Belle fin, Foch! Adeus, São Paulo!

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The only sistership of the fleet carrier Clemenceau, the 32,000-ton flattop Foch (R99) was commissioned into the French Navy on Bastille Day 1963, carrying the name of the great mustachioed Marshal Ferdinand Foch of the Great War. Fast forward 60 years and her final chapter was written this past weekend. 

She would serve the Republic well for 37 years through the Cold War and see the elephant off Djibouti in 1977 (Crusaders vs Yemeni MiG-21s), against Libya in 1984, and during the NATO Yugoslav intervention in the 1990s with her Etendards flying strikes against Serbian ground targets.

A port quarter view of Clemenceau-class carrier Foch (R-99) underway during exercise Dragon Hammer ’92, May 5, 1992. Note her airwing of six Bréguet 1050 Alizé ASW aircraft on her bow, four 1960s-vintage F-8E(FN) Crusaders in her stern, a Super Frelon helicopter by her bow, an AS365 Dauphin on her short deck, and 13 Super Etendard strike aircraft along her starboard rail. the USN DN-ST-92-08605 by PHC Jack C. Bahm now in the National Archives. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6480281

A starboard bow view of the French Clemenceau class aircraft carrier FOCH (R-99) as the vessel executes a high-speed turn during exercise Distant Drum. May 19, 1983. Again, you see the wing of Alizé and Etendards, while the Crusaders are absent, as well as a great view of her 100mm Modèle 64 gun mounts, of which she was finished with eight turrets that were later removed in the 1990s. The latter fact made her the last heavily armed carrier in terms of surface guns completed. DN-SC-92-01093 NARA https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6474632

Decommissioned in 2000, she was sold for not much more than scrap value ($12 million) to Brazil and was commissioned as Navio Aeródromo (NAeL) São Paulo (A12), replacing the even older NAeL Minas Gerais (A11) which had been constructed as HMS Vengeance (R71) during WWII.

São Paulo, ex-Foch, underway off Brazil. Note her ex-Kuwaiti A-4KU Skyhawks aboard, around 2003. Notably, the Brazilians shared a lot of their knowledge about the ship and how to operate carriers with the Chinese around this time, helping to jump-start that country’s flattop program.

However, the cranky old French carrier never got out much, and as the Argentines had already disposed of their flattop– ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (V-2), a sister of Minas Gerais originally built as HMS Venerable (R63) — in 2000, it never made sense for the Brazilians to spend a ton of money refitting her for further service after a major fire in 2012.

Laid up for six years, she was decommissioned and was sold to a Turkish firm for scrap in 2022, after museum ship plans repeatedly fell through.

With the revelation that she likely had 600 tons of asbestos aboard, demonstrations in Turkey organized by leftist parties meant the old carrier was persona no grata for environmental reasons there.

Sent back to Brazil after mysterious offers from Middle Eastern buyers that probably would have seen her either show up in Iran or China, she was denied entry to port there as she was taking on water and the last thing desired was to have her on the bottom of the harbor in Rio.

In the end, the Brazilians seized her while still at sea and she was scuttled on 3 February 2023, some 220 miles offshore, in 15,000 feet of water.

Not since the ex-USS Oriskany (CV/CVA-34) was deep-sixed off Pensacola in 2006 to serve as a reef (after being cleaned of much of her PCBs and contaminants) has a carrier been disposed of in such a manner.

Light a candle for the Dorchester Chaplains today

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USAT Dorchester during 1942. Note her 4-inch deck gun forward. NHHC Catalog #: SC-290583

Some 80 years ago today, 3 February 1943, the 5,200-ton Gulf & West Indies Steamship Lines passenger steamer-turned-troopship SS Dorchester, while sailing from New York to Narsarssuak, Greenland as part of West-bound convoy SG 19, when she came across German type VIIC submarine U-223 (Kptlt. Karl-Jürg Wächter) as part of Wolfpack Nordsturm.

Besides 1,069 tons of general cargo, lumber, and 60 bags of mail, Dorchester carried a complement of seven officers, 123 crewmen, some 23 Navy Armed Guards (the ship was armed with one 4 in, one 3 in, and four 20mm guns) and 751 assorted U.S. Army troops and civilian passengers.

It was all over very rapidly after U-223 loosed five torpedos around 0452. With lifeboats scarce, although the escorting U.S. Coast Guard Cutters Comanche, Tampa, and Escanaba stood by immediately to rescue those seeking to leave the ship, within 30 minutes the Dorchester was on the bottom, taking 675 souls with her including her master, three officers, 98 crewmen, 15 Armed Guards, and 558 troops and passengers.

Painting of the crew from Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba rescuing survivors from the torpedoed USAT Dorchester. U.S. Coast Guard image

Four Army chaplains representing the four different faiths: Rev Lt George Lansing Fox (Methodist); Rabbi Lt Alexander David Goode; Rev Lt. Clark Poling (First Reformed Church) and Father John Washington (Catholic) gave up their lifebelts to soldiers who have none, and all perished with the ship.

The four “Immortal Chaplains” were posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the DSC.

The Army’s Chaplin Corps marks their passage every February 3rd.

 

A Smoke and a Read

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105 years ago. February 1918. Offical caption: A Canadian soldier enjoys a few minutes with the Canadian Daily Record (Un soldat canadien prenant une pause, s’apprêtant à feuilleter le Canadian Daily Record).”

Note his SMLE .303 to Sergent’s left, a Mills Bomb and electric torch by his pillow for repelling trench-raiding stosstruppen, a gas mask and bayonet eternally at the ready; and a kettle and water can by his rope bed.

Department of National Defence. Library and Archives Canada, PA-002507

According to Veterans Affairs Canada, more than 650,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders served in The Great War– big numbers considering the country had a population in 1914 of just under 8 million. Canada suffered a staggering 66,000 killed and more than 172,000 wounded in the conflict.

Everything old: Lever Guns are the new Modern

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One interesting thing I noticed walking around SHOT Show last month was that there just seemed to be lever-action rifles everywhere. Besides the expected cowboy offerings from the usual suspects like Browning, Chiappa, Cimmaron, Henry, Rossi, Taylor’s, and Winchester, there were new really new (and returning) names in the game.

The new Tombstone by POF-USA is the black rifle company’s take on a modern lever-action chambered in a pistol caliber. “Initially offered in 9mm,” the carbine uses the company’s proprietary magazine already introduced last year with the Phoenix PCC. While this is sure to solicit quick groans from folks who already have lots of Glock, Beretta, Colt, or SIG pattern 9mm mags around the house, the company markets the new line of 9mm bananas in 10 and 20-round formats with a 35-rounder promised for a cost of about $30.

The cost of these, for some reason, is almost $2K.

Even Bond Arms (the derringer guys) has a black rifle lever gun they were showing off. While it may look kinda funny, it is extremely modular, using standard AR-15 uppers and mags, as well as Remington 870 pattern shotgun stocks.

Word is that a lot of folks out in Arizona had some input on it.

TriStar, the Turkish shotgun guys, are now in the lever action game, albeit in a more traditional flavor.

Lots of folks like Tri-Star’s shotguns, so the lever guns will probably be a hit. 

While Ruger’s new Marlin line has concentrated on bringing back the classic Model 1895 Big Loops in .45-70 last year, this year will see the vaunted old Model 336 make a comeback. The fast-handling icon of whitetail deer hunters everywhere, this lever-action rifle is chambered in .30-30 Win. and .35 Remington and will be available sometime later in 2023.

Sorry, no prices on it yet, but as old JM-marked guns have tripled in value just over the past few years, it couldn’t be too far off the mark.

Probably more deer were shot at in the southeast by one of these than any other rifle over the years.

Flip Trihey and The Irish Rangers (of Montreal)

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On 2 February 1916, General Order 69 authorized the 55th Regiment “Duchess of Connaught’s Own” Irish Rangers with recruiting starting in mid-March, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

In fact, to help drum up recruits among ethnic Irish in Quebec for the Overseas Battalion, the Montreal St. Patrick’s Society and the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society held a concert for the nascent unit on March 17th. It followed in the wake of the 110th Irish Regiment (now the Irish Regiment of Canada), which had been stood up the year before in Toronto.

Another public draw for recruits was the fact that the unit’s commander was Lt. Col. Henry Judah “Flip” Trihey, O.C., a lawyer and well-known center forward and team captain with the Montreal Shamrocks when they won the Stanley Cup back-to-back at the turn of the century.

Trihey’s name was printed on all of the recruiting posters, and a special “Sportsman’s Company” was raised, drawn from local lacrosse, track and hockey enthusiasts. 

Added to the unit’s leadership was Capt. William James Shaughnessy, the son of Canadian Pacific Railway president, Lord Thomas Shaughnessy, the latter an important donor when it came to funding Canadian units. Lord Shaughnessy had already lost his younger son to the Germans, Alfred, who fell in France with the 60th Battalion just a month after he arrived. 

Group of officers from the Irish Canadian Rangers, May 1916. Trihey and Shaughnessy are up front.

The unit shipped out as the 199th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), aboard the liner/troopship RMS Olympic on 20 December, consisting of 33 officers and 860 enlisted.

Arriving at Liverpool on Boxing Day, the only “service” performed by the unit as a battalion was to take time off of training for a rambling two-month tour of Ireland, where it was used to help drum up additional recruits to “take the King’s shilling” and show goodwill.

Irish-Canadian Rangers in Cork in 1917

Irish Canadian Rangers, O’Connell Bridge, Dublin, 1917.

It should be remembered this was just after the April 1916 “Easter Uprising” and finding either was hard. 

Returning to England, the Irish Rangers were basically dissolved, amalgamated into the 23rd Reserve Battalion, CEF on 11 May 1917, forming the disingenuous 23rd Canadian Reserve Battalion (199th “Duchess of Connaught’s Own” Irish Canadian Rangers), and would never uncase its colors in France. Its men were sent out piecemeal as replacements for other Canadian units on the Western Front, resulting in Triley and several of the other senior officers resigning their commissions in protest.

Officially disbanded on 15 September 1919 and then reborn intermittently as a militia battalion, the unit’s history, along with several others created over the years in “The City of Saints,” is somewhat perpetuated by The Royal Montreal Regiment, whose flag carries 28 Great War, four WWII, and one Afghan battle honor.

As for Trihey, after the war he remained affiliated with assorted Canadian hockey teams and served as Commissioner for the Montreal Harbor Commission, passing in 1942, aged 64. He was posthumously inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1950 and is recognized as “the first man to utilize the three-man line and he also encouraged defencemen to carry the puck.”

Scouting Force

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Some of the heaviest of heavy sluggers in the Pacific War were the Pensacola and Northampton classes of heavy “treaty cruisers.” Below is a rare snap of seven of these vessels all in one place at one time, 90 years ago today. Of note, two of the seven were lost in combat during WWII.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph #80-G-451164, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, Oahu, Hawaii – Scouting Force ships at, and off, the yard, 2 February 1933. Cruisers tied up at 1010 Dock are (from left to left-center) heavy cruisers USS Augusta (CA 31), Chicago (CA 29), and Chester (CA 27). USS Northampton (CA 26) is alongside the dock in the center, with USS Kane (DD 235) in the adjacent Marine Railway and USS Fox (DD 234) tied up nearby. USS Louisville (CA 28) is in the center distance. Moored off her bow and at the extreme right are USS Salt Lake City (CA 25) and USS Pensacola (CA 24).

Importantly, note the quartets of floatplanes visible, especially on Augusta and Chicago. Having seven cruisers able to put up to 28 observation/scout planes in the air at any one time gave the fleet some decent over-the-horizon ability, especially in the days before long-range surface search radar. 

At the time these would most likely have been Vought O2U/O3U Corsairs. With a range of 680 miles– giving a combat radius of 300– they could carry a trio of flex and fixed ANM2 Brownings and up to 500 pounds of bombs.

The U.S. Navy heavy cruiser USS Chicago (CA-29) at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California (USA), in 1931 (looking aft from the top of the forward fire control station). Note the Vought O3U-1 Corsair floatplanes on the catapult deck. Cruisers in the U.S. Navy often carried as many as 5-6 aircraft between on-deck storage and their hangar (NH70721)

USS Northampton (CA-26) at anchor 1930s. Note four floatplanes amidships.

Northampton-class heavy cruiser USS Louisville (CA-28), Pensacola-class heavy cruiser USS Salt Lake City (CA-25), USS Northampton (CA-26), and USS Chicago (CA-29/also Northampton-class) turning in formation to create a slick for landing seaplanes, during exercises off Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 31 January 1933. Planes are landing astern of the middle cruisers. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-451165

USS Portland (CA-33) during the fleet review at New York, 31 May 1934, with four floatplanes amidship, likely Vought O3U-1 Corsairs with Grumman floats (Photo: NH 716)

Most famous for knocking the original King Kong off the Empire State Building, the O2U gave the fleet some serious eyes. After 1935, they would be replaced with the Curtiss SOC Seagull, a floatplane with better performance that the cruisers would often use well into WWII. 

Besides scouting, the cruiser force’s floatplanes performed a much unsung service in picking up those lost at sea, light transport of personnel and packages from ship to ship and ship to shore, as well as the all-important task of correcting distant naval gunfire missions.

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023: A Hectic 133 Days

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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 time 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, Feb. 1, 2023: A Hectic 133 Days

The photo was taken from USS Fletcher (DD-445). National Archives 80-G-284577

Above we see a rare photograph of the new Fletcher-class destroyer USS DeHaven (DD-469) passing North of Savo Island, which can be seen on the horizon, on 30 January 1943, immediately after the Battle of Rennell Island— the last major naval engagement of the Guadalcanal Campaign. Commissioned just the previous September in Maine, DeHaven would be sunk two days after this image was captured, on 1 February 1943 (80 years ago today) in these same waters by a Japanese air attack, sort of a parting shot to the Empire’s withdrawal from the embattled island.

Fletcher class background

The Fletchers were the WWII equivalent of the Burke class, constructed in a massive 175-strong class from 11 builders that proved the backbone of the fleet for generations. Coming after the interwar “treaty” destroyers such as the Benson- and Gleaves classes, they were good-sized (376 feet oal, 2,500 tons full load, 5×5″ guns, 10 torpedo tubes) and could have passed as unprotected cruisers in 1914. Powered by a quartet of oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers and two Westinghouse or GE steam turbines, they had 60,000 shp on tap– half of what today’s Burkes have on a hull 25 percent as heavy– enabling them to reach 38 knots, a speed that is still fast for destroyers today.

USS John Rodgers (DD 574) at Charleston, 28 April 1943. A great example of the Fletcher class in their wartime configuration. Note the five 5″/38 mounts and twin sets of 5-pack torpedo tubes.

LCDR Fred Edwards, Destroyer Type Desk, Bureau of Ships, famously said of the class, “I always felt it was the Fletcher class that won the war . . .they were the heart and soul of the small-ship Navy.”

Our DeHaven

DD-469 was the first Navy ship named in honor of LT Edwin Jess De Haven. Born in Philadelphia in 1816, he shipped out with the fleet age the ripe old age of 10 as a midshipman and made his name as an early polar explorer, shipping out with the Wilkes Expedition (1839-42), and looking for Sir John Franklin’s lost polar expedition as skipper of the humble 81-foot brigantine USS Advance in 1850 as part of the Grinnell expedition. Placed on the retired list in 1862 due to failing eyesight, he passed in 1865.

His aging granddaughter, Mrs. Helen N. De Haven, made the trip to Bath Iron Works in 1942 to participate in the destroyer’s launching ceremony.

De Haven (DD-469) was launched on 28 June 1942 by Bath Iron Works Corp., Bath, Maine; sponsored by Miss H. N. De Haven, granddaughter of Lieutenant De Haven; and commissioned on 21 September 1942, T/CDR Charles Edward Tolman, USN, in command.

Launch of USS De Haven (DD-469) at Bath Iron Works, Maine (USA), on 28 June 1942 (80-G-40563

De Haven spent four weeks on shakedown cruises and post-delivery yard periods then sailed from Norfolk, reaching the Tonga Islands, on 28 November 1942. There, she attached to escort a convoy of troopships filled with soldiers of the Army’s 25th Infantry (Tropic Lightning) Division headed to Guadalcanal to relieve the “Old Breed” of the 1st MarDiv who had been there since the invasion landings in August.

De Haven screened the transports off Guadalcanal from 7 to 14 December, then sailed out of Espiritu Santo and Noumea in the continuing Solomon Islands operations.

Then, attached to Capt. Robert Pearce Briscoe’s Tulagi-based Task Group 67.5 (known as the “Cactus Striking Force”) along with the destroyers USS Nicholas, Radford, and O’Bannon, she patrolled the waters of the Southern Solomons to stop the “Tokyo Express,” the nightly effort to supply the beleaguered Japanese troops still fighting on the invaded islands.

Cactus Force took part in two bombardments of Kolombangara Island in late January 1943. During the latter, DeHaven fired 612 5-inch shells, which is some decent NGFS.

The U.S. Navy destroyer USS De Haven (DD-469) off Savo Island, viewed from USS Fletcher, 30 January 1943, two days before she was lost. NARA image 80-G-284578

Cactus Force was then sent on the night of 31 January/1 February to escort a scratch landing team of six small LCTs and the old converted “green dragon” fast transport (formerly a Wickes-class destroyer) USS Stringham (APD-6) to land the 2nd Battalion, 132nd Infantry Regiment and a battery of four 75mm pack howitzers near Kukum via Verahue Beach the other side of Guadalcanal, with the intention to outflank the Japanese who were rapidly evacuating the area.

However, they had the misfortune of being caught –in– Operation Ke-gō Sakusen, the Japanese withdrawal near Cape Esperance, and DeHaven became a victim to incoming waves of enemy aircraft screening that effort.

It was over in minutes. Four bombs– including one that hit the superstructure squarely, killing the commanding officer at once– sent the destroyer directly to the bottom as if on an elevator, taking 167 of her crew with her in the process.

She was the 15th American destroyer lost in the Guadalcanal campaign and had been in commission just four months and 11 days. The post-war analysis determined she was lost due to extreme and rapid flooding, specifically a “loss of buoyancy on relatively even keel” a fate only suffered by one other tin can in the war, sistership USS Aaron Ward (DD 483), also lost at a heavy air attack off Guadalcanal.

DeHaven’s six-page loss report is in the National Archives, submitted just four days after the ship took up her place on Iron Bottom Sound. As 10 of her officers were missing in action and three others seriously wounded on Navy hospital ships headed East, it was penned by her only unwounded officer, Ensign Clem C. Williams, Jr. Heady stuff for a 21-year-old O-1 to have to write.

Epilogue

As with the above-mentioned reports, DeHaven’s engineering drawings are in the National Archives.

She has a memorial at the National Museum of the Pacific War, located in Fredericksburg, Texas.

The man who wrote her loss report and compiled the names of her missing and dead, Ensign Williams, who was the son of a Washington dentist that had served in the Navy in the Great War, would survive his own war, become a physician in Indiana, and pass in 1992, aged 71.

Capt. Briscoe, leader of the Cactus Striking Force, would go on to command the fighting cruiser USS Denver (CL-58), earning a Navy Cross during the Northern Solomon Islands campaign from her bridge, then go on to lead the 7th Fleet during Korea. The Mississippian would conclude 41 years of service and retire in 1959 as a full admiral. He is buried at Arlington and a Spruance class destroyer, USS Briscoe (DD-977)— appropriately built in Pascagoula– was named in his honor.

When it comes to DeHaven’s fellow Fletcher-class destroyers, five of her sisterships– USS Pringle (DD-477), USS Bush (DD-529), USS Luce (DD-522), USS Little (DD-803), and USS Morrison (DD-560)— would go on to be sunk by kamikaze aircraft off Okinawa in a three week period. Life was not easy for Fletchers working the picket line in the Spring of 1945. 

The rest of her surviving sisters were widely discarded in the Cold War era by the Navy, who had long prior replaced them with more modern destroyers and Knox-class escorts. Those that had not been sent overseas as military aid were promptly sent to the breakers or disposed of in weapon tests. The class that had faced off with the last blossom of Japan’s wartime aviators helped prove the use of just about every anti-ship/tactical strike weapon used by NATO in the Cold War including Harpoon, Exocet, Sea Skua, Bullpup, Walleye, submarine-launched Tomahawk, and even at least one Sidewinder used in surface attack mode. In 1997, SEALS sank the ex-USS Stoddard (DD-566) via assorted combat-diver delivered ordnance. The final Fletcher in use around the globe, Mexico’s Cuitlahuac, ex-USS John Rodgers (DD 574), was laid up in 2001 and dismantled in 2011.

Today, four Fletchers are on public display, three of which in the U.S– USS The Sullivans (DD-537) at Buffalo, USS Kidd (DD-661) at Baton Rouge, and USS Cassin Young (DD-793) at the Boston Navy Yard. Please try to visit them if possible. Kidd, the best preserved of the trio, was used extensively for the filming of the Tom Hanks film, Greyhound.

DeHaven’s name was quickly recycled for a new Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer (DD-727) that was building at Bath Iron Works in Maine– the birthplace of “our” destroyer. Sponsored by Mrs. H. N. De Haven– who also cracked the bottle on the bow of the first De Haven— she commissioned 31 March 1944 and was screening the fast carriers of TF38 striking Luzon in support of the invasion of Leyte by that November. In a much longer 49-year career, this second DeHaven received five battle stars for World War II service and in addition to her Navy Unit Commendation picked up a further six for Korean War service and decorations for 10 tours in off Vietnam between 1962 and 1971.

Transferred to the South Korean Navy in 1973, she was renamed ROKS Incheon (DD-98/918) (she was present at the landings there in 1950) and served under the flag of that country until 1993.

The USS DeHaven Sailors Association remembers both tin cans today and is very active on social media.

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.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

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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Here come the Jackals

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Palmetto State Armory has been moving ahead with its neat JAKL long-stroke gas piston systems and had several concept guns on display at SHOT Show. While they aren’t in production, it is nice to see they are thinking with broad strokes and, like concept cars, they give a glimpse of what the company may start making in the future, especially if they get a lot of feedback.

Among the concept uppers they had were a 9mm ARV that fits standard lowers, a JAKL KS47 in 7.62×39 that fits KS47 lowers and takes AK style mags, and a 13.7-inch 5.56 that fits standard AR-15 lowers and allows for a folding stock.

Good to see there is some innovation out there.

Your pistol brace countdown starts today

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In the predawn hours on Tuesday morning, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives published its final Stabilizing Braces rule in the Federal Register. 

With an effective date of Jan. 31, 2023, the new 98-page rule, unless successfully challenged in the courts, will fundamentally outlaw the use of pistol stabilizing braces in their current form, instead reclassifying large format handguns so equipped with one as a short-barreled rifle to be regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934. 

Federal regulators have classified the accessories since 2012 as being compliant with the NFA, and Congressional Research Service estimates run as high as 40 million braces in circulation. 

“Any weapons with ‘stabilizing braces’ or similar attachments that constitute rifles under the NFA must be registered no later than May 31, 2023,” notes ATF. Alternatives include handing the firearm over to the agency, destroying it, converting the pistol to a normal rifle with a barrel at least 16 inches long, or “permanently” removing the brace so that it can’t be reattached. 

The modern brace as introduced and extensively patented by SB Tactical came about after USMC and Army veteran Alex Bosco went shooting with a disabled combat vet who was having such a hard time shooting on the range that the RSO stopped him over safety concerns due to lack of control. Bosco then created the prototype for the brace in his garage and submitted the design to ATF for approval. 

In a November 2012 letter from the agency, regulators at the time noted: 

The submitted brace, when attached to a firearm, does not convert that weapon to be fired from the shoulder and would not alter the classification of a pistol or other firearm. While a firearm so equipped would still be regulated by the Gun Control Act … such a firearm would not be subject to NFA controls.

The new rule seems to only be popular with a minority of gun control advocates and the White House. By the ATF’s own admission, of the 237,000 comments logged over the proposed rule last year, “There were over 217,000 comments opposed to aspects of the rule.”

There are sure to be legal challenges to the new rule by firearms industry groups and Second Amendment organizations. As for SB Tactical, they said on Monday, “We are still here and have not left you. At this point, we have to let the legal team do what they have been preparing to do for a very long time. Nothing is over, and we are still in the fight. More to come soon.”

Edenton/Haley Soldiers On

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Following an extended $6 million seven-month dry dock maintenance period in Seattle, the one-of-a-kind 282-foot British-built Coast Guard Cutter Alex Haley (WMEC-39) returned to her homeport at Coast Guard Base Kodiak, Alaska earlier this month.

The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Alex Haley returns to homeport at Coast Guard Base Kodiak, Alaska, on Jan. 12, 2023. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ian Gray

As noted by Coast Guard 17th District (Alaska)

The engineering department oversaw 76 work items including major overhauls on the cutter’s controllable pitch propeller system, speed reducers, rudders, and boilers, along with inspections of fuel, sewage, and water tanks. The operations department supervised a renewal of Alex Haley’s flight deck, navigation systems, and electronics while maintaining critical law enforcement currencies. The deck department expertly completed vast amounts of painting and topside preservation, while ensuring small boat operational readiness.

The Coast Guard Alex Haley sits dry-docked for repairs and maintenance in Seattle, Washington, on Dec. 13, 2022. While in the dry dock, the crew and contractors successfully completed more than $6 million worth of repairs.

In typical USCG fashion, Haley is one of the oldest ships in the U.S. maritime service, with 56 years on her hull and another decade of service looming.

Built by Brooke Marine in Lowestoft, Sussex between 1967-71 as USS Edenton (ATS-1), the 3,500-ton vessel was the lead ship of a three-hull class of salvage and rescue ship capable of worldwide operations.

USS Edenton (ATS-1) NHHC L45-82.06.01

Joining the fleet when commissioned on 23 January 1971, as part of the Second Fleet, she would go on to complete no less than nine extended Med cruises and one West Pac deployment before she was decommissioned on 29 March 1996, completing 25 years “haze gray and underway.” Of note, the builder of the class, Brooke Marine, had gone into receivership and been sold off almost a decade prior, while the class’s Paxman diesels were increasingly unsupportable.

Edenton was stricken from the Navy List on 29 December 1997.

While her sisters USS Beaufort (ATS-2) and Brunswick (ATS-3) would be retired at the same time, they would retain their extensive salvage gear fit and be sold in a hot “as-is” transfer to the South Korean Navy, where they linger in service as ROKS Pyeongtaek (ATS-27) and ROKS Gwangyang (ATS-28), respectively.

As for Edenton, over a two-year period, she would land much of her deep water salvage gear to make room for a helo deck, grab a white paint scheme with a racing stripe, trade her vintage Mk 16 20mm guns for MK38 Bushmaster 25mm mounts, swap her Paxmans for Catapillars, and ship off to Kodiak where she would take the place after WWII-era icebreaking cutter USCGC Storis (WAGL-38/WMEC-38) was retired, as the Coast Guard’s primary live-in asset in the Bering Sea. Of note, that is why Haley carries the next hull number in line (WMEC-39) after Storis.

Her missions typically involve search and rescue, fisheries law enforcement, and vessel safety inspections across Alaska.

Since her commissioning in USCG service on 10 July 1999, ex-Edenton has carried the name of the late Alexander Palmer Haley, Chief Journalist, USCG (Ret.).

Long before he drew international acclaim for Roots, Haley enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1939 as a mess attendant/steward and, serving through WWII on the cutters Mendoza and Pamlico and in the Pacific Threatre on the cargo vessel USS Murzim (AK-95), contributed articles to the Coast Guard Magazine and started a mimeographed ship’s newspaper. Switching to a Journalist rate in 1949, he would transfer to the Reserve list in 1959, completing 20 years of active duty including WWII service across three theatres and Korean War service. He would then go on to become a senior editor for Reader’s Digest and conduct a series of brilliant interviews for Playboy in the 1960s, back when folks really did buy it for the articles, before becoming a household name.

JOC Haley passed in 1992, aged 70.

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