Earlier in the week, I had a post about Royal Tiger’s recent– albeit highly-priced– score of arguably collectible Korean War-era M2 .30-cal ball ammo, i.e. Garand, M1919, and BAR food.
“Each crate of ammunition contains 1200 rounds of WWII era .45 ACP. Each crate contains 2 sealed metal tins, each tin contains 12 boxes of ammunition with 50 rounds per box. The ammunition is like new, crate condition is generally good to very good. The crate may have dings, dents, scratches, or small cracks in the wood. Metal tins are sealed from the factory.”
Sadly, it is also even higher priced than the .30-06, hitting the shopping cart at well over $2 a round (plus $23 shipping!) for just a 50-round box. Spam can and full crate sizes aren’t much cheaper per cap.
Sure, range-grade ammo right now is going for .45 cents a round, and this USGI stuff is not really for shooting but more for putting in a display case with your vintage M1911A1, but it still seems outrageously priced.
As my buddy, Vic Fayard says, “Of course, it is up to you guys to judge if the juice is worth the squeeze. We are just reporting it.”
Here we see, proudly flying her Tricolor, the Free French Navy’s (FNFL) croiseur auxiliaire/Q-ship Cap des Palmes while off Mare Island, California, 21 July 1944. Seen above in her most powerful final form as a fighting ship, her war was already largely over.
Built by Helsingör Vaerft (Burmeister & Wain) in Denmark, she was designed from the keel up as a partially refrigerated “bananier” fruit carrier, ordered by the French shipping firm, Compagnie Fraissinet.
Compagnie Fraissinet – Navire Bananier Cap des Palmes
The 2,900-ton (4,200 full-load) freighter, some 330-feet in overall length, was capable of sustaining 17 knots for a 10,000-mile voyage– fast enough to get a load of bananas from French Equatorial Africa to Europe in less than a week, without stopping, then head back as soon as she was unloaded. Her specialty was a twice-a-month Libreville to Algiers/Marseilles run.
War!
This speed and range, in 1939, made her ideal for conversion to a fast troop carrier/auxiliary cruiser, and she was taken up from trade that year by the French Navy, requisitioned in Libreville. Her initial conversion amounted to a fast coat of grey paint, the addition of some codebooks and an extra radio, and two elderly 90mm/50 cal Mle1877 De Bang pattern field guns on M1916 carriages. Strapped down fore and aft of the wheelhouse, each gun had but 24 shells. A pair of 13.2mm machine guns were also added.
Used to escort coastwise and South Atlantic convoys until the Fall of France, she was in European waters when the Republic made peace with the Axis in June 1940. She was dispatched by the Vichy government to carry troops from Dakar in Senegal to Libreville in Gabon along with the submarine Ponceletin in September 1940 to beef up security in that colony (and help disperse French naval assets even further out of German reach). Locked into that latter port by an Allied blockade, the armed freighter was boarded by marins from the 800-ton Free French aviso (sloop) Commandant Dominé (A15) in November and was captured without a fight, by what seems to be a mutual agreement.
Joining De Gaulle
Call to action for the FNFL
One of the larger vessels under the 4,500-strong FNFL’s control (besides the disarmed old battleships Paris and Courbet), De Gaul and company sought to have Cap Des Palmes upgraded and up-armed by the British, who didn’t have time and space for such foolishness.
Dispatched to the Pacific, where the French colonies of Polynesia and New Caledonia had declared for De Gaulle and whose officials were concerned about an increasingly aggressive Japan, she cruised through the Caribbean and the Panama Canal in July-August 1941, accompanied by the 900-ton minesweeping sloop (avisos dragueur de mines) Chevreuil (A10).
These two ships, in addition to the cruiser submarine Surcourf, which was lost on the way to the Far East, and the “super destroyer” (which the FNFL referred to as a light cruiser) Le Triomphant, were the only Free French warships in the Pacific at the time. Notably, Le Triomphant would be recalled to the Atlantic by 1943 after spending most of 1942 being essentially rebuilt in Australia, leaving Cap Des Palmes and the little Chevreuil holding the bag.
Cap Des Palmes was the first FNFL ship to reach the New Caledonian port of Noumea, arriving there on 5 November 1941 with a team of De Gaullist officers aboard. It was a big boost for the locals, a sign they hadn’t been forgotten. For example, before the vessel arrived, the port’s main garrison consisted of just 30 French soldiers besides local troops.
November 5, 1941, Cap des Palmes arrived in Noumea
Bigger, stronger, better…
Once in the Pacific, the British had made some sort of half-hearted promise to upgrade Cap Des Palmes at Singapore, but she spent the rest of 1941 shuttling military supplies, troops, and workers between the French Pacific colonies, New Hebrides, and Australia. Meanwhile, once Japan entered the war in December, Singapore soon fell and the little French banana boat never did get her Royal Navy overhaul. The closest she got was a quick refit in Australia, which saw depth charges and more machine guns added.
Recognizing the change in the winds of war, Cap Des Palmes was briefly turned into a prison ship, transporting over 300 Japanese citizens who were found in the French colonies to Australia post-Pearl Harbor.
The vessel was then very active throughout 1942 in a series of yeoman services, used on a regular Nouma to Sydney run supporting Allied interests. In addition, she was used to installing coastwatcher assets throughout the islands– men whose work would become vital with the Japanese push into the Solomons and New Guinea.
In November 1942, she was sent to Mare Island for a refit and conversion to a Q-ship with her profile changed to mimic a Soviet freighter.
The Free-French “cargo ship” Cap des Palmes of the cie. de Nav Fraissinet, Marseilles, at San Francisco, California. About 1942. Note that you can see at least six skyward 20mm AAA guns. She also had several larger guns and six torpedo tubes hidden by false bulkheads and crates. NH 89860
She picked up a new radio set, a pair of 6″/50 (15.2 cm) Mark 6/8s leftover from the 1900s, as well as two 3″/50s, eight Oerlikons, six 21-inch torpedo tubes (in twin 3-tube launchers), and well as four depth charge throwers. She was also fitted with seaplane support facilities, although she never carried one. To her crew were added a U.S. Navy technical team consisting of an officer, four petty officers, and four sailors, who “all spoke French, being of Canadian origin or Acadian.”
She also had been given new accommodations for her 140-man crew, with an account saying, “The interior fittings for the crew have been completely modified, making the facilities very comfortable. The hammocks had been replaced by berths, refectories, and canteens were installed, and the Cap des Palmes was the first ship in the French Navy to be equipped with individual meal trays.”
At Suva, we fueled the French cruiser Cap des Palmes, which we were supposed to meet, and she escorted us up the coast. She had nothing but 20-millimeter guns visible. However, her foredeck, which was built up to look like lifeboats and rafts, concealed cleverly disguised 6-inch guns. On closer inspection, we also found that more ‘lifeboats’ on her afterdeck were 6-inch guns.
Operational from April 1943 onward, she worked on the periphery of the U.S. Third Fleet in the South Pacific around Guadalcanal, frequently part of Task Unit 35-1-8, and, on 16 May 1943, she is believed by some to have sunk a Japanese submarine although this was never officially vetted by post-war commissions. The engagement consisted of seven depth charges tossed on a persistent sonar contact, roughly at 17° 34 South and 169° West, about midway between Samoa and Fiji. Certainly not very convincing, but a possible engagement.
The only Japanese submarine reported missing around the time and in the area Cap Des Palmes was active, RO-102, believed lost somewhere Southeast of New Guinea– several hundred miles away. That boat’s end is listed by the scholars over at Combined Fleet as follows:
RO-102 is often listed as lost in action against PT-150 and PT-152 off Lae on 13/14 May 1943. In reality, the PT-boats’ adversary was I-6, who survived the encounter. Some sources confuse her with I-18, sunk by USS Fletcher (DD-445) off San Cristobal on 11 February 1943. The circumstances surrounding the loss of RO-102 remain unknown.
On 2 June 1943, the Imperial Japanese Navy declared Ro-102 to be presumed lost south of Rabi, with all 42 men on board, and struck her name from their Navy List the next month. Her wreck has thus far never been found.
In August, Cap Des Palms again engaged a suspected submarine, at 21° 40 South and 164° 08 East, then worked in conjunction with aircraft to bird-dog (but didn’t get any hits on) what later turned out to be IJN I-17, sunk on 19 August 1943 by HMNZS Tui (T234) and American Kingfisher float-planes of VS-57.
Nonetheless, our banana boat survived her time in some of the hairiest parts of the Pacific in 1943, typically sailing alone, and was sent back to Mare Island in April 1944 for a further update.
She emerged in July with a snazzy new camo scheme, a surface search radar, and yet another different profile.
French ship Cap Des Palmes, broadside, port, while off Mare Island, California, 21 July 1944. 19-LCM-70555.
Bow-on view, same day. 19-LCM-70558
French ship Cap Des Palmes, stern view, while at Mare Island, California, 21 July 1944. 19-LCM-70559.
In May 1945, it was decided to send Cap des Palmes back home for a refit at Brest, in preparation for the big push against Japan. Her cruise home found her stopping at Sydney, Melbourne, Freemantle, Tamatave (Madagascar), Diego Suarez, Aden, Suez, and Port Said, arriving in Saint-Nazaire three weeks after VJ-Day.
From 8 August 1941 to 26 September 1945, Cap des Palmes was underway for 984 days under FNFL’s banner and was recommended for the Ordre de la Division by VADM Lemonnier, Chief of the General Staff of the Navy.
Still under naval orders, she returned to the Pacific and, from 13 February to 15 March 1946, Cap des Palmes sailed from Toulon to Saigon as a troopship, carrying troops to fight in Indochina, then made the return trip to Toulon, arriving there in June.
She was disarmed, stripped of her military equipment, and returned to her owners on 19 July.
Epilogue
The U.S. National Archives has a few documents from the wartime service of Cap Des Palmes, mostly from her stints at Mare Island.
The French Navy, meanwhile, has maintained an enduring series of guard boats, patrol ships, and surveillance frigates in the Pacific, including one stationed in Noumea itself, since WWII.
Sold by Fraissinet to the Compagnie Maritime de Navigation Fruitièr(which still exists), she was renamed Banfora in 1957, later transferring to a Moroccan registry under the same name.
Banora
While shipping a load of oranges from Africa to West Germany, she sprang a leak and sank under tow off Spain’s Cape Villano, 17 November 1965. A total loss, her crew was saved.
She is, however, remembered in a variety of maritime art.
The ex-banana boat Cap Des Palmes, arrives in Nouméa Harbor, On 5 November 1941, the first Free French vessel to arrive in the isolated colony. By Roberto Lunardo
Another by Roberto Lunardo, showing her wartime colors
Specs:
Displacement: 2983 grt (Lloyds) over 4,150 as a cruiser Length: 330 feet Beam: 44 feet Draft: 17 feet Propulsion: 1 x 9 cyl. B&W 2SCSA diesel engine, 4500shp, 3 Auxiliaries of 450 HP, 1 shaft, 1 screw, cruiser stern Speed: 18 knots maximum (decreased to 14.5 during the war) Merchant crew: ~36 Wartime complement (FNFL): 2 officers, 20 petty officers, 120 quartermasters, and sailors. Armarment: (1940) 2 x 1 – 90mm field guns 2 x 1 – 13.2mm MGs
(after 1942) 2 x 1 – 152/50 Mark 6/8 (ex USN) 2 x 1 – 3″/50 (ex USN) 8 x 1 – 20/70 Oerlikon (ex USN) 2 x 3 – 533 TT (ex USN) 4 DCT
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Gators, We are proud to report Progress. As we move towards 3D computer and physical clay modeling, this is a rendition of what our Memorial will look like. The color of the waves over the reef and Gators is accurate. The bronze waves and bronze Gators will color like this – it’s called patina. The content and images on the memorial wall will be refined as we close on completion. Many opportunities for units or eras to fund an inscription. As we refine the details of the memorial, we will seek input from those who donated – no matter the amount. 3D modeling is a huge step forward. We need all hands in to accomplish this mission. assaultamphibianmemorial.com
Historic Norfolk Navy Yard Film Collection, Serial #11-19, courtesy of Marcus W. Robbins, via Hampton Roads Naval Museum.
Here we see the brand spanking Gleaves-class destroyer USS Herndon (DD-638) entering the Elizabeth River at Norfolk Naval Shipyard some 80 years ago this week on the occasion of her launching.
Herndon’s launching program, via “Lucky Herndon.com.” Why was she so lucky? We’ll get to that.
The Gleaves class is an unsung group of some 62 destroyers who began construction pre-WWII and completed into the first stage of the war. With the huge building of the follow-on Fletcher– and Sumner-class destroyers, the Gleaves are often forgotten. What should never be forgotten is the sacrifice these ships made, with no less than 11 of the class lost during WWII.
Slight ships of just 2,395 tons, and 348-feet of steel hull, they were packed with a turbine-powered 50K shp plant that gave them a theoretical speed of over 37 knots and a 6,500-mile range at an economical 12 knot cruising speed for convoy or patrol work. Armed with as many as five 5″/38 DP mounts, up to 10 torpedo tubes, ASW gear, and AAW batteries, they were ready for almost anything and could float in as little as 13 feet of seawater, able to get inshore when needed.
Herndon was named for 19th-century sea-going hero and explorer, CDR William Lewis Herndon. Born in 1813 and admitted to Annapolis as a 15-year-old Mid, he was both cousin and brother-in-law to Matthew Fontaine Maury, the “Father of Modern Oceanography and Naval Meteorology,” and as such participated in a lot of the Navy’s charting work as a young officer. Hailed for his performance of the brig Iris during the war with Mexico, Herndon later led a two-year expedition to the Valley of the Amazon, traveling over 4,000 miles in the process and penning a 414-page report of the area, one of the first works detailing its biodiversity. Given leave while still on the navy’s rolls in 1855, he was the skipper of the ill-fated SS Central America, which went down in a heavy gale off Cape Hatteras 7 September 1857. A prominent chapter in maritime lore, Central America was one of the noted instances of “women and children” loaded into lifeboats as the men stood stoically by and went to the bottom. Herndon was last seen standing by his doomed ship’s wheelhouse as it went down.
He was honored posthumously with a monument at Annapolis, was the father-in-law of future President Chester A. Arthur, the towns of Herndon, Virginia, and Herndon, Pennsylvania, were named for him, and the Navy issued his name to two destroyers, No. 198 (which went on to become HMS Churchill after the bases-for-destroyers deal and was sunk by a U-boat in the White Sea in 1945) and the subject of our Warship Wednesday, the latter was sponsored at her 1942 launching by Miss Lucy Herndon Crockett, great-grandniece of the late CDR Herndon.
In this image, she is sitting on the destroyer ways at the yard, preparing for her launch on 5 Feb 1942. Next to her is the battleship Alabama (BB 60) on the main ways, she would be launched two weeks later.
Commissioned 20 December 1942, CDR (later RADM) Granville A. Moore (USNA 1927) in command, Herndon was ready to get in the war.
USS Herndon (DD-638) in March 1943. 80-G-45379
Husky
Post-shakedown, Herndon escorted a convoy from New York to Casablanca, returning to New York on 14 May 1943 escorting a tanker.
Sailing from Norfolk on 8 June, she reached Algiers on 24 June and prepared for a key role in the Sicilian campaign, Operation Husky. There, she covered the landings of Maj, Gen. Troy Middleton’s 45th (Thunderbird) Infantry Division, traded blows with shore batteries and was heavily involved in defending the cruiser USS Philadelphia (CL-41) from a series of air wild raids from German aircraft while off Palermo.
Sketches of air attacks USS Herndon 7.31.43 8.1.43, From her reports, now in the NARA. Note that these were all inside about 36 hours
Remarkably, neither our destroyer nor Philadelphia was seriously damaged in Husky. Luck example #1.
Overlord
Following her stint in the barrel off Sicily, Herndon was pulled back to the British Isles and spent nine months crisscrossing the Atlantic from New York to various British ports, shepherding troopships headed to Europe. The greyhound was no doubt a welcome sight for the GIs aboard those vessels.
Dispatched to “Bald-headed Row” off Omaha Beach, she was part of Fire Support Unit Four (Task Unit 125.8.4), consisting of the destroyers Hobson, Corry, Shubrick, and Fitch. Assigned to NGFS Station No. 4 for the landings, Herndon faced the guns just east of the Carentan Estuary and was with the first assault wave to enter the fray off Omaha on D-Day. Her targets included No. 42 (an infantry position with three pillboxes, one casemate, one anti-tank gun, two shelters, and two 150mm guns in open emplacements), a tough nut for the Dog landing area.
Opening fire at 0550 on June 6, 1944, some 40 minutes before H-hour, Herndon dumped 212 rounds of 5-inch in just 40 minutes. She followed this up with two further fire missions before 0735, firing 42 and 53 rounds respectively, silencing the German batteries.
During the support, she was just 6,000 yards off the beach at Grandcamp le Bains, steaming at 5 knots, with splashes from shore batteries falling as close as 600 yards, although leaving the ship unharmed. Others were not so lucky and sister ship USS Corry (DD-463) was sunk within sight of Herndon, the tin can ripped apart by 8-inch shells in her engineering spaces amidships that left jagged foot-wide holes in the deck.
Her report from that day is stunning:
Tom Wolf, an NEA war correspondent who bunked with Cronkite during their time in Europe, was aboard Herndon for D-Day writing, “They call her ‘Lucky Herndon.’ This is the destroyer which led the Allied naval armada in the assault on Fortress Europe. Such were the risks that her sisterships were betting 10 to 1 against Herndon’s coming out whole.”
Wolf’s Lucky Herndon article, via Lucky Herndon.com.
Assigned next to screen the battlewagons USS Texas and USS Nevada along the “Dixie Line,” German E-boat and U-boat attacks were a fear and, while part of that screen, sistership USS Nelson (DD-623), had her stern and No. 4 mount blown off by a torpedo on 13 June. Remaining part of the line through the 19th, Herndon had a brief pause until her next landings.
Dragoon & FDR
Herndon was part of the joint task group (TG 88.2) screening carriers on 15 August when the invasion of southern France, Operation Dragoon, was begun. Acting as plane guard for the British baby flattops HMS Hunter and HMS Stalker on D-Day, she did not have as eventful a time off the Riveria as she did off Palermo and Normandy. She remained in the Med as a convoy escort into October. Again, her luck held.
As detailed by DANFS:
Returning to the States 12 November, she conducted battle exercises in Casco Bay and escorted convoys along the Atlantic coast through February 1945. In that month. Herndon escorted President Roosevelt on the first leg of his historic voyage to Yalta.
Then came the End Game
On to the Pacific!
The veteran destroyer and her crew passed through the Panama Canal on 28 April 1945, just over a week away from VE-Day, and arrived at San Diego on 15 May where she once again clocked in as a carrier plane guard, this time in U.S. waters. Herndon sailed to Eniwetok on 12 July and, no doubt gratefully for her crew, spent the next month escorting convoys between relatively quiet Eniwetok, Guam, and Saipan.
VJ-Day found her as part of DESRON 16 assigned to Task Group 10.3 anchored at Buckner Bay, Okinawa where she was soon sent, acting as an escort to the cruiser USS Louisville (CA-28) to ride out a typhoon at sea.
By 7 September, with the seas calmed, Louisville and Herndon were dispatched to the port of Dairen (Dalian) in Manchuria’s Liaodong peninsula, to help supervise the evacuation of Allied POWs in the area. Arriving there on the morning of 11 September, then a week later headed across to the old treaty port of Tsingtao to accept the surrender of Japanese naval assets in the area, consisting of about a dozen escorts and merchantmen in various conditions.
At 1445 on 16 September IJN VADM Kaneko and the Japanese surrender party came aboard Herndon, followed a half-hour later by RADM Thomas Greenhow Williams “Tex” Settle (USNA 1918), an aviation pioneer of some renown, who had his flag aboard Louisville. By 1540, the unconditional surrender document was signed, ending the Japanese occupation of Tsingtao that had been a reality since the emperor’s troops captured it from the Germans in 1914.
Rear Admiral T.G.W. Settle, USN, left, looks on while Vice Admiral Kaneko, IJN, signs document of surrender turning over 12 Japanese ships to U.S. control: 6 DD and AM and 6 merchantmen. The ceremony took place on the forecastle of USS HERNDON (DD-638) at Tsingtao, China, on 16 September 1945. Description: Courtesy of Vice-Admiral T.G.W. Settle, USN ret., 1975 Catalog #: NH 82027
Transferring prize crews, Louisville and Herndon got underway on 22 September with the most intact of the surrendered ships, the Momi-class second-rate destroyers Kuri and Hasu, Subchasers No. 23 and 38, Minesweeper No. 21, and the freighter Shonan Maru, then escorted the little Japanese flotilla to Incheon (Jinsen), Korea, where they would be demilitarized.
Herndon would spend the remainder of 1945 patrolling the Korean and China coasts and assisting the repatriation of Japanese soldiers and the movement of Chinese Nationalist troops.
On 5 December 1945 she was tasked to become a “Magic Carpet” vessel, picking up returning Veterans from Shanghai, Eniwetok, Okinawa, and Pearl Harbor, and arriving at San Diego two days after Christmas. Arriving at New York on 15 January 1946, she was decommissioned on 8 May and entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, first at Philadelphia, then at Orange, Texas.
She never was hit even though she fought in the Med, Atlantic, and Pacific, including supporting all three large amphibious landings in Europe.
Epilogue
Herndon received three battle stars for World War II service. Stricken from the Navy List in June 1971, she was expended in a naval weapons test off Florida on 24 May 1973. The remainder of her class suffered similar fates, and none are preserved as museums.
Before her sinking, parts of the ship including her wheel, the rudder indicator, and the ship’s bell, were removed and loaned in the 1980s to the Herndon (Virginia) Historical Society by the U.S. Navy.
They are currently on display in the town’s Depot Museum and additional donated artifacts include flags, photographs, shell casings, muster rolls, and an anchor log. Also, note the display of CDR Herndon.
Historical Documentary of the first ship to approach the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and the trip of the Herndon High School Marching Band to honor it on the 75th anniversary, in 2019:
Speaking of D-Day, her skipper during Husky and Overlord, CDR Granville Alexander Moore, earned a silver star for that latter operation, retired from the Navy as a rear admiral in 1957 while Chief of Staff at the Navy War College. Teaching at the Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Pete for 13 years, he died there in 1983.
Meanwhile, the 21-foot tall Herndon Oblisk at Annapolis, dedicated to our destroyer’s namesake, remains the focus of the annual “plebes-no-more” ceremony, where first-year cadets race to climb the top and place a dixie cup on its pinnacle.
“Plebes,” or freshmen, from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Class of 2010 celebrate after conquering the annual Herndon Climb. This event symbolizes the successful completion of the midshipmen’s freshman year. The plebes must use teamwork, strategy, and communication to climb to the top of the 21-foot obelisk and replace the traditional “plebe” cover with a midshipman’s cover. Midshipman 4th Class Jamie Schrock, from Detroit, reached the top in 1:32:42. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Christopher Lussier
Specs:
(As-built) Displacement: 1,630 tons Length: 348 ft 3 in Beam: 36 ft 1 in Draft: 13 ft 2 in Propulsion: four boilers; two Allis Chalmers Turbines, 50,000 shp, two propellers Speed: 37.4 knots Range: 6,500 nautical miles at 12 kt Complement: 208 designed. Wartime: 16 officers, 260 enlisted Armament: 4 × 5 in/38 cal guns (1 deleted in 1945) 4 x 40mm Bofors in two twin mounts. 7 x 20mm Oerlikon in single mounts. Torpedo Tubes: 5 x 21-inch in one quintuple mount (deleted in 1945) ASW: 2 racks for 600-lb. charges; 6 “K”-gun projectors for 300-lb. charges, three Mousetrap devices.
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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.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, 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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On 10 August 1944, Lt. John “Jumping Jack” Singlaub parachuted behind German lines with Jedburgh teams to work with the French Resistance Maquis groups that had swelled the resistance ranks after the D-Day invasion. His loadout of a folding M1A1, Denison smock, and S&W Victory is often shown.
His induction as a Distinguished Member of the Special Force Regiment contains the “acknowledged” parts of his jacket:
Major General John Singlaub was born July 10, 1921, in Independence, California. He attended the University of California at Los Angeles, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. During his studies, he completed Reserve Officer Training Corps and was commissioned as an Infantry officer in the U.S. Army in 1943.
He served in World War II with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as a member of Jedburgh team JAMES inserted into southern France as part of the landings in Southern France (Dragoon) and the subsequent push across France into Germany. He then went to China to join OSS Detachment 404 to train and lead Chinese guerrillas against the Japanese. Just before the Japanese surrender, he led a parachute rescue mission behind enemy lines to Hainan Island which resulted in the surrender of an enemy Prisoner of War camp and the subsequent release of 400 Allied prisoners.
MG Singlaub’s assignments include commanding officer, 1st Battle Group, 16th Infantry, 8th Infantry Division, Europe; chief, Training Division and later deputy assistant chief of staff, G-3, Headquarters, 7th Army, Europe; assistant chief, Force Development Plans Division, Plans and Operations Directorate, Washington, D.C.; chief of the Special Operations Group, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; assistant division commander, 8th Infantry Division, Europe; chief of staff, Project MASSTER, Fort Hood, Texas; deputy chief of staff for personnel, U.S. Army, Washington, D.C.; deputy assistant secretary of defense, Washington D.C.; commanding general, U.S. Army Readiness Region IX, Denver, Colo.; chief of staff, 8th U.S. Army, United Nations Command, U.S. Forces, Korea; commanding general, U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Ga.
MG Singlaub’s military education includes the Infantry officer basic and advanced courses, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the Air War College.
MG Singlaub’s decorations and awards include two Distinguished Service Medals, the Silver Star, two Legion of Merits, two Bronze Stars, the Soldier’s Medal, two Purple Hearts, two Bronze Star Medals, the Air Medal, the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, the Master Parachutist Badge and the Army Aviation Badge.
MG Singlaub retired after 35 years of active uniformed service on June 1, 1978, but, remained very active in more clandestine affairs throughout the 1980s, just ask the Contras.
Here is a great two-hour interview with MG Singlaub from 2013.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to “W. Bradley Bauhof, Esq.” for the MG Singlaub Museum Fund, W. Bradley Bauhof law offices, 2333 Baltimore Blvd, Finksburg, MD 21048
A Celebration of Life service will be held 1:00PM Saturday, February 5, 2022 at Generations Church, 408 Church St, Franklin, TN 37064. A reception will follow from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Historic County Courthouse on the public square, 305 Main St, Franklin, TN 37064.
Here we see something of an ugly duckling, the Royal Australian Navy’s seaplane carrier HMAS Albatross in Hobart around 1930 with five of her six early Supermarine Seagull amphibians aloft. She is considered by many to be the first aircraft carrier of the RAN, sparking a tradition that endures almost a century later.
Purpose-built for her role at the Cockatoo Docks, she was the size of a small cruiser, weighing some 7,000-tons (full load) on a 444-foot long steel hull. She was the largest ship built in dominion at the time. Powered by a quartet of Yarrow boilers driving a pair of Parsons steam turbines, she could make 22.5 knots which was reasonably fast for the age. She carried four QF 4.7-inch Mk VIII naval guns with two forward and two over her stern as well as a variety of Vickers 40mm pom-poms and .303-caliber machine guns, equivalent to a decently armed destroyer.
However, her primary purpose and armament was her airwing of up to nine (six active, three stowed in reserve) floatplanes or amphibians. These would augment and support the RAN’s two planned new Kent (County) class heavy cruisers, HMAS Australia (I84/D84/C01) and HMAS Canberra (I33/D33), who would also carry the same type of catapult-launched/crane recovered seaplanes as Albatross. In fact, it was felt that Albatross could operate in conjunction with those two cruisers in the Pacific, with the seaplane carrier forward deploying to anticipated areas in advance of the more capable surface ships to screen their operations with her aircraft. Besides, her cruise speed was the same rate as the warships.
Her aviation facilities included safe stowage of 9,967 gallons of avgas– enough for at least 80 sorties for the planned floatplanes she would carry– a large forward hangar space, a centerline black powder catapult that launched over the bow, and two (later three) large cranes capable of lifting aircraft aboard.
The 1931 Jane’s entry for Albatross.
She was a much-updated revised design of the first seaplane/aircraft carrier, the Great War-era HMS Ark Royal.
Albatross, the only Australian warship ever named for the large and iconic seabird, was laid down in 1926 and commissioned on 23 January 1929.
The launch of the Royal Australian Navy’s first seaplane carrier HMAS Albatross on 23 February 1928 at Cockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney. Australian National Maritime Museum’s Samuel J. Hood Studio collection. Object no. 00035168
It was originally thought Albatross would carry and operate RAN’s fleet of six Fairey 111D seaplanes, which they had received starting in 1921. One was awarded the Britannia Trophy in 1924 by the Royal Aero Club for circumnavigating Australia in 44 days.
The Fairey III could carry up to 500 pounds of bombs as well as two .303 guns. When used in a pure recon role, sans bombs, they had a 1,500-mile range on 123 gals of gas, which was long legged for the 1920s. Here are IIIFs floatplanes of No. 47 Squadron on the Blue Nile at Khartoum before departing for a series of exploratory flights over Southern Sudan on 8 July 1930. The aircraft pictured are J9796, J9809, and J9802. RAF MOD Image 45163722
However, the Supermarine Seagull III, an amphibian design by Reginald Joseph Mitchell— father of the Spitfire– superseded the Fairy floatplane before Albatross entered the fleet, with nine of the flying boats delivered by 1927. Able to remain aloft for five-hour patrols, the Seagull III was the direct antecedent of the Walrus (Seagull V), one of the best amphibians of WWII.
A total of nine of these aircraft were delivered to the RAAF 101 Fleet Cooperation Flight, who worked closely with the RAN. Of the nine, two were wrecked in (separate) storms whilst at mooring, one crashed after entering a spin during a gunnery spotting exercise (fatal) and six survived for eventual retirement.
Six Seagulls were attached to HMAS Albatross in 1929, but their low freeboard and relatively low powered engine gave poor performance at sea, including the ability to only operate in relatively low sea states.
Wings folded, a Seagull Mk III is lowered onto the foredeck of “Australia’s first aircraft carrier,” the seaplane carrier HMAS Albatross, RAN 1929-1938. Notes on photo: HMAS CERBERUS Museum. It has been kindly made available to the Unofficial RAN Centenary 1911-2011 photo stream courtesy of the Curator, Warrant Officer Martin Grogan RANR. The photo also appears in Topmill Pty Ltd book ‘Aircraft Carriers and Squadrons of the Royal Australian Navy [Topmill, Sydney] edited by Johnathan Nally, p8; also, in Ross Guillett’s book ‘Wings Across the Sea [Aerospace Publications, Canberra 1988] p33.
A great image showing much detail of Albatross’s amidships as she lifts a Seagull Mk III aboard. Note the Naval Number 0 five-cross flag flying, and her two deck guns sandwiched among her cranes. Image via State Library of NSW
A Seagull III amphibian moored in calm water via FAAA
Note the 4.7-inch guns, which surely proved a hassle to plane operations. Nonetheless, she would use them for NGFS at Normandy.
Although she never operated with more than nine aircraft, measurements of her hangar deck allowed for as many as 14 folded Seagulls.
Albatross’s RAN career was not lengthy, with LCDR Geoffrey B Mason RN (Rtd)’s Naval History Homepage detailing that she completed trials and workups in 1929 to include embarking the Governor-General and wife for a visit to the Australian Mandated Territories in the Pacific then completed a series of local deployments. The next couple of years were spent in a cycle of winter cruises to the New Guinea area, spring cruises in coastal Australian waters, and various fleet exercises.
HMAS Albatross seen at the fleet exercise area in Hervey Bay, Queensland, “we think this image may have been taken around 1931.” Photo: Collection of the late CPO Bill Westwood, courtesy John Westwood, RANR 1965-1967.
HMAS Albatross craning an amphibian aboard.
HMAS Albatross maneuvering away from Garden Island dockyard (RAN image)
HMAS Albatross. State Library of Victoria – Allan C. Green collection
She was a very beamy ship
Two Supermarine Seagull III amphibians taxi near HMAS Albatross at Hervey Bay, QLD. (RAN image)
In April 1933, her Seagulls were disembarked, and the vessel was reduced to reserve status, used occasionally to tend visiting seaplanes. While in reserve in 1936 she was briefly reactivated for the installation and testing of a new catapult then returned to storage.
In 1937, the Australian government brokered a deal to swap the still very young and low-mileage Albatross to the British Admiralty in partial payment for the recently completed Leander-class light cruiser HMS Apollo, soon to be the HMAS Hobart (D63). The cruiser arrived in Australia at the end of 1938– and went on to earn eight battle honors for her WWII service: “Mediterranean 1941”, “Indian Ocean 1941”, “Coral Sea 1942”, “Savo Island 1942”, “Guadalcanal 1942”, “Pacific 1942–45”, “East Indies 1940”, and “Borneo 1945,” while Albatross, recommissioned 19 April 1938, waved goodbye to Sydney for the last time that July.
HMAS Albatross about 1938, likely on her way to England. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland
Meet HMS Albatross
Arriving at Portsmouth in September 1938, Albatross was paid off by the Australians and officially transferred to the Royal Navy, a force that promptly put her in reserve with a wartime mission being to provide air surveillance with a force of Walrus amphibians. Her reserve time would be short, as she was fully manned and commissioned as HMS Albatross in June 1939 on the lead-up to Hitler marching into Poland.
Outfitted with six (later nine) Walruses of 710 Naval Air Squadron, she was dispatched in September 1939 to West Africa with a homeport at Freetown– along with visits to Bathurst in the Gambia and French naval base at Dakar– tasked with searching for German blockade runners, U-boats, and commerce raiders plying the South Atlantic.
Artwork, Supermarine Walrus MKI RN FAA 710NAS 9F HMS Albatross W2771. Note the Walrus was a pusher type rather than the Seagull III’s tractor type, and had an enclosed cabin.
When France fell in June 1940, Albatross carried Jutland veteran RADM George Hamilton D’Oyly Lyon (CiC Africa Station) to Dakar to try and negotiate the neutralization of the French Fleet there, and her aircraft shadowed the incomplete but still dangerous battleship, Richelieu.
Except for a brief refit in Mobile, Alabama, Albatross would maintain her quiet Freetown outpost station for 31 months until, fresh from her Dixie overhaul, she was assigned to the East Indies Station in May 1942 for trade defense against the Japanese and long-ranging German and Italian raiders/submarines.
Notably, she detached one of her planes at Trinidad (Supermarine Walrus W2738 9A ‘Audrey III’), designated 710 NAS ‘Y’ Flight, which proceeded to the Falklands to provide that island chain its sole air defense/patrol asset for the first part of 1942 against the (remote) possibility of a Japanese naval assault on the windswept South Atlantic colony.
After sailing around the Cape of Good Hope with convoy WS18– and dodging Axis minefields– she was soon part of South African-born RADM Edward Syfret’s Force H for Operation(s) Ironclad/Stream Line Jane, the seizure of the Vichy French colony of Mayotte, the port of Diego-Suarez, and the island of Madagascar, where the Japanese hoped to base long-ranging Kaidai-type submarines.
The extended Madagascar operation was a sideshow, historically significant as it was the first British amphibious assault since the disastrous landings in the Dardanelles in 1915. During the seven-month campaign, Albatross provided care and feeding for her pack of 710 NAS Walruses used in ASW patrols against Japanese RADM Noboru Ishizaki’s 8th Submarine Squadron and five locally-based Vichy subs as Syfret had the large the aircraft carriers HMS Illustrious and HMS Indomitable— equipped with a mix of Martlets, Albacores, and Swordfish– for heavy lifting and to cover the landings themselves.
Embarrassingly, the old battleship HMS Ramillies was heavily damaged while in the “protected” Diego-Suarez harbor at the end of May after Japanese midget submarines, launched from IJN I-16 and I-20, penetrated the layered defenses.
USN ONI image of Albatross 1942 with a CVS (carrier, anti-submarine) designation
Post-Madagascar, Albatross would continue her Indian Ocean service as a headquarters and combined operations training ship at Bombay until July 1943 when, as the Japanese threat to the region had receded, she was sent back to European waters. The Walruses of 710 Squadron were put ashore at Kilindini and ferried to Nairobi before the ship sailed without aircraft, the squadron disbanding at RNAS Lee-on-Solent soon after arrival.
Arriving at Devonport in September, Albatross was paid off for conversion from a seaplane tender to a floating repair ship, a change that included the removal of her catapult and forward main armament while her hangar space was converted to workshops. As she would be sent in harm’s way still, a Type 286 air search radar was fitted as was a half dozen Oerlikons.
Assigned to Force S for the upcoming Operation Neptune, the RN’s support of the D-Day landings at Normandy, she was part of the huge invasion fleet on 6 June 1944 on “The Longest Day.” Her role would be to help install and tend the Gooseberry 5 (Sword Beach) breakwater while plying her repair services there for small craft.
She had a busy month, as noted by Mason, logging an air attack from a German Me109, taking shore fire that killed one rating, providing naval gunfire support and AAA defense of the anchorage, surviving the infamously fierce gale of 19 June, and saving 79 craft from total loss while enabling 132 others to resume service off the beachhead.
By July, Albatross was given a short break to resupply and was then back at it, working repairs off Juno Beach. There, in the pre-dawn darkness of 11 August, she was hit by a new type of German long-range/low-speed circling torpedo– a G7e/TIIID Dackel (dachshund) fired by S-boats (S79, S97, and S177 engaged in the attack, with 10 torpedos fired) of out of Le Harve that killed 66 men and left her with a 15-degree list.
Towed to Portsmouth by a “Free Dutch” salvage tug, Albatross spent most of the remainder of the war under repair with the eye to keep her around as a minesweeper tender. However, as the conflict soon wound down, on 3 August 1945 she was paid off to the reserve and laid up at the Isle of Wright.
Post War career
Placed on the Disposal List in 1946, she was sold to the South Western Steam Navigation Company for continued merchant use. Initially named SS Pride of Torquay in line with a plan to convert her to a floating casino by the Chatham Dockyards, in October 1948 she was bought at auction by the Greek-owned China Hellenic Lines, and she soon became SS Hellenic Prince, ostensibly to recognize the birth of Prince Charles in November, himself the son of Greek nobility, WWII-naval veteran Prince Phillip. Her bread and butter would be to carry World War II refugees to new lives abroad.
The completed 6.558 GRT (Gross Registered Tons) SS Hellenic Prince was certainly no luxury liner, was able to accommodate up 1,200 persons in 200 cabins and dormitories with up to 20 persons, as well some eight and some 4 bunk cabins all having the most basic of facilities, yet all accommodations were fully air-conditioned. The spacious Dining Room seated 560 persons and this venue at certain times also was used as a lounge area, for there were no formal lounges, but there were two Cinemas for entertainment. In the three bays of her hangar deck there were three separate Hospitals – one for men, one for women, and an isolation Ward for sick children who would most likely have come out of one of the concentration camps of post-war Europe.
SS Hellenic Prince (former HMAS Albatross), in rough condition, between 1949 and 1951. State Library of Victoria.
Sold to a British Ship-breaker in 1954, ex-HMAS/HMS Albatross was broken up in Hong Kong where she arrived in tow on 12th August 1954. As far as I can tell, there is little that remains of her in terms of relics.
A Portuguese sister?
Portuguese Navy Capt. Artur de Sacadura Freire Cabral was famed for the first flight across the South Atlantic Ocean in 1922– a 5,200nm trip from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro that took 79 days to log 62 hours of flight time! His aircraft was dubbed Lusitania, a Fairey III-D seaplane specifically outfitted for the journey and, if you remember, the same type of aircraft the Australians intended to operate from HMAS Albatross.
Portugal this month celebrated the centennial of that feat.
Sadly, Cabral would disappear two years later while flying over the foggy English Channel and never be recovered.
In a salute to him, the Portuguese Navy in 1931 planned the acquisition of a seaplane tender based on Albatross to be constructed at an Italian yard. To be built at Cantieri Riunii dell Adriatico at Trieste as part of an extensive naval shipbuilding program, funding was never realized and all we have is the 1931 Jane’s entry for the vessel.
Sacadura Cabral, based on HMAS Albatross, per Janes.
Epilogue
Albatross is remembered in Australia via a variety of maritime art.
HMAS Albatross operating her Sea Gull III amphibian aircraft. Painting by Phil Belbin. (RAN Naval Heritage Collection)
HMAS Albatross watercolor by John Alcott. AWM ART28074
The Royal Australian Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, including four squadrons of helicopters (723, 725, 808, and 816) along with one of UAVs (822X Squadron), and the Fleet Air Arm Museum, are located at a shore establishment near Nowra, New South Wales. The base, originally formed in 1942 by the Royal Australian Air Force as RAAF Nowra, was transferred to the RAN in 1944 and commissioned in 1948 as HMAS Albatross, recognizing the name of the old seaplane carrier.
RAN MH-60R crew with 725 Squadron at HMAS Albatross
Further, the RAN would revisit aircraft carrier operations with the Colossus-class light aircraft carrier HMS Vengeance (as HMAS Vengeance, from 1952 to 1955) along with the Majestic-class light aircraft carriers HMS Majestic (as HMAS Melbourne, from 1955 to 1982) and HMS Terrible (as HMAS Sydney from 1948 to 1973), spanning a solid 34 years of running fixed-wing flattops.
Today, the RAN’s pair of Canberra-class LHDs, big ships of some 27,500-tons and 757-feet overall length, can carry as many as 18 helicopters and it is thought they could eventually operate F-35B models, continuing the legacy the humble Albatross began a century ago.
September 2021, HMAS Sirius (AO-266) conducts a dual replenishment at sea with HMAS Canberra (LHD-2) and USCGC Munro (WMSL-755), during Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2021. (RAN Photo by LSIS Leo Baumgartner)
As seaplane tender/carrier Displacement: 4,800 tons (standard), 7,000 full Length 443 ft 7 in Beam: 58 ft molded, 77.75 ft at sponsons Draft: 1930: 16 ft 11.5 in 1936: 17.25 ft Propulsion: 4 × Yarrow boilers, 2 x Parsons Turbines, 12,000 shp, 2 shafts Speed: 22 knots Range: 4,280 nm at 22 knots; 7,900 nm at 10 knots on 942 tons of oil Complement: 29 RAN officers, 375 RAN sailors, 8 RAAF officers, 38 RAAF enlisted Armament: 4 x 120/40 QF Mk VIII guns 2 x single 2-pounder (40-mm) pom-poms (later replaced by quadruple pom-poms in 1943) 4 x 47/40 3pdr Hotchkiss Mk I saluting guns Aircraft carried: 9 aircraft (six actives, three reserves)
As Hellenic Prince (1949-54, Lloyd’s specs) Tonnage: 6.558 GRT. Length: 443.7 ft Width: 61ft Draught: 17.25 ft Propulsion: 4 × Yarrow boilers, Parsons Turbines, 12,000 SHP Speed: 17 knots service speed, 22 maximum. Passengers: around 1,000, but up to 1,200 maximum in Steerage. Crew: 250
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Official caption: “British Sergeant instructs U.S. gunners. A British Sergeant taking some of the U.S. troops in Northern Ireland through a course of light A.A. gun drill.”
Library of Congress, LC-USE6- D-008293.
Note the Yanks’ soon-to-be-replaced M1917 Brodie helmets, especially the camo-painted specimen used by the coverall-clad gunner. In the distance are two early M3 half-tracks. The gun is, of course, a British single-barreled Q.F. 40 mm Mk. 1 (L60 Bofors) mount, likely made in Canada and recently shipped over when this image was taken.
The first American troops, largely Midwestern National Guardsmen of the 34th “Red Bull” Division, under Maj. Gen. Russell P. Hartle, arrived in Uster on 26 January 1942– 80 years ago this week– fresh from the Louisiana Maneuvers. They were deployed as part of Operation Magnet just days after the U.S. entry into WWII as a result of Pearl Harbor– although advanced elements would arrive as early as 19 January. In all, over 30,000 Americans would be in Northern Ireland by summer.
They would soon begin training arm-in-arm with the Brits, including Hartle’s ADC, Capt. William Orlando Darby, who, along with 281 other volunteers from the 34th, would soon start running about with the Commandos. But that is another story.
Eberhard August Franz Ewald Krüger was born in Berlin in 1928 and, as the son of ardent party officials, was active in the HJ. Then, at age 15, he appeared in a propaganda film (Junge Adler) and by March 1945 was a foot soldier in the cobbled-together last-ditch SS-Grenadier-Division “Nibelungen,” thrown into the meatgrinder with the Germans burning the last of the seed corn. Deserting and hiding out in Austria at the end of the war, he later joined the anti-far-right Amadeu Antonio Stiftung group late in life and decried fascism and assorted right-wing parties.
However, most do not know Kruger for his war record or anti-Nazi activism. No, “Hardy” Kruger was for years Hollywood’s prototypical blonde Prussian officer and/or South African hard case.
After a string of West German rom-coms in the late 1940s and 1950s, he made his big splash over here in 1962’s Academy Award-nominated (losing to Lawrence of Arabia) Hatari! as retired German race car driver Kurt Müller, following that up in The Flight of the Phoenix as the arrogant but brilliant German aeronautical engineer Heinrich Dorfmann opposite actual WWII B-17 bomber pilot Jimmy Stewart.
Then came stints as a German officer in The Battle of Neretva, A Bridge Too Far, and others.
In Kubrick’s oft-overlooked period epic Barry Lyndon, when the eponymous character spends his miserable time in the army of Fredrick the Great, it was at the hands of Kruger’s Captain Potzdorf.
Then, of course, his appearance as an unreformed South African merc in The Wild Geese.
Kruger, a Good German, died last week in Palm Springs, aged 93.
Warship Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022: It’s Easy As 1-2-3
(Shorter WW this week as I am traveling to Vegas for SHOT. We’ll be back to our regular programming next week).
Naval History and Heritage Command NH 94372
Here we see the Oregon-City class heavy (gun) cruiser USS Albany (CA-123), in her original condition, just off her birthplace as seen in an aerial beam view from the Boston Lightship, 19 January 1947– some 75 years ago today.
And a following three-quarter stern view shot, taken the same day as the above. Note the advanced Curtiss SC Seahawk floatplanes, the last of the Navy’s “slingshot planes.” They were retired in 1949. NH 94373
Albany, the fourth such U.S. Navy warship to carry the name of that Empire State capital city– the fifth is a Los Angeles-class attack submarine (SSN-753) commissioned in 1990 and still in active service– was laid down during WWII at Bethlehem Steel’s Quincy, Massachusetts yard. However, she only commissioned nine months after VJ-Day, joining the fleet on 15 June 1946 in a ceremony at the Boston Navy Yard.
The brand new 13,000-ton warship became something of a Cold War-ear “peace cruiser,” and as far as I can tell, she never fired her mighty 8″/55 (20.3 cm) Mark 12s in anger.
Although in commission during Korea, she spent the 1950s alternating “assignments to the 6th Fleet with operations along the east coast of the United States and in the West Indies and made three cruises to South American ports.”
Decommissioned in 1958 after 12 years of service, she was sent back to the Boston Navy Yard for an extensive reconstruction and conversion to a guided-missile cruiser, landing her 8-inchers for MK 11 (Tartar) and MK 12 (Talos) GMLS missile launchers, only retaining a couple of 5″/38s for special occasions.
In 1962, she emerged with her hull number rightfully changed to CG-10.
She looked dramatically different.
A great period Kodachrome of USS Albany (CG-10), conducting sea trials on October 18, 1962. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Image: 428-GX-KN-4076.
USS Albany (CG-10) became the first ship to fire three guided missiles simultaneously when she launched Tartar and Talos surface-to-air missiles from the forward, aft, and one side of the ship while in an exercise off the Virginia Capes, 20 January 1963. U.S. Navy photo, Boston NHP Collection, NPS Cat. No. 15927
Missing Vietnam, she would continue to make cruises to the Mediterranean, later operating from Gaeta, Italy, where she served as flagship for the Commander, 6th Fleet, for almost four years.
Decommissioned for the last time on 29 August 1980, she was stricken five years later and, when efforts to turn her into a museum never came to fruition, Albany was sold in 1980 for her value in scrap metal.
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.
With more than 50 years of scholarship, 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.
