The Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons program is rolling right along, with the SIG Sauer-produced firearms making an appearance at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
The base, home to the iconic “Screaming Eagles” of the 101st Airborne Division, will be the first to field operational units with the new guns under current plans, and Campbell brass appeared on the firing line to get a feel for the new hardware.
U.S. Army Fort Campbell Command Sgt. Maj. Chad Stackpole fires a Next-Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) Machine Gun during a weapon familiarization demonstration, Sept. 25, 2023, at Fort Campbell, Ky. (Photo & caption: Kayla Cosby/U.S. Army)
U.S. Army Fort Campbell Garrison Commander Col. Christopher Midberry fires a Next-Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) Machine Gun during a weapon familiarization demonstration, Sept. 25, 2023, at Fort Campbell, Ky. (Photo & caption: Kayla Cosby/U.S. Army)
As outlined by Soldier Systems Daily, Company A of the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, a historic unit that has been part of the 101st since World War II, will begin a Limited User Test with the NGSW platforms this week, comparing them to legacy systems. The Army plans to have the 101st’s 1st Brigade be the first unit fully equipped with the NGSW, likely sometime early next year.
The Pakistani Navy recently released a well-done (English language) short documentary about the third PNS Tariq (D 181), which is the former Amazon-class (Type 21) frigate HMS Ambuscade (F172).
Acquired by the Pakistani Navy in 1993 sans installed Exocet and Seacat missiles, she was initially laid down at Yarrow in Scotland (Yard No. 1008) in September 1971 and entered service in 1975.
Among a ton of Cold War exploits, Ambuscade took part in the Falklands War of 1982— firing hundreds of rounds of 4.5-inch shells in NGFS missions and chasing at least two suspected enemy sonar contacts– as well service on the old Armilla Patrol and as the Belize Guardship back in the day.
Of the eight Amazons commissioned in the late 1960s-early 1970s, two (HMS Antelope sunk on 24 May 1982 and HMS Ardent on 22 May 1982) were lost in the Falklands.
The remaining six were transferred to Pakistan after the fall of the Berlin Wall and saw much service there. They have since been decommissioned, with no less than four already disposed of in SINKEXs.
Tariq/Ambuscade was the last of her type to leave service, decommissioned on 5 August 2023, her name to be used for a new corvette.
The Pakistan Navy has already donated the now 48-year-old frigate to the Cylde Naval Heritage Group and plans to bring her back to Scotland.
The good news is that she is still in reportedly good material condition, and was steaming as late as this summer. Further, at just 2,800 tons and 384 feet oal, she has a small footprint. All positive signs for a budding museum ship.
Just living the dream since 1775…(or maybe 1798, depending on how you mark it):
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) fires its 5-inch gun during a live-fire exercise, Sept. 24, 2018. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Ryan U. Kledzik/Released) 180924-N-UY653-444
A 13 October 1775 resolution of the Continental Congress established what is now the United States Navy with “a swift sailing vessel, to carry ten carriage guns, and a proportionable number of swivels, with eighty men, be fitted, with all possible despatch, for a cruise of three months….” After the American War of Independence, the U.S. Constitution empowered the new Congress “to provide and maintain a navy.” Acting on this authority, Congress established the Department of the Navy on 30 April 1798.
In 1972, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt authorized official recognition of 13 October as the birthday of the U.S. Navy. Since then, each CNO has encouraged a Navy-wide celebration of this occasion “to enhance a greater appreciation of our Navy heritage, and to provide a positive influence toward pride and professionalism in the naval service.”
Henry continues to add interesting new pages to its catalog with the new Big Boy series of double-action revolvers, chambered in the profoundly serious .357 Magnum caliber.
The Henry Big Boy .357 revolver came out of nowhere and was likely not on anyone’s bingo card when it was introduced earlier this year. Few companies these days elect to get into the medium-framed .357 Magnum caliber double-action revolver market, and some (looking at you, Colt and Rossi) have even tried to exit that space in recent memory.
Still, Henry is doing a lot of things right with its inaugural wheel gun. It is accurate, has a decent trigger, and borrows enough things from proven legacy designs to seem familiar while having a very “Henry-ness” about it at the same time. You just don’t see lots of brass-accented revolvers in a double-action format, but Henry has pulled it off while still delivering a very solid-feeling and capable handgun to the market.
Chambered in .357 Magnum, the Big Boy also runs the slightly shorter .38 Special and is meant as an easy complement to the company’s popular Big Boy Brass Side Gate rifle in the same caliber. The Side Gate has an octagonal 20-inch blued steel barrel, American walnut furniture, and a polished hardened brass receiver. It has a 10-round capacity via its underbarrel tube magazine and feels like shooting a .22 Magnum.
One use I could see for the Henry Big Boy revolver is as a sidearm for outdoorsmen – particularly bow hunters in states that allow it – headed into the backwoods where interactions with black bears, feral hogs, or hostile bipeds can occur.
I’ve been putting one of these medium-framed wheel guns through its paces for the past few months and have a full breakdown of this new gem in Henry’s crown over in my column at Guns.com.
Here we see the bow of the rare Type UE II ocean minelayer submarine, SM U-124, sometime in late 1918 after her surrender, likely in Harwich, England. Just below her net cutter is a shell hole (“sheel hole” as written on the period photo) which has been used as the focus of a shark’s mouth illustration applied sometime after.
National Museum of the U.S. Navy, Lot 9706-8
In all, some 176 surrendered German U-boats, many in poor material condition, were gathered under the watchful eyes of a combined Allied fleet at Harwich between November 1918 and March 1919.
Two other photos of U-124 exist, with official captions noted, likely taken at Harwich.
“German submarine, U 124, bow view, starboard side. Note, the sheel hole and net cutter. Lot 9706-12”
A German submarine, U 124, with her single 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 deck gun on deck. Note, the somewhat famous American submarine USS AL2 (aka USS L-2 SS-41) in the background.
There were only 9 Type UE II submarines commissioned into the Kaiserliche Marine late in the war (1917-1918), with the tenth, SM U-121, never completed.
Our subject, U-124, was only commissioned on 12 July 1918 after construction by Blohm & Voss, Hamburg (as Werk 301), and never completed any war patrols. How U-124 earned her “sheel hole” or shark paint job was unknown.
Her only skipper, Kptlt. Rolf Hans Wilhelm Karl Carls, who had already earned two Iron Crosses on the cruiser SMS Breslau in the Black Sea, would go on to become a Ritterkreuz-adorned Generaladmiral in the Kriegsmarine and was killed during an air raid in 1945.
Carls was credited with the naval planning for Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Denmark and Norway in 1940, which worked but shattered the German fleet. When Raeder was cashiered, he recommended Carls as his replacement but the little mustache went with Donitz. Carls shifted to the retired list in 1943 at age 57 and perished in a basement in Schleswig-Holstein during an RAF air raid just two weeks before VE-Day.
More on the Type UE IIs
These minelayers were rather large in terms of Great War U-boats, at some 1,500 tons and 267 feet oal, they were very capable, fitted with a four-pack of bow-mounted 20-inch torpedo tubes with room for 14 fish, a stern with twin 39-inch mine chutes with room for 42 sea mines, and the 5.9 inch SK L/45 deck gun as seen above, with 494 shells.
As they could cruise for some 13,900 nm on an economical diesel-electric plant, they could cross the Atlantic, complete a decent war patrol in U.S. waters that included sowing over three dozen mines and return home.
However, due to their late timing, the UE IIs saw little service, with only three claiming victims. In the end, all nine survived the war and were allocated to the victorious allies post-Versallies.
SM U-117 was one of six Kaiserian subs handed over to the U.S. and, after being dragged across the Atlantic, was sunk as a target for aerial bombing tests conducted by the Navy and Army off the Virginia Capes.
SM U-118 was turned over to France but broke her tow and was washed ashore at Hastings where she was finally broken up in late 1919.
SM U-119 served as René Audry in the French Navy and was eventually broken up in October 1937, the last of the class afloat.
SM U-120 was transferred to Italy in November 1918 and broken up soon after.
During the Great War, one of the most often forgotten major battlefields were those high in the Alps and Dolomites between Austro-Hungarian Tyrolean Kaiserjäger backed up by mobilized Standschützen militia and Italian Alpini, over control of the region that both claimed.
Italian helmet excavated on the Isonzo front, with the head of a Hungarian soldier’s 1896M pickaxe inside.
The pitched battles were by no means decisive, and it was only the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian war effort that allowed the Italians to occupy the region in October 1918, then later awarded to Rome under the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain.
In a sort of reminder of this, but through a modern lens, three videos were just recently released.
The Alpini of the Taurinese Brigade recently sent 500 troopers through what is called the 220 Mila Passi (220 Thousand Steps) climbing eight peaks– all over 1300m in elevation– across 88 km.
In related news, the NATO Mountain Warfare Centre of Excellence in Slovenia, run by an Italian Alpini colonel on former Austro-Hungarian mountains, released an interesting sizzle reel highlighting their operations.
Not to be outdone, the Austrian Bundesheer at the same time released a video of a sergeant undergoing the country’s Heereshochgebirgsspezialisten (high mountain specialist) course in the Dolomites alongside fellow troopers from the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia– all of which fought in the Tyrol in 1918!
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-35726
Above we see the Gato-class fleet boat USS Wahoo (SS-238) at Pearl Harbor, soon after the end of her Third war patrol, circa 7 February 1943. Her skipper, LCDR Dudley W. Morton, who would count four Navy Crosses in the war, is on the open bridge, in right-center while the officer to the left could be XO, LT Richard H. O’Kane, who would go on to earn the MoH.
If you will observe, there is a broom lashed to the periscope head, indicating a “clean sweep” of enemy targets encountered as well as an aloft pennant bearing the slogan “Shoot the Sunza Bitches” and eight small flags, representing claimed sinkings of two Japanese warships and six merchant vessels. What is not in the picture is the forward radar mast, which has been brushed out by wartime censors.
Just six months after this image was snapped, Wahoo would be broken on the bottom of the La Pérouse Strait, lost exactly 80 years ago today.
The Gatos
The 77 Gatos were cranked out by four shipyards from 1940 to 1944 for the U.S. Navy, they were impressive 311-foot-long fleet boats, diesel-electric submarines capable of extended operations in the far reaches of the Pacific. Able to swim an impressive 11,000 nautical miles on their economical power plant while still having room for 24 (often cranky) torpedoes. A 3-inch deck gun served for surface action in poking holes in vessels deemed not worth a torpedo while a few .50 and .30-cal machine guns provided the illusion of an anti-aircraft armament.
Developed from the Tambor-class submarines, they were the first fleet boats able to plumb to 300 feet test depth, then the deepest that U.S. Navy submersibles were rated.
Meet Wahoo
Our subject is the first U.S. Navy warship– and probably the first in any fleet– named for the wahoo, a beautiful (and delicious) sport fish in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, known for putting up a fight.
Laid down a half-year prior to Pearl Harbor on 28 June 1941 by the Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo, California, Wahoo was launched on Valentine’s Day 1942– a sweetheart gift to the Japanese Navy.
Kennedy, who had served in a mix of both surface warfare and submarine billets, was XO of the huge “V-boat” USS Narwhal (SS-167) at the beginning of the war, aboard her when her gunners opened up at incoming Japanese planes over Pearl Harbor. Wahoo was his first command, and he would be at her attack periscope for her first two patrols.
The new boat and green crew spent the next three months fitting out and conducting initial training along the California coast then, after a post-shakedown repair at Mare Island, left headed for Hawaii on 12 August.
Wahoo off Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 10 August 1942. Note the barrage balloons over the yard and the City of Vallejo. 19-N-33836
USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 10 August 1942. Circles and associated text mark recent alterations to the submarine. The lighter YF-239 is alongside the submarines in the right background. Note the antenna for an SJ radar mounted on the light mast in front of Wahoo’s periscope shears. 19-N-33839
USS Wahoo (SS-238) View from astern, taken off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 10 August 1942. 19-N-33837
Her patrolling career began in August 1942 in the Carolines. On this patrol, Wahoo claimed the sinking of a freighter not confirmed by post-war review. Other attacks were spoiled by faulty torpedoes, a common refrain in the U.S. Submarine Force in the Pacific at this time.
Her second patrol was in the Solomons, where she sank a freighter, the Japanese collier Kamoi Maru (5355 GRT) off Buin, on 10 December. Following this patrol, Kennedy, who earned a Silver Star for sinking the enemy collier, left the boat and joined the staff of Commander Service Force, Southwest Pacific.
Replacing the 37-year-old Kennedy was an old classmate of his from Annapolis, Florida-born LCDR Dudley Walker Morton, better known by his Academy nickname of “Mushmouth” or, just the simpler “Mush.” Morton had previously commanded the smaller boats USS R-5 (SS-82) and USS Dolphin (SS-169), then sailed as XO under Kennedy on Wahoo’s Second War Patrol. The new XO would be LT Richard Hetherington “Dick” O’Kane (USNA 1934)
It seemed like, in Wahoo’s case, that the third time was the charm when it came to patrols.
Wahoo conducted her third patrol from Australia through New Guinea to the Palau area of the Japanese-annexed Caroline Islands. She steamed 6,454 miles and expanded all her torpedoes.
Prior to leaving Australia, Morton reportedly told the crew:
“Wahoo is expendable. We will take every reasonable precaution, but our mission is to sink enemy shipping. . . . Now, if anyone doesn’t want to go along under these conditions, just see the yeoman. I am giving him verbal authority now to transfer anyone who is not a volunteer. . . . Nothing will ever be said about you remaining in Brisbane.”
Periscope photograph, taken by USS Wahoo (SS-238) on 27 January 1943. The view shows a refinery and large warehouse adjacent to a phosphate works on Fais Island (near Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands). Wahoo had intended to shell the latter, but had to break off when an enemy ship came on the scene. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-39745.
She sank the destroyer Harusame on 24 January off Wewak, New Guinea.
Harusame’s back is clearly broken. Wartime intelligence evaluated this photo as showing one of the Asashio-class (see Photographic Intelligence Report # 82, 17 March 1943). However, the ship’s bridge structure identifies her as a Shiratsuyu-class destroyer, with the # 2 (single) 5 gun mount removed. Official U.S. Navy photo 80-G-35738 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command
Two days later chased down a four-ship convoy included sinking the large Japanese army cargo ships Buyo Maru (5447 GRT) and Fukuei Maru No.2 (1901 GRT) along with damaging the tanker Pacific Maru (5872 GRT).
Periscope photograph, showing Japanese transport Buyo Maru sinking after she was torpedoed by USS Wahoo (SS-238) north of western New Guinea on 26 January 1943. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-39746.
The scene in the control room during Wahoo’s 27 January 1943 action with a Japanese destroyer. When the photo was taken the submarine was at 300 feet, rigged for depth charges. Six charges had just gone off and the crew was awaiting more. Lieutenant Commander Dudley W. Morton, Wahoo’s Commanding Officer, reported this action as “Another running gun fight … destroyer gunning … Wahoo running. Shaved head on crewman at right is a product of an Equator crossing ceremony three days previously.” 80-G-38602
Two views of the same action. LT Richard H. O’Kane, XO, at the periscope, and LCDR Dudley W. Morton, skipper, with another officer, in Wahoo’s conning tower during the boat’s attack on a Japanese convoy north of New Guinea, 26 January 1943. Several ships, among them the transport Buyo Maru, were sunk in this action. 80-G-37034 &80-G-37033
USS Wahoo (SS-238) Provides food and water to the crew of a becalmed fishing boat, circa January 1943. The original caption, released with this photograph on 3 March 1943, reads: “Act of Mercy While on the war patrol during which she sank a Japanese destroyer and a convoy of four ships, the submarine Wahoo, commanded by LCdr. Dudley W. Morton, USN, of Miami, Fla., came across a small fishing boat, becalmed. Three of the crew of nine aboard the fishing vessel had died when the submarine found her. Three remaining crew members were without food and water. This picture shows members of the submarine’s crew handing water and food to the men in the fishing vessel. A few days later the Wahoo destroyed the Japanese destroyer and convoy. View looks forward from Wahoo’s machinegun platform.” NH 42275
USS Wahoo (SS-238) arrives at Pearl Harbor at the end of her third war patrol, circa 7 February 1943. The original caption, released with this photograph on 3 March 1943, reads: “Hero’s Welcome A Navy band is on hand to greet the submarine Wahoo on her return to Pearl Harbor following a patrol during which she sank a Japanese destroyer and an entire enemy convoy of four ships. The battle with the convoy lasted for a period of 14 hours. Note that Wahoo’s radar antennas have been crudely censored out of the image.” NH 42274
Lieutenant Commander Dudley W. Morton, commanding officer of USS Wahoo (SS-238), at right, with his executive officer, Lieutenant Richard H. O’Kane, on the submarines open bridge, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, after her very successful third war patrol, circa 7 February 1943. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-35725.
For her fourth patrol, Wahoo went to the Yellow Sea west of Korea and just ran amok, only returning after she expended all 24 of her torpedoes.
She sank the cargo ship Zogen Maru (1428 GRT) and damaged the freighter Kowa Maru (3217 GRT) east of Dairen on 19 March, sank the cargo ships Hozan Maru (2260 GRT) and Nittsu Maru (2183 GRT) on 21 March, on 23 March sent the cargo ships Teisho Maru (9849 GRT) and Takaosan Maru (2076 GRT) via torpedoes then finished up with the smaller Satsuki Maru (830 GRT) via gunfire.
Nittsu Maru (Japanese cargo ship) sinking in the Yellow Sea, off China on 23 March 1943. Periscope photograph taken from USS Wahoo (SS-238), which had torpedoed the ship. Official U.S. Navy photograph now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-60948.
She finished her run with the cable ship Yamabato Maru (2256 GRT) south of Kyushu, Japan, and two sampans.
Her claimed kills were a bit higher.
Fifth War Patrol (25 Apr 1943, Midway-21 May 1943, Pearl Harbor)
Going to the Kurile chain for her fifth patrol, Wahoo sank two confirmed freighters– Takao Maru (3204 GRT) and Jimmu Maru (1912 GRT) — off Kone Zaki, north-eastern Honshu on 9 May. She ended, again, with no torpedoes left, having steamed 6,828 nm.
Her 5th war patrol claims:
Following the end of the patrol, she was sent back to Mare Island for a much-needed overhaul, carrying almost 30,000 miles on her diesels and the effects of multiple depth charging runs from the Empire.
A series of photographs from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives remains to document her condition at this stage of her hard life.
USS Wahoo (SS-238) Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 14 July 1943. 19-N-48937
USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California
USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 16 July 1943. Circles mark recent alterations to the submarine. The lighter YC-312 is alongside. YF-239 and YF-200 are in the left-center distance. 19-N-48941
USS Wahoo (SS-238) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 16 July 1943. White outlines mark recent alterations to the submarine. The lighter YC-312 is alongside. 19-N-48942
The sixth patrol of Wahoo, conducted in the target-rich Japan Sea, suffered from defective Mark 14 steam torpedoes. None of the 10 fish fired in nine attacks on enemy merchantmen resulted in a torpedo hit but she was able to sink a trio of sampans with surface gunfire.
The patrol reports of the failed attacks are crushing:
She made good in surface actions against fishing boats– at least her guns worked!
Across her first six patrols, she claimed 27 ships sunk, totaling 119,100 tons, and damaged two more, making 24,900 tons. Of these, most were on Mush Morton’s three patrols, in which Wahoo had sunk a claimed total of 93,281 tons of shipping in only 25 patrol days.
Leaving the boat was her talented XO, Dick O’Kane, who was called up to the big leagues and rewarded with a command of his own, the Balao-class boat USS Tang (SS-306).
Seventh (Last) War Patrol (9 Sep 1943, Pearl Harbor-lost on/about 11 October 1943, in La Perouse Strait)
Sent back to the Sea of Japan– armed with the new Mark 18 electric torpedo, instead of the hated Mark 14s– Wahoo was the only Allied warship active there when the fishing vessel Hokusei Maru (1394 GRT) was lost west of the Kuril Islands on 21 September, the gunboat Taiko Maru (2958 GRT) west of the Tsugaru Strait on 25 September, the freighter Masaki Maru No.2 (1238 GRT) in the Sea of Japan east of Hungnam on 29 September, the transport Konron Maru (7908 GRT) in Tsushima Straits on 5 October, the cargo ship Kanko Maru (1283 GRT) off Korea on 6 October, and the cargo ship Hankow Maru (2995 GRT) off the Oga Peninsula on 9 October. Good hunting!
However, the hunter became the hunted, and Wahoo never made it back to Pearl, with her war flags flying and crew beaming. Postwar, it was determined that Japanese E13A1 “Jake” floatplanes out of Wakkanai, supporting the submarine chasers Ch-15 and Ch-43, and minesweeper Wa-18, following up on the sighting of a strange submarine by the coast artillery battery on Soya Misaki, responded and chased Wahoo to the bottom of the in La Perouse Strait on the morning of 11 October 1943.
The wreck, found in 2004 resting 12 miles off the northeast coast of Hokkaido in the middle of the strait, confirms the place and cause of her destruction.
She was lost with all 80 hands. Declared officially dead in 1946, all are memorialized at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) on the Court of the Missing.
“Going Home,” watercolor on paper by Georges Schreiber, 1943; accession # 88-159-JN as a gift of Abbott Laboratories.
Wahoo earned six battle stars for World War II service.
Wahoo is one of 64 American subs (52 from WWII alone) still listed as being on “Eternal Patrol,” remembered in markers across the country. Of note, Gato-class sisters USS Corvina (SS-226) and USS Dorado (SS-248) were both lost within days of Wahoo, with all hands. (Photo: Chris Eger)
For a deeper dive into USS Wahoo, please see Warfish.com.
In all, “Mush” Morton would be awarded four Navy Crosses, the final one posthumously.
Commander Dudley Walker Morton USN (USNA 1930) is remembered with a memorial stone at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington Virginia, Memorial Section MH, Plot 669.
Epilogue
The fighting spirit of Mush Morton and the Mighty Wahoo would endure long after they were gone.
A billboard at Mare Island in late 1943, highlighting the exploits of the Yard’s famed sub, albeit in a PG-rated format. 80-G-K-15091
Wahoo’s ship’s bell and commissioning pennant, which had been stored at Pearl Harbor while she was on her wartime service, are preserved at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park along with a marker honoring her.
In 1995, the Wahoo Peace Memorial cenotaph was dedicated in Japan at Cape Soya near Wakkanai overlooking the La Perouse Strait where the submarine was lost.
The Forrest Sherman-class destroyer USS Morton (DD-948) was named in honor of Wahoo’s most famous skipper. Built at Ingalls and nicknamed “The Saltiest Ship in the Fleet!” due to the obvious Morton’s Salt reference, she served until 1982, chalking up several stints off Vietnam including close-in NGF support and Sea Dragon operations off North Vietnam.
Dick O’Kane, who according to the NHHC took part in more successful submarine attacks than any other American officer across five patrols with Wahoo and five more in command of Tang, earned the Medal of Honor, three Navy Crosses, three Silver Stars, and the Legion of Merit with Combat “V.” After Tang suffered a sinking via a runaway torpedo in the Formosa Sea, O’Kane and four of his surviving crewmen were “rescued” by the Japanese. After surviving the war at just 88 pounds and testifying as a witness at the Japanese War Crime trials, he returned to duty, retiring in 1957 as a rear admiral after having punched tickets as COMSUBDIV 32 and as the Officer in Charge of the Sub School at New London.
RADM Dick O’Kane passed in 1994 and both he and his wife are buried at Arlington National Cemetery and is on the list of Top Ten U.S. Navy Submarine Captains in World War II by the total number and tonnage of confirmed ships sunk during the conflict, just ahead of Morton.
O’Kane’s legacy lives on. The USS O’Kane (DDG-77), a Navy destroyer, was commissioned in Pearl Harbor in 1999 and continues to serve based out of San Diego.
The former rear admiral’s Medal of Honor is kept at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park in Honolulu.
Further, his cribbage board, which he presented to the second Tang (SS 563) in 1957, is handed down to each oldest fast-attack submarine in the Pacific Fleet. Since that boat retired, it has been handed down to USS Kamehameha (SSBN 642), USS Parche (SSN 683), USS Los Angeles (SSN 688), USS Bremerton (SSN 698), USS Olympia (SSN 717) and now USS Chicago (SSN 721).
191022-N-KB401-0021 JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM Oct. 22, 2019 — Cmdr. Benjamin J. Selph, commanding officer, USS Olympia (SSN 717), plays a game of cribbage on the O’Kane board against Cmdr. Chance Litton, commanding officer, USS Chicago (SSN 721).
Wahoo’s legacy lived on as well. Two different Tench class submarines (SS-516 and then SS-518) were to have carried the name but never made it into service. A Tang-class boat, SS-565, did, however, in 1952. She served until 1980, one of the final diesel boats on active duty with the U.S. Navy.
USS Wahoo (SS-565) underway in the Pacific, 24 July 1978. USN 1174147
The famed original Wahoo’s battle flag and fairweather featured a Native American with a war bonnet with feathers for each Japanese ship the boat had sunk. The second Wahoo continued the tradition via the Al Capp character “Lonesome Polecat,” armed with a torpedo-tipped arrow.
A planned Block 5 Virginia-class submarine, SSN-806, will be the third USS Wahoo commissioned. Likewise, her sister SSN-805 will be the third USS Tang.
Ships are more than steel and wood And heart of burning coal, For those who sail upon them know That some ships have a soul.
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The company first announced the $120 million move to Tennessee from its long-time home in Springfield, Massachusetts in September 2021, and broke ground for its new 650,000 sq. ft. facility just two months later. On Saturday, the company held its grand opening celebration and cut the ribbon on the new plant.
Funded from cash on hand by the publicly traded company (and not by loans or state bonds), the new facility shifts employees from its former flagship location in Springfield, Massachusetts; its plastic injection molding facility in Deep River, Connecticut; and its distribution plant in Columbia, Missouri, with the last two locations closing to streamline operations. Tennessee will house the company’s headquarters, distribution facility, and assembly facility as well as a company museum and retail space.
I was there and got the tour. In addition to a planned 22 assembly lines, the campus includes a full-service employee gym, cafeteria, medical facilities, and a 23,000 sq. ft. indoor shooting range that is serviced by robots.
Yup. Robots.
Still, Smith is looking to employ over 600 at the plant.
U.S. Light Tank, M24 entered production in 1943 with Cadillac and Massey-Harris with the tractor firm making 1,139 at its Racine, Wisconsin facility (a former Nash-Kelvinator plant!) and another 3,592 hulls coming direct from Cadillac’s Detroit factory, with lots of sub-components supplied by Oldsmobile.
They were an excellent light tank for the era, hitting the scales at 20 tons (which was still much larger than a 15-ton circa 1941 M3 Stuart that it would doctrinally replace) while carrying an effective 75mm M6 main gun, up to 38mm of armor (which was actually lighter in spots than the Stuart but better than nothing) and could hit speeds of up to 35 mph on good roads and with good tracks/wheels.
Fort Hood, a good example in size between an M24 Chaffee light tank, M4A3E8 Easy Eight Sherman medium tank, and M26 Pershing heavy tank, all shown with deep wading equipment
It came rather late to WWII and only started reaching the ETO in November 1944, not making much of a difference. In U.S. service, however, it did see much more action in the first days of Korea, as we have covered in the past.
Where the M-24 really shined, in terms of military history, is in rebuilding Allied tank forces post-war, and it saw something like 28 different operators including Norway who used them until the end of the Cold War, only retiring their Cadillac-Massey light tanks in 1993!
NM-116: Norwegian M24 Chaffe repurposed as a tank destroyer
In fact, that is where the “Chaffee” designation comes from on the tank, issued by the British who were fond of naming Lend-Leased Yank tanks for generals.
However, while countries as wide-reaching as Ethiopia, Chile, and Denmark would use the humble little Chaffee, no one used as many as the French, who picked up no less than 1,250 M-24s in the late 1940s to early 1950s– a full one out of every four built.
These tanks saw lots of serious use in Indochina from 1947-54 in French hands, where the small (compared to a main battle tank) was ideal from primitive roads and bridges.
26 March 1951 Indochine française. French and Vietnamese soldiers catching a ride on the M24 Chaffee “Metz”. Réf. : TONK 51-37C R13 Guy Defives; Paul Corcuff/ECPAD/Defence
Ten were even flown, disassembled into components, into Dien Bien Phu where they served as mobile artillery for the embattled garrison, reportedly firing in excess of 15,000 shells during the siege.
French Foreign Legionnaires working on US-supplied M24 Chaffee tanks at Dien Bien Phu in Indochina. They would suffer repeated massed bazooka and recoilless rifle attacks and somehow endure.
Once the French left, the NVA and ARVN had so many third-hand Chaffees inherited that they continued to use them well into the 1960s, with the South Vietnamese replacing theirs with U.S.-supplied M-41A3 Walker Bulldogs and Uncle Ho’s tankers graduating to Soviet-supplied PT-76 light tanks with the latter first seeing combat against the Lang Vei Special Forces camp on 6/7 February 1968.
Two M24 Chaffee tanks of the People’s Army of Vietnam, which had been captured from French forces, at a military parade in Hanoi, 1955.
M24 Chaffee light tanks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) prior to the commencement of operations in the Iron Triangle, Oct 1965. Binh Duong Province, Ben Cat. Tom Gosper photo via the AWM. P11006.017
The ARVN also transferred many semi-working M24s to the VNAF, the South Vietnamese airforce, for use in static roles by their local security police, which continued well into the 1970s.
M24 Chaffee of the VNAF (South Vietnamese Air Force) guards Tan Son Nhut in Saigon.
Some fought to the bitter end, pressed into service in a losing battle against impossible odds.
M41 Bulldog and M24 Chaffee light tanks of the ARVN after being destroyed by North Vietnamese T-54 on the outskirts of Saigon, during the 1975 Spring Offensive
As for the French, they kept a few M-24s in their inventory where some saw combat in Algeria as late as 1962, but by that time had moved to replace them with more than 3,500 domestically-produced air-portable AMX-13, which remained in service with the Republic into the 1980s and is still seen in many third world environments as another 3,500 were exported to French allies– a true successor for the M24.
Two recent USCG reports from the Far North have some great imagery associated with them. Like recruiting poster-level stuff, here.
First, the 270-foot Famous (Bear) class medium endurance cutter (basically a 1980s patrol frigate) USCGC Forward (WMEC 911) recently returned to her home port in Portsmouth following a 10,500-nm/78-day deployment in the high North Atlantic Ocean that had some very chilly vibes and an interesting UUV deployment in the region.
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Forward (WMEC 911) steams near an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean, on Aug. 22, 2023. Forward deployed in support of Op Nanook, an annual Canadian-led exercise that offers an opportunity to work with partners to advance shared maritime objectives. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Mikaela McGee)
Throughout the deployment, Forward supported the U.S. Coast Guard’s Arctic Strategy and partnered with allied nations and agencies during Operation Nanook 2023, an annual Canadian-led military exercise to strengthen maritime objectives in the high northern latitudes.
Alongside Canadian and French forces navigating the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, Forward’s crew performed training evolutions including towing and formation steaming, replenishment at sea, visual communications tactical signaling, and cross-deck exercises. In addition, an attached team from Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Team Pacific conducted a boarding exercise with French Navy vessel BSAM Garonne to demonstrate at-sea capabilities and assist in enhancing partner training curriculums.
Forward collaborated with embarked U.S. Navy personnel from the Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Flotilla-1 team to launch their Razorback UUV. The undersea vehicle, equipped with mapping and sonar capabilities, deployed deeper than any U.S. Navy submersible and traveled to a depth of nearly 2,000 feet (600 meters).
Members from the U.S. Navy’s Afloat Training Group Atlantic were also embarked aboard Forward to help build their service’s Arctic Vision Initiative, which will serve to inform U.S. Navy training entities of seamanship, navigation, engineering, and medical considerations necessary for operating naval vessels in the polar regions.
Plus, how about this massed shot of 270s collected pierside at Portsmouth. Keep in mind just 13 of these vessels were completed.
Family and friends of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Forward’s (WMEC 911) crew watch the cutter approach the pier, Sept. 26, in Portsmouth, Virginia. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Brandon Hillard)
Next, the one-of-a-kind medium (as in, it’s not going to clear a path to McMurdo) icebreaker USCGC Healy (WAGB 20) has been on a five-week-long NSF mission from Kodiak, Alaska to Norway over the top of the world supporting the Nansen and Amundsen Basins Observational System (NABOS). She just called at Tromso in Norway, and prior to that rendezvoused with the Norwegian Coast Guard Vessel Svalbard in the ice-covered waters northwest of the Svalbard archipelago.
The two ships transited together toward Tromsø while crew members participated in an exchange on each other’s vessel to foster a deeper understanding of the other service’s operations.
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB 20) transits the Tromsøysundet Strait alongside the Norwegian Coast Guard Vessel Svalbard near Tromsø, Norway, Oct. 1, 2023. The U.S. shares a decades-long stalwart partnership with Norway built upon shared values, experiences, and vision. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Senior Chief Petty Officer Charly Tautfest)
Speaking of Svalbard, aka Spitsbergen, the frozen archipelago that was once the stomping grounds of the Tirpitz and is the current home to the end-of-the-world seed bank, life has been getting tense due to the co-located Soviet err Russian mining outpost there as of late.
