.

“Evasion of Destruction” by Richard DeRosset portrays a strafing run by three Japanese “Mavis” flying boats following their unsuccessful torpedo attack on the USS Heron (AVP-2) on 31 December 1941. Heron shot down one of the aircraft with her starboard 3-inch gun; her port gun had been disabled by earlier combat action. This final attack followed a series of earlier ones by twelve other enemy aircraft against the seaplane tender as she sailed alone in the Java Sea. Due to heroic actions by her captain and crew, Heron survived seemingly overwhelming odds during the long ordeal. Heron had approximately 26 casualties, or about 50 percent of the crew, because of the attack.

For her valiant action during this period, Heron received the Navy Unit Commendation.

The rest of her war service was less eventful, serving in Australian waters as a patrol boat and seaplane tender until 1944 when she began moving back to the PI with the massive Allied armada to retake the archipelago. She conducted search and rescue operations and assisted in landings where needed, still providing tender service until she was decommissioned at Subic Bay, Philippines 12 February 1946, earning four battle stars for the War.

Sold for scrap to a Chinese concern in Shanghai in 1947, Heron‘s ultimate fate is unknown but she may have lingered on as a trawler or coaster for some time or in some form.

As for the rest of her class, others also served heroically in the war with one, USS Vireo, picking up seven battle stars for her service as a fleet tug from Pearl Harbor to Midway to Guadalcanal and Okinawa. The Germans sank USS Partridge at Normandy and both Gannet and Redwing via torpedoes in the Atlantic. Most of the old birds remaining in U.S. service were scrapped in 1946-48 with the last on Uncle Sam’s list, Flamingo, sold for scrap in July 1953.

Some lived on as trawlers and one, USS Auk (AM-38) was sold to Venezuela in 1948, where she lasted until 1962 as the gunboat Felipe Larrazabal. After her decommissioning, she was not immediately scrapped and was reported afloat in a backwater channel as late as 1968. Her fate after that is not recorded but she was likely the last of the Lapwings.

For Heron‘s memory, the Navy passed on her name to two different mine countermeasures ships since WWII.

The first, the 136-foot USS Heron (MSC(O)-18/AMS-18/YMS-369), was renamed in 1947 and went on to win 8 battlestars in Korea before serving in the Japanese Self Defense Forces as JDS Nuwajima (MSC-657) until 1967.

The second and, as of now final, U.S. Navy ship with the historic name, USS Heron (MHC-52) was an Osprey-class coastal minehunter commissioned in 1994 and transferred while still in her prime to Greece in 2007 as Kalipso.

But that’s another story.

Specs:

Displacement: 950 tons FL (1918) 1,350 tons (1936)
Length: 187 feet 10 inches
Beam: 35 feet 6 inches
Draft: 9 feet 9 in
Propulsion: Two Babcock and Wilcox header boilers, one 1,400shp Harlan and Hollingsworth, vertical triple-expansion steam engine, one shaft.
Speed: 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph); 12~ by 1936.
Complement: 78 Officers and Enlisted as completed; Upto 85 by 1936
Armament: 2 × 3-inch/23 single mounts as commissioned
(1930)
2 x 3″/50 DP singles
4 Lewis guns
(1944)
2 x 3″/50 DP singles
Several 20mm Oerlikons and M2 12.7mm mounts

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Ghost of the Eastern Front: The lost M35 subgun

Posted on December 8, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

The Germans really loved submachine guns, adopting them in the last part of WWI and by WWII had masses of MP38 and MP40 room brooms in service. However, one design that has faded to the background of use is the Bergmann MP-35 and its variants.

Bergmann’s backstory

Theodor Bergmann, born in Bavaria in 1850, started a company to make bicycles and later early automobiles that bore his name in the factory town of Suhl.

Later, in 1893, his Bergmann Industriewerke started making semi-automatic handguns as a side business (Waffenbrink) that saw limited success. However, they sold better than his cars did and he sold that branch of his factory to a young man named Carl Benz (yes, of Mercedes-Benz).

In World War I, Bergmann himself designed a light machine gun, the MG 15nA, which saw limited service during the conflict and some later overseas sales.

The MG 15nA as used by the Danish military in the 1920s. Note the design of the barrel cooling fins as the follow-on M32/34/35 would mimic it.

However his company was best known for the 9mm Maschinenpistole Bergmann 18/1 (MP18) designed by the later-legendary Hugo Schmeisser towards the tail end of the conflict.

MP18

In April 1918, the Imperial German Army placed an order for 50,000 of the new firearm. Envisioned to equip six stosstruppen per infantry company fewer than 12,500 were produced before the end of the war of which only an estimated 70 percent of those ever made it to the Western front.

Bergmann’s first sub gun

It was the first practical production submachine gun to achieve widespread service with any country. While the German police kept a handful of these, most were turned over to the victorious Allies in 1919.

Unable to keep making these guns in Germany on account of the Versailles Treaty, Bergmann licensed production in Switzerland to SIG who produced an estimated 30,000 of the weapons in both 9x19mm, 7.63x 25 mm and 7.65x 21mm between the two world wars for Japan, Spain, Finland, China and a number of Latin American countries. Nationalist China, hungry for weapons to feed its Civil War, made unlicensed copies in its Jinan Arsenal in the 1920s.

When Hitler came to power in 1932, Germany started a quiet and then later very public rearmament and the Bergmann works in Suhl went back to work– although with a different design.

The MP35/I…

Recognize the barrel?

Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk

So much for turning the other cheek

Posted on December 4, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Reds of “Budyonny’s Cavalry Army” (Konarmia) the key Bolshevik fire brigade of the Russo-Polish War. Note the mix of French Adrian helmets, Cossack shapskas and Trotsky caps for headgear. Also note the Cossack at the left is wearing the 1909 pattern officer’s sam browne web gear to include a trench whistle near his left armpit. As pre-Civil War Cossack officers in the Konarmia were rare (Budenny himself had only been a senior NCO in the Imperial Dragoons) this officer is likely had an interesting tale– though notably he has ditched his shoulder boards. Then again he could just be a guy who found some web gear.

Sputnik, which is more or less a pro-Russian propaganda site masquerading as news, kind of Moscow’s Fox News if you will, actually has an interesting historical piece about the lost Bolshevik Red Army POWs from the 1919-21 Russo-Polish War.

Of course it bends to the East in slant, but honestly I have never read anything about this facet of that war before, so I found it a good read, especially as they tried to spin the Katyn Massacres of World War II as a sort of fair-play retaliation for what happened back in 1921. Whatever you have to tell yourself to get through the night…

During the Polish-Soviet war over 150,000 Soviet military servicemen became prisoners of war and were held in Polish POW camps. The camps were located in Strzalkowo, Pikulice, Wadowice, and Tuchola.

Professor Gennady F. Matveyev of Moscow State University carried out thorough research on the matter and published the book “Polskiy Plen” (“The Polish Captivity”) which sheds light on this controversial historical episode.

Citing Russian and Polish archival documents the professor underscores that Poland had captured up to 206,877 Red Army soldiers, while 60,000 to 83,500 died in captivity due to unbearable living conditions, poor nutrition, torture and disease.

More here

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of C. LeRoy Baldridge

Posted on November 22, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of C. LeRoy Baldridge

Born May 27, 1889 in Alton, New York, Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge was a gifted artist even as a youth. Accepted at age 10 as the youngest student at Frank Holme’s Chicago School of Illustration, he paid his way through the University of Chicago painting signs and selling sketches, graduating in 1911.

About that time he joined the Illinois National Guard as trooper in the Chicago Black Horse Troop, 1st Illinois Cavalry Regiment and, like all the other mounted units of the U.S. Army and reserves, was called up in 1916 and rushed to the border with Mexico following the attack on Columbus by Pancho Villa’s raiders. Once demobilized, he sought adventure in Europe and, as the U.S. wasn’t in the war just yet, enlisted as a medical orderly (stretcher bearer) with the French Army.

When the Americans did go “over there” Baldridge was able to transfer to the AEF but, instead of using him as a cavalryman or corpsman, Pershing used him as a member of the growing number of war correspondents. Roaming the Western Front embedded with the doughboys, he made hundreds of sketches from the front line. He even bumped into his old mates from the Illinois National Guard who had left their sabers behind as their regiment had been rechristened the 124th U.S. Field Artillery and saw the elephant at St. Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne and the Lorranie.

This immense body of sketches appeared back home in Leslie’s Weekly and Scribners while the troops he covered saw them in Stars and Stripes. He remained in Germany into 1919 with the army of occupation.

“Along the Rhine; To Make Sure He [Prussianism] Stays Down.” Illustration by Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge. The Stars and Stripes, December 13, 1918, p. 4, col. 4.

After the war, many were fleshed out for his first book, I Was There with the Yanks on the Western Front, Sketches, published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1919. The 340-page work is here for free.

An idealist who once said of war, “If only I can make the public see what war is – what a dirty, low thing it is, and how brutal it makes men, fine clean men – then they’d fight to the last ditch for the League of Nations,” Baldridge was a champion of peace in the 1920s and 30s, leading a small and controversial segment of the American Legion.

He co-founded and later led the New York-based Willard Straight Post of the American Legion who took what was seen then as a leftist and downright pacifist attitude towards war. The post was later investigated in the 1950s by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

During this time he roamed the Earth with his wife, producing hundreds of works for books and magazines alike, bring the world back to readers in the U.S. the way a camera never could.

During WWII he helped illustrate and produce a series of Pocket Guides to West Africa and Iran for the War Department as well as lending his brush to war loan art.

Once his beloved wife died in 1963, Baldridge began something of his own quiet decline.

The end of his career saw him in the desert, painting haunting landscapes in which people seem far off and in a dream. No more trenches. No more machine guns. Just high desert and adobe for as far as the eye can see.

One summer afternoon at his Santa Fe, New Mexico home in 1977, he ended his own life with a pistol he had been issued in World War I while “with the Yanks.”

His work is celebrated extensively by the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art, to which he made large contributions while smaller collections exisit at the Smithsonian, New Mexico Museum of Art, and Fisk University.

Baldridge’ old unit remains as the 106th Cavalry Squadron, part of the 33rd Brigade Combat Team of the Illinois Army National Guard.

Thank you for your work, sir. May you find peace.

The PPS Submachine Gun: The Leningrad typewriter

Posted on November 21, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

You are a 29-year old mechanical engineer and the city you live in, the second largest city in the country, is besieged by enemy troops. The defenders need a simple gun that can be made quickly but is still effective. You are Alex Sudayev, its 1941 Leningrad, and your solution is the PPS.

Born in battle

In 1941, the Soviet Red Army was the largest in the world but found itself far outclassed in terms of weapons, leadership, and tactics when Hitler launched his immense invasion of the Soviet Union in June of that year. Within weeks, the German Army Group North under Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb advanced to Leningrad and placed it effectively under a siege that would last some 900 grueling days. Civilians drafted right off the streets were augmenting the defenders of the city but they needed weapons faster than you could say bad borscht.

Alexey Ivanovich Sudayev at the time was an engineer working inside the city. Taking the PPSh-41 submachine gun design of firearms legend Georgi Shpagin, he reworked it. Whereas the 41 used a heavy, carved wooden stock, and required nearly 8-hours of machining per weapon, he produced a simplified blowback weapon that fired from an open bolt and could be made in just 2.7-hours, using half the raw steel as the PPSh-41, and best of all, no wood.

Dubbed the Pistolet-Pulemet Sudaeva model of 1942 (PPS-42), the gun was rushed into production locally.

Design

Sudaeva’s gun was a rough looking piece of work cut from a sheet of basic stamped steel and of blocky construction, with an upper and lower receiver that hinges open. Its bolt was simple and the cocking handle placed directly to it, reciprocating the whole time the full-auto only weapon fired. To keep the rattling of this open bolt from cracking the stamped steel receiver, a simple leather recoil buffer was installed.

Weighing in at 6.5-pounds, it was 35.7-inches long with its stock extended. With its folding metal stock collapsed atop the gun it was a very compact 25.2-inches long. A 10.7-inch barrel proved accurate enough for spraying Nazi storm troopers and was enclosed in a square barrel shroud with air holes for cooling. The gun used a 35-round detachable box magazine with a very slight banana curve to it to feed the weapon with 7.62x25mm Tokarev pistol cartridges at a rate of 600 per minute.

field stripping the pps is simple

The gun fieldstripped incredibly easy: dropping the hinged lower away from the upper and removing the bolt and spring, it could be taught in about 30 seconds. This made the gun perfect or issuing to a conscript that up until yesterday was a student, factory worker, or farmer. Give em a uniform, a PPS, and some bullets and send em to the front to fight the Fascist invaders. Of course, often the front could be just two blocks over, which made transport easy.

The Soviets loved the design and after some 45,000 of the PPS-42 were made, while a gently finished version, the PPS43 was put into more widespread production. The PPS-43 was about an inch shorter in all of the dimensions and used a chrome-lined barrel that was good for up to 20,000 rounds of corrosive ammo.

Use

The PPS became the standard sub gun of the late war Soviet Army. The gun was a good two pounds lighter than the PPSh-41, and almost a foot shorter, which made it a better fit for tank crews and vehicle drivers. Also, being cheaper, faster to build, and using fewer materials helped in its choice for adoption.

The pps was the soviets favorite sub gun in late World War Two

In possibly the most famous Soviet image of the war, a young Red Army soldier is seen raising a flag over the Reichstag during the Battle of Berlin in 1945—with a PPS slung over his back. The image is seen as the Russian version of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima and the PPS was there, front and center.

possibly the most famous image of a soviet soldier in wwii and he has a pps

Sadly, Sudaev died in 1946 just before his 34th birthday, and his gun was already being phased out in favor of the newly introduced AK-47. Like the PPS, it was simply made of steel stampings and later AKMS models carried a very similar folding stock. Even while the Soviets started to withdraw the gun from their service, they shipped machine tooling and expertise abroad to allies to help them make their own versions of the Leningrad typewriter. In Poland, it was put into production as the PPS wz.1943/1952 and continues being churned out by Radom to this day.

The pps lived on in asia as the type 54

In Red China, the PPS43 became the Type 54. GIs fighting in Korea encountered this dreaded Asian burp gun and also in Vietnam where it’s service spread for generations out over a 30-years. As such, these guns are still quite often seen in the hands of guerilla types and drug-runners throughout the jungles of South West Asia to this day.

If you watch enough footage from conflicts in the Third world, you will see the PPS popping up everywhere from the Ivory Coast to Thailand and everywhere in between. They are rusty and crusty, but they still work.

PPS in Africa

Fighters loyal to Ivory Coast presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara celebrate in the main city Abidjan, April 11, 2011. Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo was arrested by opposition forces on Monday after French troops closed in on the compound where the self-proclaimed president had been holed up in a bunker for the past week. REUTERS/Emmanuel Braun

A soldier of the United Nations Mission in Ivory Coast (MINUCI) inspects weapons handed in by soldiers of the New Forces (FN) on June 15, 2010 at the military camp of Korhogo during a ceremony where the former rebels started joining the army. AFP PHOTO / SIA KAMBOU (Photo credit should read SIA KAMBOU/AFP/Getty Images)

Collectability

The PPS43 is one of the great bargains today in terms of affordable surplus guns that are both historical and shootable.

These guns, crazy cheap on the surplus market, were imported off and on into the US Pre-1986 and a number of full-auto originals are floating around. They proved popular with Hollywood prop houses in the 1980s and 90s, with a handful being visually mocked up to resemble the more popular (and much more expensive) Heckler & Koch MP5. Other non-working models were mocked up for movies including the Mel Gibson Vietnam epic, We Were Soldiers and are available for collectors out there for under $400.

PPS dummy gun used in We Were Soldiers

Radom in Poland makes an almost perfect semi-auto pistol version of the PPS43 that is currently being imported. Dubbed the PPS43-C, it still has the 10-inch barrel and folding stock—but its tack is welded to keep it from being classified as a SBR.

New made ppsh43 PPS-43 pps subgun carbines semi auto

This is one of the few subguns that are still widely available in torched kit form for cheap. Sportsman’s Guide , MGS, Centerfire Systems, and others stock these for about $80, which makes the likely hood of a getting a kit and doing a reweld well within reach of the common hobbyist. Remember to keep your ATF regs in line, as you do not want to make an illegal machine gun. There are many pistol builds out there with new receivers and no buttstock as well as 16-inch barreled carbines made by Wiselite, and others.

It makes a great starting point for an under $600 SBR build as well.

Safety and known issues

The leather buffers on these guns are problematic and, while you can always create your own if the going gets tough, it may be wise to pick up several ‘OE’ models while you can and store them in a clean dry area for when the Germans come. Keep in mind these should be inspected and replaced every few hundred rounds or so. It’s a good idea to have enough buffers in stock to get you through the ammo you have on hand at least, so get in touch with your buffer math each time you buy ammo.

Speaking of bullets. Ammo used to be crazy cheap for these guns, running about $75 a case on the surplus market just a couple years ago, but today tends to go a little higher. There is still a good bit of Polish and Bulgarian bulk floating around for now. New made Sellier & Bellot production go for about .50 cents per round, which will keep you from burning through a whole lot.

No matter how many Germans are surrounding your city.

Weird but functional enough for 100+ years of service

Posted on November 20, 2015 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Ian from Forgotten Weapons takes a look at the curious inner workings of a Danish Madsen light machine gun. Its an oddball falling block action that originates from the gas lamp era. Oh, and the neat thing, is the gun he is looking at is was made in 1950. Yup, even with such designs as the MG42 and Browning M1919 out there, the Madsen was still in production that late.

More on the Madsen from an earlier article I wrote:

Designed in 1896 in Denmark, the Madsen Light Machinegun has served dozens of countries in more than a hundred years of warfare from 1904 to the present day.

The Madsen Light Machinegun was developed in 1896 in Denmark by Captain W. O. Madsen of the Danish artillery and adopted by the Danish Marines in 1897. Originally a sort of assault rifle it was perfected into the final design as a light machine gun in 1902.

It served with the Danish military for more than fifty years, only retiring in 1955. When Hitler’s Germany invaded the country on April 9, 1940 they fired to preserve Denmark’s honor in the Danish military’s hopeless one-day defense of their country. Ordered turned over to the Nazis these same weapons served Hitler throughout the Second World War. The odyssey of the Madsen Light Machine Gun however, is even more complex that this one chapter.

The Madsen Company early on won a large foreign contract to Denmark’s Baltic neighbor, Russia. Imperial Russia, rich with gold due to being a huge exporter of grain, but poor in industry, was forced to buy many of its most sophisticated weapons overseas. The Tsar, Nicholas II, was a son of a Danish princess, bought several items, including naval vessels (his own yacht, the Standart— officially an auxiliary cruiser– was Danish built) and small arms from non-aligned Denmark.

Bought in numbers by the Tsar for the military buildup in the Russian Far East, Madsen machine guns were used in 7.62x54r caliber by Cossack light cavalry in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Russian Madsens continued in active service and were seen often in World War One and in the subsequent Russian Civil War by dozens of end users.

The guns made an early appearance in Mexico’s series of civil wars, shown here in 1913 in the hands of military school cadets

Kaiser Wilhelm’s Imperial Germany also bought a number of Madsens from Denmark, chambered in 8mm Mauser. These weapons served alongside overly complicated Mexican Monodragon rifles in early German scout planes and balloons in the aerial war in World War One. Germany also created the first light machine gun units, called Musketen Battalions, based on the Madsen in 1915.

German soldiers with Madsen machine guns 1915

The Musketen Battalions carried as many as 150 of the weapons which provided an amazing suppressive fire capability. Latin America was a huge customer of the Madsen.

Soldiers, possibly Czechoslovak Legion, using a Madsen machine gun note french Adrian helmets

The new countries of Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, Poland, and Estonia, who emerged from the wreckage of that war, used captured stocks of those old Tsarist weapons into the opening stages of WWII against both German and Soviet invaders.

Countries as diverse as Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador bought the light machine gun in a multitude of calibers. They saw combat in the Chaco War (1932-1935) between Paraguay and Bolivia, and untold coups, insurgent operations and civil wars.

Short barreled Madsen light machine gun, a Danish manufactured weapon used in the 1930’s and 40’s in the Dutch West India Colonies

Portugal used the weapon in their wars in their African colonies of Mozambique and Angola and left enough behind there to ensure that they pop up all over the continent.

Two members of the 4th special hunter company manning a Madsen machine gun. By then somewhat of an antique, in 1970s Angola. Observe how the little pooch is completely unconcerned with the development.

When Denmark was liberated after World War II they began exporting the Madsen again and continued production of the slightly modified weapon as late as 1957. Dansk Industri Syndikat A.S. produced weapons as late as the 1970s. Their wares included the ubiquitous Madsen Light Machine gun, the Madsen model 50 submachine gun which was also very popular in Latin America and Africa, and a number of bolt action rifles that also saw service in such countries as Colombia and Bolivia.

They are still to be encountered in trouble spots around the world. The fact that no spare parts have been made for these weapons in over fifty years attests to the machine gun’s reliability. The Madsen was recently pictured in use with the Brazilian military police during battles with drug gangs in 2013.

Madsen still giving a strong showing with Brazilian special police in 2013

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laststandonzombieisland

Weapons, Wars, Preparation and Security from a recovering gun nut turned bad writer

Category Archives: World War One

One of the Kaiser’s boats no longer unaccounted for

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Twilight Zone Colt

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Ghost of the Eastern Front: The lost M35 subgun

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So much for turning the other cheek

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Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of C. LeRoy Baldridge

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The PPS Submachine Gun: The Leningrad typewriter

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Weird but functional enough for 100+ years of service

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Category Archives: World War One

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