Yankee Sub Chasers Walking the Beat

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Official caption, February 1919: “American troops in Fiume, Hungary [today Rijeka, Croatia], aboard a Yankee ‘Submarine Chaser.’ In the harbor of Fiume, members of [the] 332nd U.S. Infantry, stationed in the city, hold a reunion with some bluejackets from ‘back home.’ American soldiers now occupying Fiume (on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea) are those who operated with the Italian army on the Piave River.”

Note the ash cans over the stern and the mix of blue jackets and Ohio Doughboys. U.S. Army photo 111-SC-50709. National Archives Identifier 86707176.

A trio of the Navy’s 110-foot subchasers, USS SC-124, SC-125, and SC-127, called at Fiume several times between late November 1918 and early March 1919. The strategic port, once home to the Austrian Navy Academy and a large part of the Kaiser’s fleet, was claimed by several in the post-war disintegration that followed the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The chasers, which had originally been dispatched to serve on the Otranto barrage, would have a hectic five months in the Adriatic during the occupation and often had to stand up to much larger “allies.”

“Three Yankee Submarine Chasers docked in harbor of Fiume, Hungary attract the attention of spectators on the waterfront” SC-127 is shown moored between SC-124 and SC-125. Behind the three sub-chasers are two Italian Destroyers, Giuseppe Siritori (SR) and Vicenzo Orsini (OR). In the background are a battleship of the Emanuele Filiberto class (1897) and an armored cruiser of the San Giorgio Class (1908). Army 111-SC-50714. National Archives 86707186

First National Guard Unit Gets Hands on Next Generation Squad Weapons, Navy Next?

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A North Carolina unit is the first in the National Guard to field test the new SIG Sauer-made XM7 and the XM250, which is replacing the M4/M4A1 carbine and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, respectively.

The 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team, a National Guard outfit that carries the “Old Hickory” lineage of the World War I & II era infantry division of the same number, earlier this month conducted a qualification table range session with the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapon platforms at Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg), North Carolina.

The unit is the first in the Guard to receive the XM7 and XM250, just months after the first regular Army unit, the famed 101st Airborne Division, began receiving their NGSWs.

A soldier of the 30th ABCT, a North Carolina Army National Guard unit, with the XM7 on the range at Fort Liberty earlier this month. (Photo: Cpl. Nigel Hatcher/U.S. Army)

This comes as ADM Daryl Caudle, commander of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command, toured SIG Sauer’s new Academy and SIG Experience Center in Newington, New Hampshire, earlier this month. Images released by the Pentagon show Caudle and staff inspecting the state-of-the-art facility where over 480,000 M17 and M18 handguns have been produced for the military thus far. 

And include Caudle handling an NSGW.

240610-N-XX999-1001 NEWINGTON, N.H. (June 10, 2024) Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, examines a firearm during a leadership meeting and tour at SIG SAUER Academy and Experience Center (SEC) in Newington, New Hampshire, June 10. 

Of note, the Marines have been interested in the platform going back to 2020.

Oddball is woofing with Jesus now

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I always thought this was perhaps the best hype scene in the best war movie.

“Hey look, you just keep those Tigers busy and we’ll take care of the rest.”

“It’s a wasted trip, baby. Nobody said nothing about locking horns with no Tigers.”

Just lay off the negative waves…

190th is the Charm: Houthi Sink 80,000-ton Bulk Carrier in Combined Arms Attack

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As detailed in an On-the-Record Press Briefing by Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh Holds, the current count of Iranian-backed Houthi attacks in the Red Sea area since 19 November stands at over 190 incidents. Two of the latest were very successful.

Last week, the Yemen-based Houthis struck two cargo ships: the bulk carrier M/V Tutor (82,357 DWT), which is Liberian flagged, Greek-owned, and Filipino-operated as well as the M/V Verbena (20,518 DWT), which is Palauan flagged, Ukrainian-owned and Polish operated.

The June 12 attack on the Tutor resulted in severe flooding and damage to the engine room.  

The guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG-58) responded to distress calls from the Tutor. Aircraft from the cruiser and partner forces helped evacuate 21 of 22 personnel from the vessel. This operation took place in the Red Sea and within range of Houthi weapons, making it a risky and complex operation, she said.

Iranian, Russian, and Chinese naval vessels were among the ships within response distance that did nothing to assist the Tutor, Singh noted.

Tutor was hit by “an unknown airborne projectile” after being hit in the stern by a drone boat, with one of her Filipino crew left missing and later confirmed deceased.

She was carrying an armed guard detachment which apparently shrugged off the drone boat– a converted local fishing craft– until it was too late.

An update from the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) office on Tuesday said that military authorities reported seeing debris and oil in the last known location of the Tutor and then sunk in position 14’19’N 041’14’E.

This is the second incident resulting in the death of mariners in the conflict, following the deaths of three crew members on the Barbados-flagged bulk carrier M/V True Confidence (29,104 GT), struck by a Houthi anti-ship missile in the Gulf of Aden in early March while carrying steel products and trucks from China to Jordan.

It is also now the second confirmed sinking in the conflict, following the Belize-flagged bulk carrier MV Rubymar (19,420 GT) which, hit by a Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile on 18 February 2024, was abandoned and subsequently sank in foul weather 12 days later. All 24 crew members of Rubymar were rescued and landed at Djibouti.

Meanwhile, Verbena, carrying cargo from Songkhla (Thailand) to Venice, was reportedly hit by two missiles, causing fires and extensive damage, which left one civilian mariner severely injured and later airlifted for medical treatment. The crew later abandoned the ship due to the inability to contain the fires.

Central Command in the past 72 hours since then has advised they have destroyed: two Houthi uncrewed surface vessels (USV) in the Red Sea, eight Houthi uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen, as well as four Houthi radars and one uncrewed surface vessel (USV) in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

Shipping and mariner advocacy groups are calling for more action. Expect an increase in diversions around the Cape of Good Hope.

QOR on the Line

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80 years ago today, on D+ 14 (20 June 1944) while in the recently liberated French town of Bretteville-Orgueilleuse, the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada had a war correspondent stop by and take a series of photos that capture the moment in time.

STEN-armed Rifleman R.G. Bodie, Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, on guard in the front line, Bretteville-Orgueilleuse, France, 20 June 1944. 

Lieutenant E.M. Peto (left), 16th Field Company, Royal Canadian Engineers (R.C.E.), with Company Sergeant-Major Charlie Martin and Rifleman N.E. Lindenas, both of “A” Company, Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, planning where to lay a minefield, Bretteville-Orgueilleuse, France, 20 June 1944.

Rifleman R.A. Marshall, Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, pointing out a hole in his helmet made by a German sniper’s bullet on D-Day. Bretteville-Orgueilleuse, France, 20 June 1944.

Rfn B. Brueyere, Rfn D.J Briere, Rfn W.J. Simpson, and Rfn H.G.Payne interrogating a local

Cpl W. Lennox watching his arcs in Bretteville-Orgueilleuse with the courtesy of a recently acquired second-hand German MG42.

As noted by The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum and Archive, the war diary for 20 June included:

0530 Two bombs are dropped in D coy MR91957180 area and a good bit of concussion is felt however luckily there are no casualties.

0800 3 Cdn Inf Div Sitrep Rep

Patrol report for night of 19/20 Jun 44
Proposed Patrols for night 20/21 Jun 44
Daily Int Summary QOR of C
Int Summ #10 18 Jun 44
Trace of enemy dispositions as soon from C coy

1000 It appears at first sight as though we are being invaded by the Free French Army but it soon develops that they are the French Cmdrs of the district and are putting the regular Gendarmes back into local power. There will be five of them in the town and they will control the local population but will report to us each day for any instructions. We are also giving them transportation to enable them to bring flour into the district as they only have a supply enough to last 24 hours.

1115 Several high officers of the 15 Scottish Div arrive to recce the ground for their attack through us. Put all them together with the French Officials still around it looks like an Army HQ.

Formed on 26 April 1860– predating the Confederation of Canada by seven years– as the Second Battalion Volunteer Militia Rifles, The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada (a title it earned in 1882) is the country’s oldest continuously serving infantry regiment, a lineage acquired after 1953 when it was amalgamated with the 1st and Canadian Rifle Battalions to form the current unit. After serving in the Fienan Wars, the North-West Rebellion, fighting the Boer, and earning two dozen battle honors on the Western Front against the Kaiser, the Queen’s Own Rifles got into WWII combat at Normandy.

The QOR, part of the 8th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, hit Juno Beach at Bernieres-sur-mer at 0812 on D-Day, with A Company on the right and B Company on the left in the first wave while C and D companies along with the Battalion Headquarters coming in just eight minutes later, losing 61 men that morning.

In all, they would remain in combat all through France and across Northeast Europe until VE Day, earning 10 more battle honors and paying for them with the last full measure of 463 of the Queen’s Own killed in action and buried in Europe. Meanwhile “almost 900 were wounded, many two or three times. Sixty more QOR personnel were killed serving with other units in Hong Kong, Italy, and Northwest Europe.”

Post-WWII, they saw service in Korea, NATO duty in Germany, UN duty in Cyprus, and more limited deployments to Cambodia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Darfur, and Sudan.

Today, the Queens Own Rifles are garrisoned in Moss Park Armoury, Toronto, as part of the 32 Bde Group.

The regiment’s motto is In Pace Paratus (In peace prepared).

Crerar’s Chariot

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80 years ago today. Original Kodachrome color Image of Lt-General Henry Duncan Graham Crerar, commander of the First Canadian Army, seen on the open bridge aboard the Canadian V-class destroyer HMCS Algonquin (R17), while part of the Normandy Operation Neptune fleet, 18 June 1944.

Via Library and Archives Canada

Built 1942-43 as HMS Valentine (R17) and transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy on completion, Algonquin opened up with her 4.7-inch QF guns on German targets off Juno Beach at 0645 on D-Day and spent the next 48 hours providing very active NGFS for the British and Canadian troops until their advance inland had outstripped her range.

A 4.7-inch (12 cm) gun crew of the destroyer HMCS Algonquin piling shell cases and sponging out the gun after bombarding German shore defenses in the Normandy beachhead. LAC 4950888

Bofors and gunner and white ensign on HMCS Algonquin. LAC 4950797

Putting back in at Portsmouth on 9 June, she carried VADM Percy W. Nelles, RCN, and his staff to Normandy the next day and would return to carry Gen. Crerar to France as shown above.

Graduating from the Royal Military College in 1909, Crear served with distinction in the artillery during the Great War, witnessing the hell of Ypres, Neuve Chapelle, and Vimy Ridge, and was ready to finish up a 30-year career as colonel commandant of the Royal Military College of Canada when Hitler marched into Poland. He had led the 2nd Canadian Division and I Canadian Corps in Italy before Normandy.

Going on to see much Arctic service in the rest of the war, including sinking a trio of German subchasers off Norway, Algonquin would be modernized to a Type 15 frigate (pennant DDE 224) in 1953 and continue to serve into the 1970s when she was scrapped, her name passed on to the lead ship of a new class of destroyers for the RCN.

Gen. HDG Crerar, CH, CB, DSO, CD, PC, would retire from the Army in 1946 and go on to the diplomatic service. He passed in 1965, age 79.

A Strange Tale of Two Multi-Flag Dreadnoughts

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Some 105 years ago this month, check out these two snapshots of brand-new battleships under construction on two different sides of Europe. Ordered by two doomed empires with the very likely prospect of fighting each other at sea, that never happened, and each saw its own fate under far different circumstances.

On the Neva River outside of St. Petersburg at the Tsar’s Admiralty Shipyard, we see this June 1914 shot of the leader of her class of dreadnoughts– the first for Imperial Russia– the Gangut, shown fitting out.

At 25,000 tons and with a main battery of a dozen Obukhovskii 12-inch/52-caliber Pattern 1907 guns in four triple turrets, Gangut could make 24 knots and was protected by as much as 10 inches of armor plate, although with a rather light battle cruiser-ish 5-to-9-inch main belt.

Next, at the Vickers yard at Barrow-in-Furness in England, is the Ottoman Empire’s shiny future battleship Reşadiye (left) next to the HM’s battleship Emperor of India (right), in June 1914.

Like Gangut, Reşadiye was the leader of her planned class of new dreadnoughts, the first for the Turks, and went 25,000 tons. Slower than Gangut (21 knots) she had much better armor (12-inch belt) and, while she had fewer main guns (10) they were more powerful Vickers Elswick BL 13.5-inch Mk VIs.

It would have been an interesting match-up if the two ever met on the open seas in a one-on-one surface engagement.

Of course, that never happened.

Gangut would go on to be commissioned in January 1915 and serve in the Baltic Sea Fleet where, in 1917, the revolution brought the hangman’s noose and firing squad to many of her officers as her men were dispatched throughout the Worker’s Paradise to fight ashore as Red naval infantry during the Russian Civil War.

Renamed Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya, she was repaired enough to be put back into service with the Red Banner Fleet by 1925. Reconstructed in the 1930s, she would be an indestructible thorn in the Germans’ side during the siege of Leningrad and, somehow surviving the war, would endure until scrapped in the 1950s. 

Gangut in 1915, once completed

She never fought an outright capital ship surface engagement.

Meanwhile, Reşadiye, ordered in 1911, launched in the late summer of 1913 and completed by July 1914– fully paid for by the Sultan’s government and completed her builder’s sea trials– was instead seized under the First Sea Lord’s orders with the Great War on the horizon and, in August 1914, put into service with the Royal Navy as HMS Erin. This is often credited with being one of the final straws that pushed the Turks and Germans together.

Ironically, while at Jutland, Erin was the only British battleship not to fire her main guns during the massive sea clash!

HMS Erin in a North Sea harbor, with a kite balloon moored aft, 1918

A unique ship and curious ship in a fleet flush with several classes of great dreadnoughts, she was discarded in 1922.

Enhancing Excellence: Walther’s Meister Manufaktur Program

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I recently hit the road and visited Carl Walther’s state-of-the-art factory in Ulm, Germany for a factory tour that also included a peek behind the curtain of the gunmaker’s custom and engraving shop. 

Those who know Walther are well aware that the company has long produced exhibition and presentation-grade pistols for special occasions and to meet customer requests. Just drink these in.

More in my column at Guns.com. 

Just Good Times on the Smoking Deck

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How about this great circa 1988 shot of an unidentified sailor in UDT shorts and a chocolate chip boonie firing from the hip at a target floating behind the wooden-decked Aggressive/Agile-class ocean minesweeper USS Esteem (MSO 438), “somewhere in the Persian Gulf.” The rifle seems to be an XM177.

USN Photo 330-CFD-DN-ST-89-02593 by PH2 Alexander C. Hicks, Jr., USN, via NARA 6443568

The 172-foot Esteem, one of 93 members of her class, was built by the Martinolich Shipbuilding Co. of San Diego in the days after the U.S. Navy had an abrupt experience with sea mines off Korea in 1950 and she joined the fleet in 1955.

After lots of service in the Far East through the Vietnam era (earning six Vietnam Service Medals as well as the Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation), by 1987 she was sent to the Persian Gulf, based in Bahrain with a lot of her sisters to combat a rash of mines left bobbing around in the wake of the Iran-Iraq War, a page in the largely forgotten story of Navy MCM during that period.

Decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register on 30 September 1991 after 36 years of service, she was laid up at Bremerton until disposed of for sale in 2000 and scrapped soon after.

A Tough Nut to Crack

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Some 105 years ago. The Danish Royal Life Guard (Den Kongelige Livgarde) Musical Corps, 13-15 June 1919, pictured just after the Great War.

A proud regiment of a proud military, the Danish Army had gone hard in the Great War to protect its neutrality, having just fought Germany in 1864 and the Brits in 1807.

This meant mobilizing 52,000 reserves and new drafts to add to the professional 13,000-man Army to form the Sikringsstyrken (security force), and building the 23 km-long Tunestillingen line of defenses near Copenhagen which included over 40,000 meters of trenches from Roskilde fjord to Køge bay. Likewise, the Danish Navy almost doubled in size from 6,200 to 10,000.

Danish Tunestillingen line.

Danish soldiers in the Great War, note Madsen LMGs

At its height, the Danes had 65,000 men under arms in 15 infantry (Livgarde and 1st-14th) regiments, 4 horse cavalry (Garderhusarregiment and 3rd-5th Dragoon) regiments, and five regiments of artillery. Local firearms concerns were sufficient to keep the force armed with Madsen machine guns and Krag rifles.

Some 128 Krupp-made M.1902 75mm field guns were on hand while larger 15cm howitzers were ordered during the conflict from Bofors in nearby neutral Sweden.

Sure, even this enlarged Danish force probably would not have halted the Kaiser had he wanted to march north, but then again he never had a couple of extra Army corps on hand during WWI, did he?

Post-war, the Danish Army was demobilized to 15,000~ authorized (30,000 mobilized) and the Tunestillingen was scrapped. Only a handful of the Bofors howitzers delivered.

The liberal government of Denmark in 1939 decided to go the other way when another World War came, furloughing the Army until it contained just a 2,000-man regular cadre (including the Guards units) and about 6,600 conscripts on their 11-month national service orders.

And you see what good that did.

Danish children watching German soldiers take over Denmark, 9 April 1940

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