Category Archives: World War Two

Why hello there, ELCO

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Lt. John F. Kennedy’s PT-59, photographed in an unspecified location near Vella Lavella and Choiseul, played a key role in the diversionary mission at Choiseul Island in early November 1943. Note the shielded 40mm Bofors on her stern and broadside .50-cals. (John F. Kennedy Library)

In case you haven’t seen it, USS PT-59, an S-Class (ELCO) Patrol Torpedo boat originally intended for Lend-Lease to the British in World War II (as PTC-27) she was instead placed in U.S. service.

Deployed to the Solomons with MTBRon 3(2) in 1943, the 77-foot PT boat in 1943 landed her torpedoes and gained an all-gun armament including two 40mm guns (fore and aft singles) and no less than 10 M2 .50 cal machine guns, used to help stop the regular “Tokyo Express” at Guadalcanal.

One of her skippers was a young JFK after he was recovered from the much more famous PT-109.

While Kennedy’s life is well-chronicled, PT-59, reclassified as C102584, was transported back to the Motor Torpedo Boat Training Base in Rhode Island in late 1944. Used for tests at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, she was sold in 1947 on the private market and, after a mixed career, sank at a pier adjacent to the 207th Street railroad bridge in Harlem following a fire around 1976.

Now, what is left of her wreck (she was of wooden construction after all) has been identified and is being raised by MTA crews.

Historians at the Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts, home of the USS Massachusetts (BB-59) and the National PT Boat Memorial and Museum, are assisting with the efforts to preserve what is left.

From the Museum:

Battleship Cove was contacted by NY MTA regarding the possible salvaging of a PT boat. We sent a team of volunteers to identify and remove items from PT-59s remains to save as much as we could for display and preservation in our extensive PT Boat exhibit. For the most part, all that remained of PT-59 in 2020 was the very lower portions of the engine room and lazarette areas. Some of the wood even at this lower level presents burn marks from the fire.

The enclosed circle in red shows the main sections of the boat that we have recovered for preservation. It is only a small section of the 77′ boat but also an original section as she was built.

We are still working on this project with more hull section recovery planned.

We feel this completely volunteer-led project is worthwhile. To save historic items from a very early combat veteran PT Boat is of great importance. Add to it that President JFK turned the helm to move the rudders and shafts that are being recovered is a bonus for history.

To donate to the effort, click here. 

Lighting Up the Cagayan Valley, 75 Years Ago

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Here we see an M1 (M114) 155mm howitzer firing in the Cagayan Valley, some 75 years ago today.

Original Signal Corps Number: SWPA-SigC-45-19514. Photographer: T/5 Jime Harvey NARA 111-SC-209341

Original Caption: “Jap(anese) are pounded hourly by harassing fire from 155mm Howitzers of Battery C – 80th Field Artillery Battalion on the night of June 22nd in the Cagayan Valley, Northern Luzon, Philippine Islands, 6th Army.”

Commanded for most of the campaign by Prussian-born Gen. Walter Krueger– who emigrated to the U.S. with his family at age eight and later fought in the Philippines in the 1900s as a private in the 12th INF Rgt — the U.S. 6th Army would slug it out across Northern Luzon against Lt. Gen. Tomoyuku Yamashita’s 14th Area Army until after the official surrender in Tokyo.

In this push, the U.S. was aided by elements American-supported Filipino soldiers including several divisions of reorganized guerrillas– who received fires support from U.S. air and artillery assets.

Happy Father’s Day, Gentlemen

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“His seven sons hoist father Clarence F. Patten, F1c, USN, into the air, onboard USS NEVADA (BB-36), following his enlistment into the Navy, 9 September 1941. Present are (left-right): Myrne, Ray, Allen, father, Bruce, Gilbert, Marvin, and Clarence, Jr. All were members of NEVADA’s crew.”

NH 45468

Notably, the above happy image was in peacetime and less than three months away from the Infamous Day that brought lasting sadness to Battleship Row.

Nevada, the only dreadnought to get underway during the Pearl Harbor attack on 7 December and ended the morning run aground on the Navy Yard side of the channel off Hospital Point, just south of Ford Island, lost 57 officers and men of her 1,500 man crew that day and over 100 more were wounded.

Amazingly, the list of the fallen that day does not contain a single “Patten.”

Hold your family close, gentlemen.

Catching Flak

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U.S Navy and Air Force tactical aircraft operating over North Vietnam in the early stages of the involvement in the South East Asian conflict in the mid-to-late 1960s faced an ever-increasing array of Soviet/Chicom-supplied air defenses ranging from eyeball-guided 12.7mm Dshk guns to the latest S75/SA-2 SAMs manned under the eye of Western experts and everything in between.

Some young aircrews even had to brave weapons their forerunners had to dodge over Western Europe in 1942-45. Specifically, among the Communist military aid delivered to Hanoi was at least 70 former German Luftwaffe/Wehrmacht 88mm Flugabwehrkanone delivered to the NVA in the mid-1950s from Moscow.

The Flaks were withdrawn in the late 1960s as the supply of ammo, out of production since 1945, dwindled. However, if you told me there was a warehouse full of these around Hanoi, perfectly preserved, I would not be surprised.

The big 88s were delivered alongside boatloads of MG42 machine guns, Kar98K Mausers, MP40 submachine guns, and Walther P-38 pistols, which came with millions of rounds of 7.92mm and 9mm ammo, all complete with funny little dirty bird markings.

For American forces facing VC irregulars and NVA regulars on the ground, 1965 seemed a lot like 1945 in some ways, with former vintage Soviet, Japanese, and French small arms often captured in secondary amounts when compared to Warsaw Pact-supplied German trophies from WWII.

A lot of former German guns captured in the hands of VC in Vietnam showed signs of being arsenal re-worked and assembled post-1945 from several different firearms and parts, such as this MP40.

New-made Chinese Type 56 AKs didn’t become the standard until the war matured.

A Close Look at a Shinyo

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Just three Japanese Shinyo (Sea Quake) suicide boats are in existence today. One is in the collection of the Australian War Memorial, where it has been since the end of the war.

“A Japanese Shinyo suicide launch which was captured by the crew of the Bathurst-class corvette/minesweeper HMAS Deloraine (J232/M232), brought back to Australia and presented to the Australian War Memorial. Six of the 24 captured boats were in operational readiness. This image is from the collection of Lieutenant Paul Merrick (Mick) Dexter, who enlisted in the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RANV) in 1943, and was a watchkeeper and anti-submarine specialist on Corvettes between 1944 and 1946. He continued to serve in the RANV after the Second World War, resigning his commission in 1964.”

From AWM:

Japanese suicide launch (Shinyo). Plywood hulled vessel over frames, with a rear open-topped compartment for a single pilot. Powered by a Chevrolet straight 6 cylinder engine housed in the central compartment. Painted emerald green above the waterline and red below. The original Japanese pea-green paint survives below more modern paint coats. The missing steering wheel and some controls.

“This launch was recovered by HMAS Deloraine at Sandakan Harbour, British North Borneo, during the period of the occupation of that area by Australian Naval & Military Forces in October 1945. It was one of six that were in an immediate state of operational readiness complete with petrol, out of a total of thirty discovered. An opportunity of using this type of craft in the area was never presented. There was a further eighteen similar craft in different states of repair. This launch was used by sailors from the Deloraine as a ski boat on Sandakan Harbour. It returned to Australia with the Deloraine in late 1945 and was presented to the Australian War Memorial.

Construction of these boats began in 1943. The boats were designed to be one-man suicide craft armed with a 300kg charge of TNT. By the end of the war, about 6,000 had been produced, most of them built of wood but a few built from steel. Most of these boats were deployed around the Philippine Islands and the Japanese Home Islands and hidden until they could be of use. Because of their green color, they were referred to as ‘frogs’ by Japanese troops. The launch when transferred to HMAS Deloraine was painted to conform to the ship’s color scheme, but the correct colors should be dark olive green with red below the waterline.”

To further detail how the Dexter boat got back to the AWM, check out the below radio (podcast) interview, which is very informative.

Be sure to recycle

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Outside of Moscow, reportedly on the location of one of the principal stavkas of the 1941 defense of the city from the German invasion, now stands the so-called Main Cathedral of Russian Armed Forces.

Built by popular subscription (with lots of help from the military and government) the immense Eastern Orthodox church is a living, breathing memory to the Russian (not Soviet) effort against Hitler in the Great Patriotic War. Opened over the weekend in a 3 hour-long ceremony attended by much brass to include the Minister of Defense, the facility is half WWII shrine/half church

Of interest, the giant steel doors to the cathedral include a fallen German eagle at the feet of very un-Soviet-like traditional Russian martial patron saints and is reportedly cast from metal that includes recycled German panzer treads, armor, and road wheels.

Going a step further, the steps and walkway into the door are made from reclaimed steel drawn from crates of German MP40s, Walther P-38s, and MG42s, a small part of the 3 million former Wehrmacht arms taken back to the Motherland in 1945.

If a part of you that is interested in collecting vintage WWII guns screamed out into the night, have no fear, as the Russians still have warehouses full of the stuff and they reportedly just melted down the low-end of their stock for the cathedral.

A video of part of the arms holdings still on hand in Vladimir, outside of Moscow, is below.

20mm Burglary Tool

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In 1965, Canadian criminal Joel Singer, a 22-year old member of the Montreal-based West End Gang syndicate, stole two WWII-era Lahti L39s 20mm anti-tank guns and 200 rounds of ammunition from a Plattsburg, New York gun dealer.

This thing

Singer and four other gang members later used one of these guns in a dramatic late-night burglary when they broke into the vault of the Brinks facility in Syracuse, New York. The Boombeast–equipped with a drum-sized improvised suppressor made from an oil drum filled with steel wool and rubber shavings, then dampened with a wet mattress– cracked open the bank vault after a hail of 33-rounds of AP, allowing the gang to flee with nearly a half mil in cash.

Oh my

Singer was the 221th person to be added to the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List on November 19, 1965. He spent two weeks at large before authorities captured him and sent him up the river. Singer later suffered PTSD during the Attica prison riots in 1971 and was released just after on account of this. This 20mm bandit took his own life in 1973 at age 29. In the end, just $166 of the nearly $425,000 taken was recovered.

The use of a 20mm cannon in a robbery was never tried again after this incident. The Brinks job incidentally was the central plot device in a later 1970s Clint Eastwood film “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” but an unsuppressed US Navy surplus Oerlikon cannon (in puny 20x128mm caliber) was substituted for the Finnish hardware.

Of course, these things have a heck of a kick.

Keeping ’em clean

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Here we see an image, taken 8 February 1945 in the woods near Echternach, Luxembourg, showing very muddy Soldiers of 3rd Battalion, 417th Regiment, 75th Infantry Division (“Bulge Busters”), cleaning their M1 Garands and M1918A2 BAR “before moving up to the line.”

L to R: Pvt. Dom Bocci: 379 Boyleston St., Newton Centre, Mass.; Pvt. Russell J. Sacriol, (?) 151 Canterbury St., Worcester, Mass.; Pvt. John Ducharme, Glover Road, Millbury, Mass. Signal Corps image 111-SC-364288 via the LOC

The shot reminds me greatly of a Willie & Joe cartoon from the redoubtable Bill Mauldin, an artist who cut his teeth as a teenager in the 45th Infantry Division in 1940 and knew a thing or three about what he drew.

Why, hello there, Mr. Browning

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The below NATO image shows the Hellenic Navy Elli-class (Dutch Kortenaer-class) frigate Adrias (F-459) in a passing exercise Italian Carlo Bergamini-class (FREMM-class) frigate Virginio Fasan (F591) northwest of Crete, on 3 June.

Of note, the Greek tin can has a WWII-era Browning M1919 light machine gun mounted just off the bridge wing.

Notably, the Greeks used U.S.-supplied M1919 after World War II, chambered in good ole .30-06 Springfield, alongside M1 Garands.

The “light” M1919A6 was 32.5 to 35 pounds depending on setup…but it was better than either the previously-issued Benet Mercie or the Chauchat. The model installed on the Greek frigate looks like pintle mounted M1919A4 models

The Greek Army largely replaced both with 7.62 NATO battle rifles (a blend of FN FALs, HK G3s, and M14s) and similarly-chambered GPMGs (FN MAG 58, MG3, M60) in the 1970s.

However, it looks like the old air-cooled .30-caliber Browning is still around in the Navy.

Don’t hold your breath for more great wreck finds from R/V Petrel

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In the past few years, the research vessel R/V Petrel has been combing the Pacific to find and document the most famous lost warships of WWII. This included the carriers USS Hornet, Wasp, and Lexington as well as the mighty USS Indianapolis and the first destroyer to fire a shot at Pearl Harbor, USS Ward. Added to this were the Japanese Asagumo, Fuso, Michishio, Yamagumo, and Yamashiro along with the doomed carriers Kaga and Akagi.

Well, that long series of discoveries is hitting the pause button, if not the full-stop.

From the vessel’s social media:

The impact of the COVID-19 crisis has changed the world for the long term in ways that we never could have imagined.

As a result of operational challenges from the pandemic, R/V Petrel will be placed into long-term moorage and she will not be deployed for the foreseeable future.

We were tasked with a monumental mission – discover, educate, and honor – and we’re hopeful we will eventually be back in service.

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