Stoner’s Baby Clocking in (with Browning, Piek, and Tokarev in support)

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Spotted somewhere in Ukraine: a UAR-10 complete with all the afterdark party favors, a six-shot South African Milkor MGL 40mm revolver grenade launcher with an absolute stack of grenades, and an oldie but a goodie for close-in work: the Tokarev TT, pretty much a Commie clone of Browning 1900 in 7.62×25 pistol.

Of note, the UAR-10, essentially a Ukrainian Zbroyar-made branch of Eugene Stoner’s AR-10/SR-25 family tree that has been in production there for a decade, is a favorite there for precision use.

See the below, somewhat hyperbolic, take on the rifle in Ukrainian service.

From Tunisia to Tunica

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Some 80 years ago today, the North African Campaign wrapped up. The week prior, the British 7th Armored Division captured Tunis, the capital of Tunisia while the U.S. II Army Corps captured Bizerte, the last remaining port in Axis hands. On 13 May 1943, the Axis forces in North Africa, having sustained 40,000 casualties in the loss of Tunisia alone, surrendered and 267,000 German and Italian soldiers became prisoners of war.

The later famous if somewhat overrated Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK), had, once Rommel left, been sort of renamed to Heeresgruppe Afrika and left for Generaloberst Hans-Jürgen Bernard Theodor von Arnim to surrender into captivity.

The haul of military gear was tremendous and the Allies came away with many working examples of just about every juicy piece of kit both the Germans and Italians had in the field at the time.

The below chronicled by LIFE magazine’s Eliot Elisofon:

As for the good Generaloberst Arnim, he would join at least 25 other DAK general officers under the hot Mississippi sun for the duration.

The Afrikakorps would spend 1944 and most of 1945 picking cotton, planting trees, and building roads around Camp Clinton just outside Jackson, Camp McCain near Grenada, Camp Como in the northern Delta, and Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg.

There are signs of the old DAK all over Mississippi.

The museum at Camp Shelby has a number of remains left behind, and there is an off-limits parade ground on the base as well.

I once spent some time in a class around Grenada and found some of the old barracks out in the woods near the lake.

Speaking of lakes, we literally have POW Lake in Harrison County, a former navy magazine that was constructed by the Germans in 1944.

It is quiet and my dog loves it out there.

Bookends, Flattops

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Two very interesting things have occurred in the past few weeks when it comes to the Navy’s capital ships.

First, USS Nimitz (CVN 68), the oldest-serving U.S. commissioned aircraft carrier in the world, successfully completed its 350,000th arrested aircraft landing while sailing in the South China Sea, a milestone nearly 48 years in the making.

Capt. Craig Sicola, commanding officer of Nimitz, and Cmdr. Luke Edwards, commanding officer of the “Fighting Redcocks” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 22, piloted the landing in a F/A-18F Super Hornet from VFA 22 on the morning of April 22nd. 230422-N-HK462-1291 Photo By: Hannah Kantner

Nimitz is the first active U.S. Navy carrier in the Fleet to reach this milestone– even surpassing the numbers seen by Enterprise, the Forrestal, JFK, Midway, et. al. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) has the next highest total of arrested landings at 326,600.

The Navy is starting long-lead planning to defuel and dispose of Nimitz (CVN-68), with the carrier scheduled to leave service in 2026 after 51 years in the fleet.

And in a follow-up to that, the first of the new Ford-class supercarriers, CVN-78, departed Naval Station Norfolk for her first real deployment, on 2 May.

The GRFCSG consists of USS Gerald R. Ford, Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 12, Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 8, Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 2, Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG 60), and Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Ramage (DDG 61), USS McFaul (DDG 74), and USS Thomas Hudner (DDG 116).

Bookends, South East Asia

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On 11 May 1961, President Kennedy approved sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100 other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam, also authorizing the use of CIA cutouts to work from Vietnam into nearby Laos and North Vietnam.

Fast forward to this week and the United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration is hosting a three-day “Welcome Home! A Nation Honors our Vietnam Veterans and their Families,” in Washington, D.C., marking the 50th anniversary of when the last combat troops left South Vietnam in 1973.

Of course, Saigon held out for another two years with lots of low-key U.S. support, but that darker anniversary won’t be until 2025.

Tommy Gun bonanza

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Zelený Sport Defence in the Czech Republic just posted these images from their recent warehouse move, pointing to some of the amazing stuff that is still floating around out there.

Looks like a bunch of M1928 (left) and M1 Thompson (right) subguns, right from 80 years of arsenal storage.

ooof

How about those sights?

That Thompson-marked Cutts compensator…

Of course, the only legal way these could ever go back home is in torched condition as parts. Sigh. Cue the Indiana Jones meme. 

Warhawk Close-up

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80 years ago. North African Campaign, Tunisia, May 1943: A great shot of a Curtiss P-40K-1-CU Warhawk from the 64th Fighter Squadron (The Black Scorpions), 57th Fighter Group, of Ninth Air Force, USAAF. The ground crewman is riding the wing to relay to the pilot to avoid ground obstacles that the aviator at the controls of the tail dragger is unable to see due to the angle. 

Via LIFE Archives

The above aircraft is “White 13” (SN 42-46040), “Savoy” assigned to 22-year-old 1st LT (later Capt.) Robert Johnson “Jay’ Overcash, and was likely taken either at Hani Airfield or Bou Grara Airfield in North Africa. Note the dot-dot-dot-dash (Morse= V) code and black scorpion on the aircraft’s fuselage along with the disembodied skull. Does it get any more moto?

The image was snapped just a couple weeks after the 64th Squadron famously mixed it up over the Sicilian straits with a German air convoy on 18 April during which 74 enemy planes, mostly transports, were claimed destroyed. The event was known in the 57th FG as “The Palm Sunday Massacre.”

Soon after this image was taken, 46040 was transferred further East to a Chinese KMT AF training unit in Karachi, India, and would be wrecked at Malir Air Base, India on 30 September, with the pilot trainee at the stick killed.

The unit, constituted as the 64th Pursuit Squadron (Interceptor) on 20 November 1940, would end the war flying P-47s on interdiction and support operations in northern Italy.

In all, Overcash would be credited with 5 victories, an ace, the last two flying White 13 (then a P-47) on 26 April 1944, while escorting USAAF B-25s and RAF Baltimores on a bombing mission. Post-war, he transferred to the new U.S. Air Force and retired in 1980 as a U.S. Air Force Reserve Colonel.

Today, the 64th Aggressor Squadron of the 57th Adversary Tactics Group is still around, located at Nellis AFB Nevada.

Vale, Kyle Ronald Porter

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First off, I just want to say that much of the press about Fireforce Ventures came from left-leaning and much-skewed small Canadian media outlets looking to sensationalize on the merch the small milsurp company sold, which included a lot of Rhodesian brushstroke camo and replicas of old Rhodie flags and patches, and then take said merch and use it to characterize who sold it, which were a couple of Canadian Forces vets.

While I have no love lost for the old Rhodesian regime, and don’t rock any brushstroke myself, selling it it is certainly no worse than companies that sell tons of old Combloc stuff or repro/vintage German/Italian/Japanese/Soviet WWII stuff, or South African springbok gear no less.

With that caveat delivered, one of the co-founders of FFV, a former Canadian Forces Medic, was just lost in Ukraine while volunteering as a combat medic on the lines at Bakhmut. An admirable end for any man. 

An email from Hank at FFV, which has since pulled stumps and moved to Texas:

On behalf of the Fireforce Ventures Corporation, I must sadly remit news of the passing of my co-founder, Kyle Ronald Porter during the Battle of Bakhmut on 26 April 2023.

Kyle Porter and I were the original two founders of Fireforce Ventures. At the time of his death, Kyle was a combat medic in the Ukrainian Legionnaires Special Services Group, attached to Code 9.2, 92nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Ground Forces.

Kyle came up with our name, our logo, and the business mindset we still rely on. Kyle emphasized attention to detail, and a deep respect for the hard-won military heritage that comes with the word “Fireforce”. His contributions to FFV are immeasurable.

However, Kyle was a combat medic first and foremost. He volunteered in Ukraine several times. He served twice with a search and rescue team, before volunteering as a combat medic in the Ukrainian Army. Kyle plied his trade with gallantry despite the horrors of war.

Under intense combat conditions, he saved the lives of both servicemen and civilians alike, regardless of who they were. He also empathized heavily with the plight of the innocent, caught in the crossfire of war. He was a professional soldier through and through. I know for a fact, he did not fear death. Whe n it came, I knew he had a smile on his face.

Before Ukraine, Kyle had truly lived the life of a modern-day adventurer. Whenever Kyle was back from some adventure, diving the Scapa Flow wrecks, skydiving in Arnhem to commemorate Operation Market Garden, or ranging the African veldt on anti-poaching missions, we d always meet up. We’d sit and chat, often for hours about life, death and everything in between. In those talks, he told me to never mourn his death, for he welcomed it if his time was up.

I don’t know how I’ll be able to do that. I am crushed knowing that my best friend won’t return for a beer this time. He’ll never see Texas. He’ll never see where we end up.

Kyle was my best friend. I pray that one day, the full story of Kyle’s extraordinary 27 years of life can be told.

No matter how many cruise missiles and artillery rounds danced around Kyle over the last two years, he never feared anything. He told me that if his number up, it was up. He primed me for this almost a decade ago when we met in basic. He always faced life and death with the same lingering smile and devil-may-care attitude that characterized him.

Kyle would have been tickled to have gotten so many words of love from strangers he’d never met in the last few days. He never viewed himself as anything special, just another combat medic in a random conventional war. He told me to never grieve his death, as it was one he accepted fully. He’d say he was “dead a million years before he was born, and will be dead a million years after”. I know he’d want us to move on the best we can. We shut down for 24 hours when we broke the news over social on May 8th, but have since come back online, as Kyle would have wanted.

Make sure to please still consider supporting his family on GoFundMe in their efforts to repatriate his remains and bury him with dignity. You can contribute to the GoFundMe campaign at https://www.gofundme.com/f/318ubtq8y0

Thank you everyone for your understanding and support in this difficult time.

–Henry “Hank” Lung, Managing Director of Fireforce Ventures

Army’s New SMG spotted in the Wild

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B&T USA in 2018 was one of six companies that submitted designs to the Army for what the service termed “Sub Compact Weapons.” These guns, “capable of engaging threat personnel with a high volume of lethal and accurate fires at close range with minimal collateral damage,” were to be used by the special teams tasked with protecting high-value officers and dignitaries such as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, as well as units like CID.

In the end, B&T’s APC9K won, giving it big time bragging rights, and the USAF doubled down on a shipment for their own specialized uses.

The B&T APC9K will almost fit in the palm of your hand– if you have really big hands. (Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

The B&T APC9K will almost fit in the palm of your hand– if you have really big hands. (Photos: Chris Eger)

And, the APC9K has been spotted in use by CID types in New Jersey recently.

Spc. Michael Richardson, an Army Intelligence Analyst with the 733rd Military Police Battalion (CID), fires the APC9K submachine gun at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey. (Photo/Caption: U.S. Army)

More in my column at Guns.com.

Warship Wednesday, May 10, 2023: The Sleazy B

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, May 10, 2023: The Sleazy B

Naval History and Heritage Command NH 56568

Above we see a view of the slipway at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., some 105 years ago this week, of the Wickes-class four-piper USS Breese (Destroyer No. 122) just after she was launched on Saturday 11 May 1918. Completed too late for the war she was intended for; our humble little tin can would be very busy in the next one.

The Wickes

Breese was one of the iconic first flight of “Four Piper” destroyers that were designed in 1915-16 with input from no less an authority as Captain (later Admiral) W.S. Sims. Beamy ships with a flush deck and a quartet of boilers (with a smokestack for each) were coupled to a pair of Parsons geared turbines to provide 35.3 knots designed speed– which is still considered fast today, more than a century later.

The teeth of these 314-foot, 1,250-ton greyhounds were four 4-inch/50 cal MK 9 guns and a full dozen 21-inch torpedo tubes.

They reportedly had short legs and were very wet, which made long-range operations a problem, but they gave a good account of themselves. Originally a class of 50 was authorized in 1916, but once the U.S. entered WWI in April 1917, this was soon increased and increased again to some 111 ships built by 1920.

Wickes class USS Yarnall (DD-143): Booklet of General Plans – Inboard Profile / Outboard Profile, June 10, 1918, NARA NAID: 158704871

Wickes class USS Yarnall (DD-143): Booklet of General Plans – Main Deck / 1st Platform Deck / S’ch L’t P’f’m, S’ch L’t Control P’f’m, Fire Control P’f’m Bridge, Galley Top, After Dk. House and 2nd Platform Deck. / June 10, 1918, Hold NARA NAID: 158704873

Wickes class. A close-up of her stern top-down view of plans shows the Wickes class’s primary armament– a dozen torpedo tubes in four turnstiles and stern depth charges.

Meet USS Breese

Our warship is the only one named in honor of Kidder Randolph Breese.

Mr. Breese, a Philadelphian, was appointed a Navy midshipman at the age of 15 and saw wartime service on the sloop USS Saratoga off Mexico before his appointment to Annapolis. He later went on to join Commodore Perry’s Japan voyage and in the Paraguay Expedition in the antebellum period of the young republic. Civil War service included serving on the USS San Jacinto during the Trent affair, then with RADM David Dixon Porter for Vicksburg and Fort Fisher. Post-war assignments were varied and included inspecting the battle-damaged ironclad Huascar and command of the Torpedo Station at Newport, where he passed in 1881 at the rank of captain, aged a well-traveled 50.

Laid down on 10 November 1917 at Newport News, she was launched on 11 May 1918 with Mrs. Gilbert McIlvaine, the late Capt. Breese’s daughter, as sponsor, and commissioned on 23 October 1918, just three weeks before the Great War ended.

Notably, she was built side-by-side with her sister USS Gamble (DD-123) and the two were launched on the same day.

Newport News Ship Building Company, Newport News, Virginia. Caption: USS Breese (DD-122) and USS Gamble (DD-123) on the ways between November 1917 and May 1918. Description: NH 43018

USS Breese (DD-122), double launching with USS Gamble (DD-123) at Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., Newport News, Virginia on 11 May 1918. NH 56567

With the line still hot, just five minutes after she was launched, workmen began putting down the keel plates for sistership USS Bagley (DD-185) on the ways that Breese had just vacated while USS Clemson (DD-186) had her plates installed on Gamble’s freshly vacant berth.

Still, our brand new destroyer was able to get some wartime service in, effectively spending her shakedown on convoy escort duty with the Atlantic Fleet Cruiser Force.

USS Breese (DD-122) photographed circa November 1918, dressed in flags. Note her dazzle camouflage, which she would shed within a year. NH 42836

Immediately after the war wound down, Breese along with Gamble and several of their sisters Destroyer Division 12, would deploy to Cuban waters for most of 1919.

USS Gamble (DD-123) and USS Breese (DD-122) photographed circa 1919, probably at Balboa, Panama, Canal zone. Courtesy of Jack Howland, 1983 NH 94956

USS Breese (Destroyer # 122). Photographed circa 1919. Note that she still wears a small hull number (“122”) in its World War I position below the bridge, as well as a large number in the post-war location on the bow. Courtesy of Jim Kazalis, 1981. NH 92527

Div 12, with Breese along with it, then set out for the Pacific Fleet, where they would be active out of San Diego for the next two years.

USS Breese (DD-122) moored to a buoy circa 1920. NH 56572

USS Breese (DD-122) in San Diego, California, circa 1920. Note her single 3″/23 “anti balloon gun” behind her forward 4-incher. Courtesy of Mr. Donald M. McPherson, Corte Madera, California NH 56573

USS Breese (DD-122) photographed circa 1920. NH 61910

Destroyers nested at San Diego, CA circa 1920; from L-R: USS Radford (Destroyer No. 120), USS Sproston (Destroyer No. 173), USS Breese (Destroyer No. 122), USS Badger (Destroyer No. 126) and USS Montgomery (Destroyer No. 121). NH 50241

Destroyer Divisions 13, 15, 14, 11, and 10 moored in nests, off San Diego, California, circa 1922. Ships in the left foreground nest include (from left to right): USS Breese (DD-122); USS Radford (DD-120); USS Gamble (DD-123); USS Farquhar (DD-304); USS Robert Smith (DD-324); USS Montgomery (DD-121); and USS Lamberton (DD-119). The leftmost ship in the nest at right is USS Kennison (DD-138). Courtesy of ESKC Joseph L. Aguillard, USNR, 1969 NH 69514

Three Wickes (Lamberton) Class Destroyers during a public event at an unknown west coast port, maybe San Diago Ca in the early 1920s. From the left is USS Lamberton DD-119 (lead ship of the modified Wickes Destroyers), USS Breese DD-122, and USS Radford DD-120. Ships were part of Destroyer Force Division 12, Pacific Fleet

U.S. fleet in Balboa, Panama, early 1920s. The center of the photo is the battleship USS New Mexico BB-40, then a cluster of flush deck destroyers including USS Ramsey DD-124, USS Montgomery DD-121, USS Breese DD-122, USS Lamberton DD-119, and USS Gamble DD-123. In the background are the battleship USS Mississippi BB-41, the tin cans USS O’Bannon DD-177, USS MacKenzie DD-175, USS Hugan DD-178, USS Anthony DD-172, and several other destroyers and another battleship in the far distance.

With the Navy flush with destroyers and few destroyermen billets to go around, Breese was decommissioned on 17 June 1922 after just short of four years of service and laid up.

Destroyers refitting at Mare Island. View taken circa 1921-22. Many of these ships are being modified to place the after 4/50 gun atop an enlarged after-deckhouse. Ships present include (listed from the foreground): USS Lamberton (DD-119); unidentified destroyer; USS Breese (DD-122); USS Radford (DD-120); unidentified destroyer; USS Elliot (DD-146); USS Tarbell (DD-142); USS Yarnall (DD-143); USS Delphy (DD-261); USS McFarland (DD-237); USS Litchfield (DD-336); USS Kennison (DD-138); USS Lea (DD-118); and two unidentified destroyers. Collection of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenthold, USN (MC), 1932. NH 50325

Welcome to the Mine Forces

After nearly a decade on red lead row, Breese was taken out of mothballs and redesignated a fast destroyer minelayer (DM-18) on 5 January 1931. This saw her head to Mare Island for a general overhaul and conversion.

The Navy had previously converted 14 Wickes and Clemson class ships to this designation in 1920, with the simple swap out of having their torpedo tubes replaced with tracks that could carry approximately 80 1,400-pound Mark VI moored antenna mines (of which the Navy had 50,000 left over from the Great War) to drop over the side.

As noted by Destroyer History.org:

Among the lessons World War I offered the US Navy was the possibility that fast ships could be effective in laying minefields to disrupt enemy operations. The surplus of flush-deckers at the end of the war provided an opportunity to experiment.

The original 14 circa 1920 rated destroyer-minelayers were slowly replaced throughout the 1930s by a smaller group of eight converted flush-deckers taken from mothballs– USS Gamble (DM-15)(DD-123), USS Ramsey (DM-16)(DD-124), USS Montgomery (DM-17)(DD-121), USS Breese (DM-18)(DD-122), USS Tracy (DM-19)(DD-214), USS Preble (DM-20)(DD-345), USS Sicard (DM-21)(DD-346) and USS Pruitt (DM-22)(DD-347).

Jane’s 1931 entry on the type. Note Breese is misspelled as “Breeze.”

Curiously, these ships would retain their white DD-hull numbers but wear mine-force insignia on their bow, outwardly looking much more destroyer than minelayer.

Wickes-class destroyer USS Ramsey (DM-16)(DD-124) view was taken by Tai Sing Loo, at Pearl Harbor, T. H., circa 1930. Note that she is fitted out as a minelayer (DM) and retains her DD-hull number while wearing mine-force insignia on her bow. NH 49953

In addition to these minelayers, a number of Wickes/Clemson class flush deckers were converted during the WWII era to other tasks including eighteen fast minesweepers (DMS), fourteen seaplane tenders (AVD), and six fast “Green Dragon” transports (APD) plus test ship Semmes (AG 24, ex-DD 189) at the Key West Sound School and damage control hulk Walker (DCH 1, ex-YW 57, ex-DD 163) which was reclaimed from commercial service as a dockside restaurant at San Diego.

All eight of the active destroyer-minelayers were formed into Mine Squadron 1 headed up by the old minelayer USS Oglala (CM 4), flagship of Rear Admiral William R. Furlong, commander of Minecraft for the Battle Force of the Pacific Fleet, and forward-based with “The Pineapple Fleet” at Pearl Harbor, where a new conflict would soon find them.

War!

All MineRon1’s ships were swaying at their berths at Pearl’s Middle Loch on 7 December 1941 when the Japanese attack came in. The squadron was divided into two divisions, with MinDiv2 consisting of Gamble, Montgomery, Breese, and Ramsay.

The response by Breese, among others, was immediate. From her after-action report:

At 0755 two dive bombing planes approached Ford Island from the west at an altitude of 200 ft., in horizontal flight and bombed the sea plane hangar and adjacent gasoline tanks on the west end of Ford Island. The general alarm was sounded, and the anti-aircraft battery manned. This ship opened fire with 50 cal. machine guns at 0757, the first ship to open fire in the Middle Loch area.

In all, Breese got off 1,700 rounds .50 cal. AP/tracer and 45 rounds from her single 3″/23 cal. AAA gun which had been designed primarily to shoot down balloons. Her crew also broke out the light machine guns reserved for use by the landing force– three 30 cal. Lewis machine guns and three M1918 Browning Automatic Rifles. The ship claimed one “kill.”

Four planes were observed by this officer as they were shot down in the Middle Loch area. One of these was hit by a 3″ projectile from this ship, which blew the after part of the fuselage away the remainder of the plane crashed into the west bank of the channel in flames.

By 0917, with an unidentified submarine sighted in the middle of the channel northwest of Ford Island, Breese got underway towards where a periscope had been sighted. She spent the rest of the morning hunting down sound bearings and dropped 11 depth charges on what were thought to be contacts, and Breese may have had a hand in accounting for one of the five Japanese Type A kō-hyōteki midget subs lost in the attack.

Her casualties that day included two gunners suffering minor injuries while working the 3″/23 and minor splinter damage to the ship’s rigging. Likewise, all seven of her DM sisters came through the Japanese strike’s fury and were ready for service. However, Oglala capsized through a series of strange events but would be quickly raised and returned to service as an engine repair ship.

DANFS is almost criminally short on Breese’s subsequent wartime service, summing it up as :

Breese operated in the Central Pacific from 7 December 1941 until 10 October 1944. She then extended her sphere of duty westward to include various islands in the Marianas-Philippine area and continued to serve as a minelayer and patrol ship until 7 November 1945.

Her nine-page War History, in the National Archives, shed much more light on the service.

She would lay one of the first American offensive minefields of the Pacific War, in French Frigate Shoals, and spend much of 1942 on ASW patrol around Hawaii. This would include a sortie to Midway along with USS Allen and USS Fulton, where the three ships picked up 81 men and three officers from the lost carrier USS Yorktown.

Then came some real excitement, detailed via some excerpts from her War History:

The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Tucker (DD-374) sinking on 4 August 1942. Tucker had struck a mine in the area on 3 August 1942, breaking her keel. She was being towed by a motor launch from Espiritu Santo to beach her before she sank when she jack-knifed amidships about 3 1/2 hours later and sank off the northwest corner of Malo Island. The destroyer minelayer USS Breese (DM-18) is standing by, in the foreground. Photographed from a seaplane based on USS Curtiss (AV-4). NH 77031.

Breese (DM-18) underway on 11 December 1943. Note by this point in the war she had three stacks rather than four. NH 107270

Her 7 May offensive mine efforts are detailed by Destroyer History.org:

On 7 May, Radford led Gamble, Preble and Breese in an offensive operation to the New Georgia Group. Approaching Kolombangara from the south through Ferguson Passage, the three laid 250 mines in 17 minutes across narrow Blackett Strait, a well-known route of the Tokyo Express to Vila. The following night, three unsuspecting destroyers of veteran Japanese Destroyer Division 15—which had conducted more Tokyo Express operations to Guadalcanal than any other division—ran into it from the east at 18 knots enroute home from their advance base at nearby Vila plantation. Kuroshio sank immediately; class leader Kagero and division flagship Oyashio were disabled. Despite rescue barges sent out from Vila, they remained exposed to attacks by American aircraft, which found and bombed them the following day. Both eventually sank.

Then came a very busy string of island-hopping campaigns. 

Breese (DM-18) 22 April 1944 off Aitape, New Guinea. Note her small “18” hull number, reduced stacks (three rather than four), and green camouflage, much like that seen on the APD fast transports of the time. National Archives photo SC259984

Among the eight flush-deck destroyer minelayers, the class earned 44 Pacific battle stars. Breese accounted for 10 of these by herself, including:

  • 7 Dec 41 Pearl Harbor–Midway
  • 12 May 43 – 13 May 43 Consolidation of Southern Solomons
  • 29 Jun 43 – 25 Aug 43 New Georgia-Rendova-Vanunu occupation
  • 1 Nov 43 – 8 Nov 43 Occupation and defense of Cape Torokina
  • 12 Oct 44 – 20 Oct 44 Leyte landings
  • 4 Jan 45 – 18 Jan 45 Lingayen Gulf landing
  • 16 Feb 45 – 7 Mar 45 Assault and occupation of Iwo Jima
  • 25 Mar 45 – 30 Jun 45 Assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto
  • 5 Jul 45 – 31 Jul 45 3d Fleet operations against Japan

In August and September 1945 Breese swept mines in the East China Sea “Klondike” areas and Van Dieman Straits in the Kyushu-Korean area.

Then, she headed home for good.

She transited the Panama Canal and put into New York on 13 December 1945. She was decommissioned on 15 January 1946 and sold on 16 May 1946.

Epilogue

Breese’s war diaries, plans, and war history are preserved in the National Archives.

Meanwhile, the Hampton Roads Naval Museum’s gallery contains her ship’s bell.

(US Navy Photo by Max Lonzanida/Released)

Breese’s Pearl Harbor skipper, LCDR Herald Franklin Stout (USNA 1926) would go on to earn two Navy Crosses in the Solomon Islands with the “Little Beavers” of DESRON 23 ( Squadron) as skipper of the new Fletcher-class tin can USS Claxton (DD-571). He retired in 1956 as a rear admiral and passed away in 1987, aged 83. The Pascagoula-built destroyer USS Stout (DDG-55) is named after him and has been in service since 1994.

Of the eight flush-deck destroyer minelayers, two were lost during the war, including Breese’s twin, USS Gamble, who was so severely damaged off Iwo Jima while screening the old battleship Nevada that she was towed to the Marianas and scuttled off Guam. The other loss was Navy Unit Commendation recipient USS Montgomery (DM-17)(DD-121), who fouled a drifting mine in Palau in late 1944 and was decommissioned shortly after limping back home.

Besides Gamble and Montgomery, at least 11 other Wickes class destroyers were lost during World War II in U.S. service. The remainder were scrapped between 1945 and 1947.

Today no Wickes-class tin cans survive. The last one afloat, USS Maddox (DD–168), was scrapped in late 1952 after serving in the US, then RN, then Canadian, then Soviet navies.

However, one of the class, USS Walker (DD-163), has been given new life in the excellent alternate history series Destroyermen written by Taylor Anderson.

There has never been another USS Breese.

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 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.

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A Well-Traveled African BHP

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I spotted this rare gem in RTI’s catalog. As you know, they have been bringing in odd container loads of small arms from the Ethiopian Army, which seems to have begged, bought, and otherwise collected guns from just about every source available to them for the length of the 20th Century. Besides lots of surplus Italian army arms collected first-hand from their former users, Allied arms supplied in and just after WWII, and guns from the Soviets including milsurp German Lugers and P-38s, you just never know what the Ethiopians had in storage and RTI lucked in to.

Take this bad boy, for instance.

The above is a Belgian Force Publique-marked Browning Hi-Power, SN 1450. It is an early gun for sure, including the “thumbprint” on the slide and an internal extractor.

The Force Publique was a colonial gendarmerie established in the Congo by the Belgians in 1885 and remained until June 1960 when the region gained independence, setting off the whole Katanga insurgency thing.

Organized into platoons, companies, and battalions set up as light infantry, the end-strength of the FP prior to independence were 22,403 Congolese regular soldiers and NCOs, 599 European NCOs, and 444 European officers.

As noted by Anthony Vanderlinden in his excellent FN pistols book, the Force Publique on Sept. 3, 1959, ordered 800 pistols marked FP1959 with SN 901-1701, making that batch largely the last one delivered.

As for how the FP Hi-Power made it to Ethiopia? Haile Selassie had sent a detachment of his Imperial Guard to assist the UN in the state from 1960-63.

A mixed patrol of Ethiopian soldiers and local police officer patrol Commune Albert near Elisabethville March 1963 UN Photo # 210715

A mixed patrol of Ethiopian soldiers and local police officer patrol Commune Albert near Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi) March 1963 UN Photo # 210715

A Congolese child is seen in the arms of an Ethiopian soldier, listening over a field telephone, Katanga, 1 March 1963. Note his M1 Garand

UN Photo # 184419

It is more than possible that the Belgian 9mm made it back to Addis Ababa as a trophy and, from there, into the arsenal that RTI just bought.

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