That great shooting range in the sky

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Among those lost to the gun community in 2022:

Aaron Hogue — One of the managing owners of Hogue Grips and son of Guy Hogue, the company’s founder, Aaron died when the jet he was piloting in the National Championship Races at Reno crashed. 

Peter J. “Pete” Hylenski — A gifted design engineer who left his mark with Wildey, Winchester, and Kimber, Hylenski was known as “Mr. Model 70” as he was the long-term Model 70 Rifle Design Engineer during the era that saw the return of the “pre-’64” type Model 70 control-round feed action. Hylenski passed away on March 29, 2022, aged 77.

Thomas Devine Smith — A Texas sports shooter and Air Force officer, Smith competed in the 50-meter pistol event at the 1964 Summer Olympics before winning two gold medals at the 1963 Pan American Games. He set and broke numerous pistol records in his career, some of which still stand even decades later. He also survived his plane breaking up in-flight, landing on snow-covered Mt. Helmos in Greece without a parachute, surviving the fall. Colonel Smith died in May, aged 90. 

George Trulock — Founder of the shotgun choke empire that bears his name– and is OEM for numerous manufacturers– George Trulock was a legend in the gun industry. He passed in June and is remembered by his company as “a visionary and a creative genius” as well as an “amazing human being.” 

The rest of the list is in my column at Guns.com.

Going Behind the Scenes at S&W

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In the Select Fire series over at Guns.com that I host, I really dig factory tours of gunmakers as each will have a different way to run a shop. Speaking to this, I recently got to visit Smith & Wesson’s historic Springfield, Massachusetts factory to see what goes into making some of the finest revolvers in the world.

Celebrating 170 years in the firearms industry, the company gets its name from the 1852 partnership between Horace Smith and D.B. Wesson. Just two years later, the company debuted the .41 Magazine Pistol, best known as “The Volcanic” — the first repeating American firearm capable of successfully using a fully self-contained cartridge. By 1857, S&W was producing the Model 1 and Model 3 revolver, guns that soon marched off to war and one that Mark Twain carried in his early travels in the West, writing in his 1872 book, “Roughing It,” that, “I thought it was grand.”

Fast forward to the present and Smith is still rocking and rolling. While they have made moves to shift black rifle construction and headquarters to a new factory in Tennessee, the company’s legacy plant in Springfield is still working around the clock and will continue to house its traditional revolver line.

With that, I got the rundown on the process from beginning to end and cover it in detail in the above 18-minute factory tour.

One thing I noticed during our time in Springfield was that, especially when it comes to revolver work, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Check out these images of S&W workers from 1956 compared to ones on the line today. While the machines and safety equipment have been upgraded, the invaluable human factors of attention to detail and quality endure, despite the generational change.

Anyway, the 18-minute tour is here:

The longest-serving GPMG

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Spotted in Ukraine near Chernihiv on Christmas Day: the ever-lasting Pulemyot Maxima PM1910.

Note the timber has been cut out to accommodate the carriage and the 250-round belt at the ready in the can to the right. Machine guns in relatively sheltered fixed positions with interlocking fire are a source of real estate control all their own.

As noted by Denis Winter in his 2014 work, Death’s Men: Soldiers Of The Great War: 
 
On its tripod the machine gun became a nerveless weapon; the human factor of chattering teeth, dripping sweat, and feces in a man’s pants was eliminated. A terror-stricken man could fire his machine gun accurately even by night.

Set up in a sustained fire role with plenty of ammo, thickly greased moving internals, and water for the jacket, such a heavy machine gun can still be as effective in a strong point as it was in 1914– at least until the bunker catches a 125mm HE round from a T-72 or a lucky hit from an RPG or three.

Developed directly from the water-cooled Vickers (Maxim) 08 .303, the Russian-made variant by Pulitov had minor changes beyond its 7.62x54r chambering and sights graduated in arshins rather than yards (the latter something the Soviets would change to meters in the 1920s).

 

The 1910 Maxim going for a drag

Fitted with a unique sled/two-wheeled shielded cart to a design by one Mr. Sokolov and often seen with an enlarged “snow” or “tractor” cap to the radiator, for obvious reasons, in all the Tsar and Soviets would make more than 175,000 PM1910s through 1945, leaving little wonder that they still pop up from time to time.

Twin-linked Maxim guns, with red dot sight, Ukrainian Conflict.

It has far outlived all of its water-cooled “Emma Gee” contemporaries, the Lewis Gun, assorted Vickers models, the various German Spandaus, and the M1917, all of which had been retired since the 1960s, even from reserve and third-world use.

With that, Jonathan Ferguson over at the Royal Armouries walks you through a PM1910 they have in the collection.

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2022: Spyron

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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, Dec. 28, 2022: Spyron

Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum Photo.

Above we see the Tambor-class fleet submarine USS Gudgeon (SS-211), her glad rags flying, in the Mare Island Channel after her launching at Mare Island on 25 January 1941. Commissioned just three months later, her peacetime service would soon be over and she would be in the thick of the upcoming war with the Japanese, sinking the first of the Empire’s warships to be claimed by the U.S. Navy. However, the 307-foot boat would also kick off the American equivalent of the Tokyo Express, leaving Freemantle some 80 years ago this week, bound for the Japanese-occupied Philipines with a very important cargo.

As detailed in Edward Dissette’s Guerrilla Submarines:

Two days earlier the sub had taken aboard a ton of special gear for a landing party to be transported under secret orders to Mindanao and Panay, two major islands in the Philipines. All gear, except gasoline in 5-gallon cans, had been stowed under the floor plates in the forward torpedo room. The gasoline was stored in the escape trunk, where it was safely sealed off from the rest of the ship.

The cargo was pecuilar. Besides the obvious radio equipment, small arms, ammo, and medical equipment, there were also supplies of paper matchbooks and bags of wheat flour– the latter to be used to make communion wafers. To this was added three inflatable boats, stowed deflated below deck, and an 18-foot wooden dingy, strapped– to the skipper’s great frustration– to the top of the hull by her aft 3″/50 deck gun.

After an inspection by RADM Charles A. Lockwood (COMSUBSOWESPAC), a group of seven men arrived:

“Filipino mess boys, neatly attired in clean, faded dungarees, white mess jackets, and white hats, filed aboard and saluted smartly. Ashore a kookaburra bird brayed its raucous jackass laugh as if it found seven mess boys boarding a submarine a funny sight, which it would have been under normal circumstances.”

Rather than common Philipino stewards, a familiar sight on the old Asiatic Fleet’s destroyers and cruisers, the seven men were hastily trained commandos returning to their homeland under the command of Maj. Jesús Antonio Villamor, late of the Philippine Army Air Corps and, following his epic escape from the islands after the fall of Manila, now an intelligence officer tasked with contacting the scattered resistance groups in the Philippines and making them a cohesive force that could help retake the islands.

Villamor, 28, was already a bonafide hero, having flown his obsolete P-26 Peashooter against Japanese Zeroes in December 1941, reportedly downing two of the fighters, and making his way to Australia after the Allied collapse. He was decorated by Dugout Dug with the Distinguished Service Cross– right before he donned a mess boy’s uniform and set sail to return back home.

Using Spanish charts last updated in 1829, Gudgeon crept in close enough for Villamor and his commandos to make for shore at Catmon Point on the late night of 14 January 1943, ultimately just taking two rafts and electing to leave behind the dingy and the cranky third raft along with the gear they could not carry.

A second such mission was carried out by sistership USS Tambor (SS 198) on 5 March at Mindanao.

Gudgeon would return in April, landing 6,000 pounds of equipment and a four-man team commanded by 2LT Torribio Crespo, a U.S. Army officer of Philipino descent. The gear and commandos arrived in Panay to support Lt. Col. Peralta’s growing battalion-sized guerilla band.

And so began the long-running submarine resupply effort in the Philipines.

Instead of the airdrops frequently seen in Europe from SOE and OSS, the Navy organized an effort by Tagalog-speaking LCDR Charles “Chick” Parsons, an officer well aware of the PI coastal waters, to supply the insurgents with vital material. Parsons’s “Spy Squadron” of 19 submarines delivered 1,325 tons of supplies in at least 41 missions to the guerrillas between Gudgeon’s initial sortie in December 1942 and when USS Stingray (SS-186) landed 35 tons of supplies off Tongehatan Point on New Years Day 1945, with an emphasis on medicine, weapons, ammunition, and radio gear.

Salmon class subs USS Stingray (SS-186), foreground Operating in formation with other submarines, during Battle Force exercises, circa 1939. The other three submarines are (from left to right): Seal (SS-183); Salmon (SS-182) and Sturgeon (SS-187). Collection of Vice-Admiral George C. Dyer, USN (Retired). NH 77086

The cargo got weirder and weirder, including propaganda items such as cigarettes, chocolates, and gum whose packages were stamped with big “Made in USA” and “I Shall Return” logos, with the concept that they would unnerve the Japanese to find such trash blowing down the streets in front of their barracks.

5-gallon cans of MacArthur swag, ranging from hotel soaps to pencils, matchbooks, and playing cards, all with “I Shall Return” were landed along with the commando training teams

Added to this were clothing and shoes to outfit ragged guerillas. Flashlights, batteries, binoculars, magazines, books, playing cards, typewriter ribbon, sewing needles– just about everything you could think of to win hearts and minds in remote areas under occupations and cut off from consumer goods.

Guerilla Situation Southeast Luzon, as of March 15, 1945, as reported by U.S. Sixth Army. Notes include Philippine-led units and their U.S.-supplied weapons. They detail at least four battalion-sized elements and eight company-sized groups. (“Maj. Barros 400 rifles 30 MGS, Faustino 400 rifles, Sandico 10 rifles 2 mortars 2 bazookas, Monella 80 rifles, Gov Escudero 300 rifles 19 bazookas 10 pistols, et. al”). Note that these are just the ones the HQ was aware of and in contact with, as there were certainly dozens of smaller partisan groups floating around outside of the communication chain.

“Padre kits,” consisting of five-gallon kerosene tins filled with wheat flour and several small bottles of Mass wine with eyedroppers attached– to be delivered to parishes across the islands to help maintain morale– were also smuggled in.

Each bundle had to be sealed in waterproof boxes and cans, no larger than 23 inches at any point so they could fit through the sub’s hatches. Radio kits took up four boxes and included not only the transmitter/receiver but also a 40-foot antenna in sections, batteries, and enough spare parts to keep everything glowing for at least a year.

The Philippine General Radio Net was Developed during the Japanese Occupation, as of 9 October 1944. Most of these radio kits had been brought into the islands via submarines from Australia

They also delivered 331 agents and officers of all sorts– including Parsons, who spent most of 1943 in and out of the islands, piecing together the resistance network.

Philippines Resistance Forces. Via the National Defense University Press.

Intelligence Agent Insertions Into the Philippines, 1943-1944. Via the National Defense University Press.

Intelligence Agent Insertions Into the Philippines, 1943-1944 (SPYRON) Via the National Defense University Press.

The subs also exfiltrated 472 individuals, including downed aircrews, American civilians trapped in the islands during the 1942 withdrawal, and key personnel. This included at least one German and three Japanese POWs. USS Angler (SS-240), in March 1944, evacuated a record 58 U.S. citizens, including women and children, from Panay back to Darwin– talk about cramped for a 311-foot submarine!

While the fleet boats could only carry a few tons of cargo and a 6-7 person team, the two huge V-class cruising subs, USS Nautilus (SS-168) and USS Narwhal (SS-167), stripped to the bone and only armed with the 10 torpedoes in their tubes for self-defense, could carry a whopping 92 tons of cargo and 25 or more men, earning them the nicknames of “Percherons of the deep.” 

To get a feel for how big these subs were, here we see the Nautilus (SS-168) photographed from her sister ship, the Narwhal (SS-167). Photo credit: Navsource.

In all, by the time MacArthur finally “returned” in October 1944, the Philippine insurgency had grown to an estimated 255,000 guerrillas in the field, organized in 10 military districts, who controlled 800 of 1,000 municipalities in the country as well as the lion’s share of the countryside. It was an effort every bit as large and complex as that shown by the Partisans in Yugoslavia or the French Resistance.

Shortly after MacArthur started operations in Leyte, the Navy was able to land supplies directly via amphibious assault ships and flying boats, while the Army was able to begin airdrops from cargo planes and bombers. 

Nonetheless, it was the submarine delivery service of Chick Parsons and company that got to that point. 

The breakdown of the 41 supply runs by boat:

USS Bowfin (SS-287) (Balao class): 9 runs
USS Narwhal: 9 runs
USS Nautilus: 6 runs
USS Stingray (SS-186) (Salmon class): 5 runs
*USS Trout (SS-202) (Tambor class): 2 runs
USS Redfin (SS-272) (Gato class): 2 runs
USS Gar (SS-206) (Tambor class): 2 runs
USS Gudgeon: 2 runs
*USS Seawolf (SS 197) (Sargo class): 2 runs
One each: USS Angler, USS Crevalle, USS Harder, USS Cero, USS Blackfin, USS Gunnell, USS Hake, USS Ray, USS Grayling, USS Tambor.

These *subs had seen the Philippines in a previous effort, the submerged blockade run into besieged Corregidor between January and May 1942. Carrying 144 tons of antimalarial drugs, small arms and anti-aircraft ammunition, and diesel for the island fortresses generators, they unloaded these under cover of night and then evacuated the Philippines national treasury, 185 key personnel, codes, and vital records that could not fall into Japanese hands– along with 58 torpedos and four tons of submarine spare parts to continue operations from Java and Australia. On both the entry and exit they had to evade destroyer and aerial patrols, weave through minefields and navigate using primitive tools and often inaccurate charts, typically just surfacing at night.

It was hazardous work.

Seawolf did not make her planned 6 October 1944 landing on her second trip under Spyron taskings and was listed overdue as of that date– the only submarine lost during the operations. Likewise, Gudgeon would be lost at sea on or around 18 April 1944 while Trout and Harder would also be lost that year while on patrol. Grayling (SS-209) was lost on patrol off Manila in 1943.

Their names here are inscribed on a memorial at the USS Albacore Museum in New Hampshire. (Photo: Chris Eger)

Epilogue

Today, Bowfin, which conducted no less than nine runs to support the partisan archipelago of the Pacific– tying for first place– is preserved as a museum in Hawaii, and recently just completed a dry dock period to keep her around for future generations.

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.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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To Carry a Trauma Kit, or Not?

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While I have carried a medical kit on me for most of the past decade or so– ever since the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, in which tourniquets had to be improvised from dozens of different sources to save lives– there is a theory, from a legal standpoint, that this could lead to greater liability in a self-defense scenario. While, to each their own, this is some food for thought from a pair of lawyers specializing in the question of if you should pair a trauma kit with your carry gun.

There are many accounts of individuals saving the lives of others because of their fast actions with a trauma kit on hand. So why don’t we recommend self-defenders carry a trauma kit? Armed Attorneys Emily Taylor and Richard Hayes break down the hidden perils of carrying a trauma kit if you also carry a gun for self-defense.

Devil Gear, circa 1860s

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While the Union Army during the Civil War numbered a whopping 2,213,000 individuals in service between the regulars, USCT, and myriad of state volunteer units taken on the roles, the peak strength of the U.S. Marine Corps during the conflict only hit 3,860 officers and men, making them one of the smallest units in Federal service– and their uniforms among the rarest today.

Washington, D.C. Six marines with rifles and fixed bayonets at the Navy Yard. LC-DIG-cwpb-04148

Assorted studio portraits of individual Civil War era U.S. Marines in the Liljenquist collection of the Library of Congress.

You’d never know their dress uniforms were brilliant blue with gold-yellow facings and epaulets from the existing photos.

The Horse Soldier, an upscale military antique store in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania– which sold many of the above studio images to the LOC– has just an incredible find in their collection. 

On display (and for sale of course) at the shop. One of the rarest Civil War uniform groups. This Marine Corps uniform group belonged to Private John Hammond and includes his dress coat with epaulets, shako, fatigue cap, trousers, and rarest of the rare, his knapsack marked “USM.”

Hammond was a shoemaker who enlisted in the Marine Corps in Boston to serve four years on May 15, 1861, and served until discharge on August 24, 1865, at the barracks in Boston. His trousers have the marking of the frigate USS Santee, one of Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron’s most active ships, on the pocket.

Ping! Happy 90th Birthday, Garand Patent

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On 27 December 1932, the U.S. Patent Office granted Case File No. 1,892,141, for a “Semi-Automatic Rifle” to one John C. Garand, aged 44 of Massachusetts. The rest is history.

The 75-page patent application filled out and filed by Mr. Garand himself is so historical that it is fully digitized in the U.S. National Archives.

Filed in April 1930, it was endorsed by the Secretary of War with W.N. Roach, the Army’s Chief of the Patent Branch of the Ordnance Department, signing the drawing sheets and application forms as Garand’s attorney of record. His address was simply listed as Springfield Armory.

The petition, signed by Garand. (Photo: National Archives)

Among the most captivating pieces of the application were several pages of diagrams, all of which are suitable for framing in any man cave.

Gather ’round the spent brass tree

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“Echo Company Christmas Tree,” by Maj. John T. Dyer, Jr., USMCR (16 February 1938 – 31 July 2014).

National Museum of The Marine Corps Collection (2012.1001.362)

LT Randy Rule carefully re-linked spent brass cartridges to decorate the tree, topped by a small American flag, for Echo Company (likely of 2/6 Marines), which overlooks Amal Village in Beirut, Lebanon, on 26 December 1983.

Christmas in Rayon City

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Starting 30 November and running through the first week of December 1944, the “Angels” from the 11th Airborne Division made their first combat jump– Operation King II, better known later as “Operation Table Top,” for reasons that will be obvious. 

Unlike the huge brigade, division, and even corps-sized jumps seen in Europe from the Allied airborne forces already in the war, Table Top– targeting a short airstrip near Manawarat on Leyte in the Philippines to cut off a Japanese withdrawal– was a more pin-point operation. Rather than squadrons of C-46s/47s, each dropping sticks of a dozen men at once, Table Top came down to one Paratrooper at a time from grasshopper single-engined liaison aircraft, L4/L5 Cubs/Stinsons. Anything larger would have left men hanging in coconut trees.

Those dropped amounted to 241 Paratroopers drawn from across the Division with the 11th Abn. Div. RECON platoon going in first followed by a platoon of “Sky Beaver” engineers of Co.C, 127th Airborne Engineer Battalion; followed by one platoon element each from Co.C., 187th Glider (Parachute) Infantry Regiment, 221st Airborne Medical Company, 457th Parachute Field Artillery Bn, and HQs Grp 511th Parachute Signal Company.

In his book “Love in an Altered State” about his father, SSG Bill Potoka, Platoon Sergeant of 3rd Platoon, Co C, 127th AEB, Mr. William Potoka describes Sky Beaver actions: 
 
“Named Operation Table Top, the drop zone was 600′ x 200′ and fringed with coconut trees. Manarawat was to become the hub of all operations of the Division in Leyte Mountains. 1st Platoon supported C Co, 511th PIR. The jump was made one paratrooper at a time from L4 and L5 Cub airplanes. The cub planes zoomed the drop zone and pushed out a paratrooper on each zoom.”
 
In his book “When Angels Fall” about his Grandfather, 1LT Andrew Carrico III, of the 511th PIR, 11th A/B, Jeremy Holm describes Sky Beaver actions: 
 
“Engineers from the 127th AEB soon jumped on Manawarat to clear a larger landing with explosives which increased the range of the Division’s L-4s (L-5s couldn’t handle landing there) for artillery spotting, unit locating and casualty evacuation. Medical staff from 221st Airborne Medical Company airdropped soon after along with equipment for a Portable Surgical Hospital that further enlarged “Rayon City”. 
 
Casualties carried to Manawarat were cared for by three surgeons, ten surgical technicians and other medical staff working out of a thatched and parachute-covered bamboo structure.  Once the wounded were stabilized, they either recuperated on Manawarat then went back to their units or were flown to San Pablo then on to larger hospitals at Dulag (or back to the states).

With such a shoestring op, as the paratroopers remained on the ground at Manawarat, they had to make do with what they had for the rest of the month and “Rayon City” was born. After all, what would you make from hundreds of yards of parachute shrouds and thousands of feet of paracord?

December 1944. Official caption: “Rayon City,” the camp at Manawarat on Leyte Island in the Philippines. Shown here are men of the 11th Airborne Division, preparing for evening chow. House in the background is a native hut, now used as a radio shack and Command Post.

(U.S. Air Force Number 58643AC) National Archives Identifier: 204950331

“A shortwave radio being used in the Manawarat mission against the Japs on Leyte Island in the Philippines. Here, T/4 Warren Scott of Portland, Oregon repairs the set. [Note, he is likely from HQs Grp 511th PSig Co.]”

(U.S. Air Force Number 58644AC). National Archives Identifier: 204950127

“The Manawarat strip on Leyte Island in the Philippines is named ‘Randolph Field’ because many of the pilots there were trained at Randolph Field, Texas. The perimeter of the strip is marked with discarded parachutes. When large para-packs full of supplies, dropped on Randolph Field on Leyte Island in the Philippines, they made large holes in the strip, so the Engineers stand by to fill in the holes as soon as the pack is carried away.”

(U.S. Air Force Number 58641AC) National Archives Identifier:204950327

“The 11th Airborne Division Spends Christmas At Manawarat On Leyte Island In The Philippines And To Properly Celebrate The Occasion, Turkey Was Flown In And Shown Here Is A Vultee L-5 Dropping Fresh Bread Packed In Barracks Bags.”

(U.S. Air Force Number A58653AC) National Archives Identifier:204951950

“The 11Th Airborne Division Spends Christmas At Manawarat On Leyte Island In The Philippines And To Properly Celebrate The Occasion, Turkey Was Flown In. Shown Here Are A Group Of Men Carrying The Cases Of The Tinned Bird To The Food Dump.”

(U.S. Air Force Number 58653AC) National Archives Identifier: 204951948

This included a drop of five gallons of ice cream especially for those “Angels” that had been hurt on landing or taken sick due to assorted jungle malaise and had been laid up in the strip “hospital” where apparently making grass skirts was a thing.

“The Recuperation Ward of the hospital at Manawarat on Leyte Island in the Philippines. Here the men with less serious wounds or sicknesses are hospitalized until they are well enough to return to duty. The man at left is making a ‘grass skirt’ from rayon shrouds of discarded parachutes. (U.S. Air Force Number 58648AC)

What a great rack!

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24 December 1939, France, likely while pierside in Brest, during the “Phony War” period of WWII: a theatre show by the Comédie-Française is given on Christmas Eve aboard the French aircraft carrier Béarn.

Réf. : MARINE 86-820 Jean Manzon/ECPAD/Défense

Note the Seaman 3rd class with his distinctive Bachi cap and Equipages de la Flotte crossed anchors insignia, standing solemn in front of a rack of a dozen or so rifles that look to be Berthier carbines and St. Etienne 8mm Model 1892 revolvers.

A better look at the revolvers locked into their racks with a padlock.

Converted from a canceled Normandie-class battleship in an effort to make lemonade out of lemons in the aftermath of the Washington Naval Treaty, Béarn was similar in concept to the massive battlewagons-turned-flattops conversions seen in the U.S. (USS Lexington and USS Saratoga) Britain (HMS Furious and HMS Glorious) and Japan (Akagi and Kaga) in the 1920s but was arguably the worst of its kind.

Planned French Normandie-class battleship became Bearn after Washington Treaty

With a shorter hull than her contemporaries, while the Americans and Japanese could pile 80-100 aircraft on each of their conversions, and the Brits could run as many as 50 on theirs, Béarn only had enough hangar and topside space for a 32-aircraft airwing– and often carried fewer than that. This was further aggravated by the fact that she was the Republic’s sole carrier, and would remain so for most of her career.

French cruiser Bearn, via Janes

Sure, she was still armed as a light cruiser with eight 6.1/50cal guns, replicating the “throw” of the new Duguay-Trouin class cruisers, as well as secondary and tertiary batteries for defense against aircraft and small boats, but who really expected a carrier to engage in a surface gun action?

Even when flattops had no other option than to try and duke it out– for example, the much out-gunned USS Gambier Bay in 1944 and HMS Glorious in 1940– it was always a bad idea. The fact that Béarn could only make 20 knots at a sprint meant she would have been in the same dead-end scenario had she encountered a German or Japanese heavy cruiser much less a battleship. 

Without much to do, Béarn spent most of the early stages of WWII in limited patrol and pilot training then was fortunate enough to be overseas on a trip to the U.S. to pick up aircraft when France fell. Diverted to the Vichy-held colony of Martinique, she languished there for most of the rest of the conflict, partially disarmed and sabotaged, only getting in the game in the last few months of the war.

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