Category Archives: World War Two

I say old boy, is that a Type 94?

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The British Army in Burma 1945: Soldiers examine a captured Japanese 37mm Type 94 anti-tank gun, January 1945. A U.S.-marked Bren carrier fitted with deep wading screens passes by in the background.

No 9 Army Film & Photographic Unit, Wackett, Frederick (Sergeant) http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205205185 Copyright: © IWM.

Per TM-E 30-480: Handbook on Japanese Military Forces, Technical Manual, U.S. War Department, October 1, 1944, via Lone Sentry:

Model 94 (1934) 37-mm gun. (1) General description. This weapon (fig. 212) is referred to by the Japanese as the “Infantry rapid fire gun.” It is an infantry close support weapon firing both high explosive and armor piercing high explosive ammunition. It has a semiautomatic, horizontal, sliding type breechblock. When the shell is loaded, the rear of the cartridge case trips a catch that closes the breechblock. Recoil action of firing opens the breech and extracts the cartridge case. Sighting is by a straight telescopic sight. This weapon has marked on the barrel the following [94 model 37-mm gun] which reads “94 model 37-mm gun.”

Characteristics.Caliber 37-mm (1.46 inch).
Length (over-all in traveling position) 114 inches.
Width (over-all in traveling position) 47 inches.
Weight 714 pounds.
Traverse 1,062 mils (60°).
Elevation +480 mils (27°).
Maximum range 5,000 yards.
Muzzle velocity (armor piercing ammunition) 2,300 feet per second.

Jacks and Enfields, 73 years ago today

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13 Sept 1945- Royal Navy landing party complete with Brodie helmets and Enfield rifles head for shore at Hong Kong from the Illustrious-class aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable (background) to guard key points as British forces move in to conduct surrender of Japanese.

Commissioned 10 October 1941, the 30,000-ton Indomitable was supposed to be dispatched to the Far East to support Force Orange, the ill-fated HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse at Singapore, but didn’t make it to the Pacific in time to help either the battlewagons or the colony.

She did, however, provide yeoman service in the Mediterranean before heading back to settle scores against the Japanese in early 1944, fighting at Palembang and Okinawa. She was the flagship of Rear Admiral C H J Harcourt, CB, CBE, when he sailed into Victoria Bay in the above image.

Indomitable went to the breakers in 1955.

Bring back the plywood (?)

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CAPT. Edmund Hernandez, current chair of the Joint Military Operations Department at the U.S. Naval War College, has an interesting take on upping Naval numbers and capability by way of rebooting an old idea: the Mosquito Fleet.

PT Boats and Zeros Painting, Oil on Canvas; by Griffith Baily Coale; 1942; Unframed Dimensions 10H X 20W Accession #: 88-188-AF On the brightly colored waters of the lagoon, the PT’s are skimming about, darting here dodging there, maneuvering between the rows of machine gun splashes, incessantly firing their twin pairs 50 caliber guns.

From his piece in Proceedings this month

Today’s PT boat should be outfitted with the traditional array of .50 caliber machine-guns, 40 mm cannons, rockets, mortars, smoke generator, and radar. But the torpedo would be replaced by the modern anti-ship missile, one simple to employ and able to “fire and forget.” Ultimately, as in World War II, experimentation is required to find the right mix of weapons systems to meet modern mission requirements.

Of course, the age of the small missile-armed fast attack craft (FAC) really peaked around the 1960s-70s but was quickly killed by the antidote that was small seagoing missile-armed helicopters such as the Lynx/Sea Skua, Panther/AS.15TT, and Seahawk/Penguin combinations. For reference, just ask Saddam how well his FACs did in Desert Storm against a handful of Royal Navy aircrews. Lynx from HMS Cardiff, HMS Gloucester, HMS London, and HMS Manchester, armed with Sea Skua missiles, sank or disabled 15 Iraqi patrol craft, from the relatively immune range of 5 miles.

Anyway, interesting take, if they could add some air defense, but then again if you do, these crafts start looking more like corvettes.

From WWII tug to fish habitat

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Recently, BCT, CCA South Carolina and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources completed the first of three projects aimed at expanding and enhancing offshore reef habitat in the Palmetto State. The decommissioned tugboat General Oglethorpe was deployed some 30 miles off the coast of Charleston in approximately 100 feet of water, “creating vital new fisheries habitat and establishing additional recreational angling opportunities for fishermen.”

Oglethorpe was a WWII vet, built in 1943, by Ira S. Bushey and Son Inc. of Brooklyn, New York (hull #529) as USCGC Ojibwa (WYT-97) for the U.S. Coast Guard, going on to serve on escort and search and rescue duty in the North Atlantic Area until the end of the war.

After 1954, she served in the 9th USCG District on the Great Lakes for most of her Coast Guard career, stationed in Buffalo.

As noted by CG-Tugs: “These were the Apalachee-class which added additional ice resistance and ice-breaking features (for their intended duty in the Greenland Theater) as well as firefighting monitors, to the earlier designs. Thus there were 17 of these hearty 110-footers, the last of which served until 1989, a span of half a century.”

Decommissioned in 1980 after 37 years in federal service, she worked commercially until the state of South Carolina inherited her last year.

According to the below from CCA, she is back on the job in a different sense.

Do you know the names of BB-59’s Turret Three’s guns?

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The 16-inch guns on the USS Massachusetts were used to plaster enemy ships and troops during World War II and her caretakers are looking for help uncovering their lost history.

Commissioned in 1942, “Big Mamie” earned an impressive 11 Battle Stars during the War the hard way. Her mighty 16-inch/45cal guns (that’s a bore 16-inches wide and a barrel tube 45 calibers, or 720-inches long) silenced the Vichy French battleship Jean Bart in Morocco, then bombarded  Kwajalein, Iwo Jima, the Philippines and even the Japanese Home Islands. In fact, she wore her guns down to the point that they had to be relined at least once during the war.

Decommissioned in 1947, she has been on display at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts, since 1965, where museum officials are hard at work figuring out the lost names to three of her big guns. You see, the trio in Turret One, towards the bow of the ship, are named after women, (Clara, Jeannie, and Lydia) while the guns in Turret Two are named after historic U.S. Navy ships lost in the opening battles of the war (Arizona, Utah, and Vincennes). As for the guns in Turret Three, pointing over Big Mamie’s stern? That’s where the public comes in.

“Looking for some help on Turret Three’s gun names,” the museum posted on social media last week. “Maybe some photos or first-hand accounts of them from the former crewmembers.”

For example, inside Turret One:

“Clara,” one of the guns in Turret One, was recently inspected to make sure her protective coating was intact. As every gun owner knows, you have to keep them cleaned and lubricated.

A look inside the breech. Not bad considering she hasn’t fired a shell since Truman was in office

“Lydia,” another Turret One gun. Note the huge breechblock open to the bottom of the image

Currently, the museum knows that the T3 tubes were all made at the U.S. Naval Gun Factory in 1941 and have very close numbers (#301, 303, and 304) which likely meant they were all “born” at close to the same time. While the nicknames are likely still there, they have been long ago covered by generations of paint.

In the meantime, the busy work of keeping an aging floating steel warship in a harsh salt-water environment continues no stop.

What the museum knows about the ship’s main battery

 

Last-ditch gun for a last-ditch force

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“The Volkssturm” Painting by Franz Kleinmayer, showing the typical makeup and arms of the doomed militia.

The Volkssturm, or “people’s storm” was the bottom of the barrel home guard mobilized in the final days of WWII Germany to fight off the rapidly approaching Allies. The force used the country’s seedcorn– boys as young as 16– mixed with those too old, infirm or crippled to have passed muster before, into a force armed largely with whatever could be found. Most units got nothing but obsolete rifles impounded in conquered lands mixed with quantities of the disposable Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon.

One gun, rarely seen and largely unsuccessful, was the 7.62x33mm Rheinmetall Volkssturm Carbine. Matt with The Armourer’s Bench covers the gun in the form of a remake of the prototype.

Then, of course, there was the VG-5, VG-2, and VG1-5, covered by Ian with Forgotten Weapons.

 

Get your CMP 1911 order forms in the mail TODAY

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The government-chartered non-profit will begin accepting orders in a one-month window spanning between Sept. 4 and Oct. 4 only for the 8,000 vintage handguns they have in stock. Packets postmarked outside those dates will not be accepted.

The day after the window closes, all of the qualifying names will be fed into a Random Number Generator and CMP staffers will start making calls. A similar random draw was used in part to sell a small quantity of M1 Carbines the group put up for grabs in 2016.

The seven-page packet, split between forms and instructions, requires a signed copy of an FFL for where the gun will be shipped. Other requirements include showing proof that the individual is an adult U.S. citizen legally able to possess firearms. There is also a mandate to prove membership in a CMP-affiliated organization and, for those under 60, proof of marksmanship-related activity. The latter can be satisfied with items such as a copy of a concealed carry permit, military service records or proof of participation in a shooting competition.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Brass and cold efficiency

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A Vickers machine gun clinometer sight Mark III, marked Marked No. 53

Note the adjustment for depression and elevation as well as the spirit level.

Manufactured in 1918 by Troughton & Simms, such sights were used to find the angle of elevation on sustained-fire water-cooled machine guns popular from the Boer War through the 1960s.

 

Vickers machine gun emplacement in a sangar, North West Frontier Province between the wars. The pouches on the back on the No. 2 (with his hand up) are for clinometer and the foresight bar deflector – seldom seen in the field. The headdress of British Indian troops was normally the khaki puggaree which varied by the soldier’s religion–Muslims with a pointed kullah skullcap inside the puggaree and Sikhs with a more open version that allowed their uncut hair to remain in a bun atop their head, while most Hindu troops wore a simple turban. Photo via British Empire Uniforms 1939-45.

The concept was used by all sides with such guns. Below is a 1914-ish German Spandau crew in a defilade position ready to hose down attackers from comparative safety, via clinometer.

The first sword in the Home Islands, 73 years ago today

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And it was to a UDT guy!

LCDR Edward Porter Clayton, USN, (center, back to camera) Commanding Officer of Underwater Demolition Team 21, receiving the first sword surrendered to an American force in the Japanese Home Islands:

Courtesy of Mr. Robert A. Winters, Mine Advisory Committee, National Academy of Sciences, 1970. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 71599

The surrender was made by a Japanese Army Coast Artillery Major (standing opposite LCdr. Clayton) at Futtsu-misaki, across Tokyo Bay from Yokosuka Navy Base on 28 August 1945. Members of UDT-21 had landed from the converted destroyer escort USS Burke (APD-65), whose boats are beached in this view.

The donor provided identifications of many of the other UDT-21 members present. Those to the left of LCdr. Clayton include (from left to right, in the first boat except as noted): Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class William P. Griffis; E.W. Pangburn; J.E. Paul; R. Rice; Seaman 1st Class A.L. Vadenburg (standing on beach in swim gear); Gunner’s Mate 1st Class Robert Lee Wicall (kneeling, in white shirt); Gunner’s Mate 2st Class Robert A. Winters (standing, behind Wicall); Seaman 1st Class Frank P. Goodwill (standing, beside Winters); Radio Technician 2nd Class L. Wurzel (kneeling, beside Wicall); Motor Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class O’Brien; Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Philip Masters (in white shirt, at bow of boat); Others identified, to right of LCdr. Clayton, include: Motor Machinist’s Mate 1st Class Myron Earl Townsend (in second boat, only head & shoulders visible, just to right of Japanese Major); Coxwain Shirley Cox and Gunner’s Mate 1st Class E.G. Chesney (left to right, in swim gear, standing on beach just to right of group of Japanese in center).

As for USS Burke, she decommissoned 22 June 1949 and, after two decades in mothballs, transferred to Colombia as the ARC Almirante Brión (DT-07), where she served until 1974. ATB Little Creek-based UDT-21 went on to serve in Korea and Vietnam and was disbanded in 1983, absorbed into the SEALs.

The stumpy Schneider

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Around the 1900s, the French firm of Schneider-Creusot, or Schneider et Cie, or simply just Schneider, was a steam-era industrial powerhouse. Starting off with locomotives and the Creusot steam hammer generation before, the company soon branched out into munition with their small and medium-caliber Canet guns for French-built warships and the famous “French 75,” the Canon de 75 modèle 1897, which would be the staple field gun of the coming Great War for her country.

By the 1910s, the company was regularly making bigger guns in 107, 120, 122, 152 and 155mm respectively, with guns and mortars of up to 280mm on the drawing board. Following a substantial contract for stubby 152mm howitzers to the Tsar in 1909 (with the local Putilov firm making them through 1919 in Eastern Europe), Schneider reworked the mount to take a 155mm bore tube and shopped it to the home team who adopted it in 1915. The aptly named Canon de 155 C modèle 1915 Schneider became the standard heavy howitzer of the French Army, who kept it in service through the Vichy era and sold spares to Allies in Belgium and Portugal.

Speaking of Allies, when the U.S. entered the war and went heavily into French and British weaponry (the main rifle of the AEF was the British-contract P14 Enfield modified for 30.06, while the principal LMG was the French Chauchat for better or worse and the primary field gun was the French 75 backed up by the French GPF), the U.S. dutifully ordered 155mm Schneiders as well.

The M1917/M1918 Schneider gun used by the U.S. was an interrupted-screw breech, 155mm bore, 13.4-caliber, built-up nickel steel cannon on a two different carriages with the first model (made in France) having a curved shield and metal tires coupled to a continuous-pull firing mechanism while the latter (U.S.-made variant) used a straight shield and pneumatic tires with a firing lock mechanism. In each variant, the total weight was about 7,600-pounds.

A total of 3,008 were bought or built with U.S. guns made under license by the American Brake Shoe Co. on carriages by Osgood-Bradley Car, using recoil mechanisms made in Detroit by Dodge.

Canon de 155 C modèle 1917 (Schneider et Cie); the curved shield and metal tires indicate that this was taken in 1918 (in France). The American produced model, 155mm Howitzer Carriage, Model 1918 (with straight shields and rubber tires) didn’t make it into action before the end of the war. The cannon cockers are wearing the M1909 holster for M1917 .45 revolver.

The last American shot fired during the Great War was fired by a 155mm Schneider howitzer called Calamity Jane, of the 11th Field Artillery Regiment.

WWI, 1918 – The French-made artillery piece, nicknamed “Calamity Jane,” operated by a crew from the US 11th Artillery Brigade, that fired the last shot of the war for the Allies near Laneuville sur Meuse, France, November 11, 1918.

The guns, especially the M1918s, remained popular interwar.

SGT James B. Aets uses a quadrant to determine the elevation of the 155mm Howitzer M1918, while CPL Charles J. Hines sights on the aiming stake. Circa 1930s. Note the straight shield and rubber combat tires of the U.S.-built model. Photo courtesy the National Archives

Another photo of the 11th FA, taken in 1936 while the unit was located in Hawaii. These artillerymen are armed with M1911 pistols carried in M1916 holsters.

1941- Troops of Battery “B”, 77th Field Artillery, man a camouflaged 155mm “Schneider” howitzer during maneuvers in Louisiana.

The M1917/1918s were used extensively in WWII by both the Army and Marines (as well as Allies in Australia and the PPhilippines) who appreciated the compact howitzers for use in island hopping during which their 7-mile range was not a handicap.

An M1918 155mm howitzer is fired by artillery crewmen of the 11th Marines in support of ground forces attacking the enemy, Guadalcanal, 1942. Despite the lack of sound-flash equipment to locate hostile artillery. Col del Valle’s guns were able to quiet enemy fire. Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 61534

Below is a surviving example I ran across outside of a VFW in Wetumpka, Alabama.

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