Legion Etrangere, Ukraine edition

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Borrowing an idea from the French and Spanish, and in an ode to the foreign volunteers who flocked to Finland to fight the Soviets in 1939, the Ukrainian government is being deadly serious about forming their own unit of foreign-born fighters as part of their military.

They even have a website with detailed information and a seven-step process. 

 

Of note, the French Foreign Legion is telling their members to stay put, that they (and their contract) are honor-bound to remain in the force, with their first loyalty not to any country (even France) but to the Legion. Of the elite force’s 9,500 members, some 710 are of Ukrainian origin of whom 210 have been naturalized, and there are some 450 Russian-born troops as well. General Alain Lardet, the Legion’s COMLE, issued a rare public video to the force explaining that, while the country will make allowances for an impacted member’s family to come, and two-weeks leaves for those from the warzone will be allowed, the Legionnaire himself needs to remain in his unit and honor their commitment.

The Legion has reported only 25 desertions by Ukrainian-born soldiers.

Ky’iv says some 18,000 foreign volunteers have arrived in Ukraine or have contacted overseas representatives. 

Reportedly, some 100 South Koreans including former ROK Navy SEAL Lieutenant, LT Ken Rhee, have left for Ukraine, risking a year in prison as Seoul has placed such travel off-limits.

From outside London’s Ukraine embassy, with a mix of experienced and inexperienced signing up, for better or worse: 

A more sober take from a British vet: 

One American combat Veteran, a former 82nd Airborne guy, has been living in Ukraine for the past year and has already signed up a month ago with the Georgian Foreign Legion, according to an interview.

Speaking of volunteers from Georgia– who have had their own run-ins with the Russians in recent years– dozens of men recently gathered outside Ukraine’s embassy in Tbilisi to sign up.

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. at least one eager volunteer was arrested by the local authorities with a gun near the Ukrainian embassy. While the Ukrainian military attaches are wanting volunteers to provide as much kit as possible, this does not extend to firearms apparently.

It seems those who have made it to Ky’iv already are able to arm up. 

Via Battles and Beers: War Stories, a blog that has been chronicling the conflict via emailed interviews with those on the ground, a warning sign that only those with lots of experience should even think about it and neophytes should not apply: 
 
*Professionals*
 
“Advice to volunteers: This isn’t a game. What we are witnessing is a scale of combat that’s unprecedented in modern times. I’m an infantry veteran of the battles of Fallujah and Ramadi and even I’m questioning my qualifications for this. If you aren’t a professional soldier, don’t get involved. 
 
Watching YouTube videos and receiving civilian level training just isn’t good enough. I’m sorry, I know you want to help, but it’s not good enough. You can help more by staying out of it. 
 
Your ignorance of conventional warfare will get yourself, or those around you killed. Light discipline. Crossing danger areas. Treating sucking chest wounds. Self-aid, buddy aid. Max effective ranges. How to dig a fighting position and not get your head shot off. I saw this in a comment on here and I’ll repeat it. I don’t walk into a bank robbery and pretend I’m a police officer. I don’t walk into a plane and pretend I’m a pilot. I don’t walk into a fire and pretend I’m a firefighter. To be a GOOD, USEFUL soldier takes at least two full years of active military training. 
 
Leave this to the professional soldiers and medics. You will seriously help MORE by staying HOME. Don’t get killed or get someone else killed because you want to brag about how you “were in the big one”. You had your chance to volunteer and receive professional training for the last 8 years. You missed it. Oh well. You wouldn’t hop in a fighter jet and try to fly it, why would you hop in a trench and try to be a soldier?”
 
– Former US Marine. Observer. Invasion of Ukraine, March 1st, 2022

Seabees, still ready to Build & Fight After 80 Years

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​Arising from a need to rapidly build bases on remote islands for the push across the Pacific during World War II, today’s Seabee force turns 80 this month.

Tracing their unofficial origins to 300 skilled artisans who built an advance base in 1813 for Captain David Porter’s squadron operating against the British along South America’s west coast, the Navy officially formed and christened its first Naval Construction Battalions in March 1942.

Recruited from tradesmen in 60 skilled trades– both “vertical” such as in building construction and “horizontal” such as in the construction of roads and airfields– the new “Seabees” were also trained to defend their positions as the islands and beaches they would land on would often still be very much in an active combat zone. Fitting the job, Rear Admiral Ben Moreell set their motto as “Construimus, Batuimus” roughly meaning “We Build, We Fight.”

Early members received only three weeks of training and were sent overseas. They carried at one time or another just about every rifle and pistol in the Navy’s inventory and pioneered such exotic arms as the Sedgley Glove Gun/Haight Fist Gun.

WWII Seabee posters
Seabee recruiting posters of the time, aimed at pulling often-draft-exempt skilled construction workers into the service, also emphasized the carpenters and heavy equipment operators would be expected to fight if needed, ready to leave the controls of their crane or grader, grab a carbine or Tommy gun, and get to work. 

Seabees marching WWII

Seabees drill at a U.S. Navy base in Alaska.1943

Seabee Water Tender Second Class operating pump for water and manning an M1917 Browning machine gun in the Solomon Islands, 1944. 

Seabees unload pontoons and LSTs on Angaur in the Palau Islands,1944

Seabees repair airstrip on Tarawa with heavy grading equipment and trucks. November 22, 1943

Seabee sign Bougainville Island 1944
“This sign, near the Torokina fighter strip on Bougainville Island testifies to the U.S Marine Corps admiration for the Navy’s construction battalions.” (Photo: Naval History and Heritage Command)

Three U.S. B-29 Superfortresses roar over a Navy Seabee working on an unfinished section of the new U.S. base at Tinian

During World War II, some 350,000 men served in the Seabees, organized into no less than 315 regular and special construction battalions. They would construct over 400 advanced bases spanning from Iceland to New Guinea and Sicily to the Aleutian Islands, operating in all theaters. 

In the Pacific alone, they would build no less than 111 airstrips while suffering over 200 combat deaths. A further 500 Seabees were killed during their highly dangerous construction work under adverse field conditions. In addition to 33 Silver Stars and 5 Navy Crosses, ‘Bees also earned more than 2,000 Purple Hearts in WWII, the hard way. 

Korea and Vietnam

Drawn down to a force of just 3,300 by 1949, the Seabees remained a “Can Do” part of the Navy and Marines’ shore establishment and would rapidly expand to serve in the Korean War and Vietnam. During the latter conflict in Southeast Asia, the Seabees expanded to over 26,000 men in no less than 23 assorted Naval Mobile and Amphibious Construction Battalions by 1969.

In most cases, the bases in which Marines fought from during those conflicts were constructed and improved by Seabees, often, as in WWII, under threat from the enemy. 

The Cold War, Desert Storm, and Beyond

Besides service in Korea and Vietnam, the “Fighting Seabees” engaged in new frontiers around the world during the Cold War, constructing bases everywhere the Navy went including in remote Diego Garcia, Greece, Spain, Antarctica, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. They served in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Restore Hope, in Bosnia, in Panama, in Iraq, and Afghanistan. 

Seabees Desert Storm
“Capt. Mel Hamm, left, commander, Fleet Hospital Operations and Training Command, and Lt. Vic Modeer of Reserve Naval Construction Battalion Hospital Unit 22 discuss the construction of Fleet Hospital Six during Operation Desert Shield.”

NavSeabee Det Sarajevo in blown up church. Feb 1996 Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina

Seabees laying concrete in Djibouti 2011

The Seabees today still train to “build with rifles on their back.” 

Seabees with M240 machine gun Hunter Liggett, 2016
“Camp Hunter Liggett, Calif. (April 27, 2016) A Seabee assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 5 yells out enemy locations to his teammates during a simulated attack during a field training exercise. The exercise prepares and tests the battalion’s ability to enter hostile locations, build assigned construction projects and defend against enemy attacks using realistic scenarios while being evaluated.” (U.S. Navy photo by Utilitiesman 3rd Class Stephen Sisler/Released) 

Seabees Camp Shelby 2018 in a trench

Seabee jungle training Okinawa

The unique Seabee Combat Warfare Specialist insignia, issued to qualified Naval Construction Force members since 1993, tells a bit of the unit’s history. 

Seabee Combat Warfare Specialist insignia
It incorporates the old-school WWII Seabee “We build, we fight” motto of the sailor bee with a Tommy gun as well as an M1903 Springfield (one of the few times the Springer makes it to patches or insignia) and a cutlass. Interestingly, Seabees often carried all three weapons in WWII, using M1928 and M1 Thompsons, the 1903A3, and, on occasion, ship’s cutlasses (the latter as machetes).

 

Blast from the past, or how Russian loans to the DDR yield dividends

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Back when East Germany, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, was fielding a huge “people’s army,” the Nationale Volksarmee, as part of the Warsaw Pact goal of liberating the West from imperialism and capitalism, the Russians Soviets were big on making sure everyone was on the same page.

This included MANPADs systems.

Soviet soldier instructing his east german comrade on how to operate a 9K32 Strela-2 (NATO: SA-7 Grail) surface-to-air missile.

East German 9K32 Strela-2 surface-to-air missile system.

Well, although the Soviet Union went away, the DDR fell apart and the “Ozis” are now part of the old decadent West Germany (now without the directional distinction), an increasingly awake government in Berlin has decided one of the best things it can do is pass on 2,700 Cold War vintage 9K32 Strela-2s to its newfound allies in Ukraine.

As the missiles aren’t part of NATO stocks, the Germans essentially just see it as sending the items back to where they came from after borrowing them since the 1970s.

Of course, most of them probably don’t/won’t work, especially against Russian tactical air, but they could likely spoil the attacks (and flight suits) of low-hour VKS pilots flying low close-support missions as long as they at least light off. Regardless, they could likely prove dangerous to Mi-17 and Mi-26 slicks, particularly if used en masse.

Springer doing better when it comes to Micro-9s

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Promising a more full-size performance out of its micro 9 series platform, Springfield Armory announced the new Hellcat Pro on Friday.

Using flush-fitting 15-round magazines rather than the standard Hellcat’s 11+1, the Hellcat Pro brings a 3.7-inch hammer-forged barrel to the carry game in what Springfield says is a smaller footprint than any other gun in its class. For those keeping count at home, the Hellcat Pro runs 6.6-inches in overall length and 1-inch wide, which puts it in the same box as the nominally 10+1 capacity Glock 43X. At a height of 4.8-inches, the Hellcat Pro is a tad shorter than the G43X when the Austrian polymer pistol has its standard mag inserted.

More in my column at Guns.com. 

One for the record books, courtesy of USCGC Polar Star

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Lost in the backscatter this week as everyone was busy watching the largest conventional forces war (not fought in Asia) since 1945, is the fact that the U.S. Coast Guard likely broke the record for reaching the southernmost navigable waters on Earth and entered uncharted seas.

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star (WAGB 10) transits away from the ice shelf near the Bay of Whales, Antarctica, Feb. 17, 2022. Polar Star navigated to the Southernmost navigable seas and entered uncharted waters, reaching the edge of the ice shelf. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Diolanda Caballero)

Via USCG public affairs:

MCMURDO STATION, Antarctica — U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star (WAGB 10) reached the southernmost navigable waters on the planet Feb. 17 while underway in the Bay of Whales, Antarctica.

Polar Star reached a position of 78 degrees, 44 minutes, 1.32 seconds south latitude at 12:55 p.m. New Zealand time, holding a distance of approximately 500 yards from the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, further south than the current Guinness World Record holder.

While underway, Polar Star sailed in waters previously charted as part of the ice shelf that are now navigable waters. Today, portions of the Ross Ice Shelf deviate approximately 12 nautical miles from the positions depicted on official charts.

During Polar Star’s transit to and from the Bay of Whales, Polar Star surveyed 396 nautical miles of the ice shelf for potential future navigational use.

Crewmembers aboard the cutter are working with the staff at Guinness World Records to officially become the new record holders.

Feb. 7, 1997, U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea (WAGB 11), Polar Star’s sister ship, reached 78 degrees, 29 minutes south latitude.

In 1908, Ernest Shackleton gave the Bay of Whales its name during the Nimrod Expedition on the basis of the numerous whales he and his crew sighted. Three years later, Roald Amundsen established a base camp in the bay, from which he set out on his successful endeavor to become the first person to reach the South Pole. Years later, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Richard E. Byrd established Little America in the Bay of Whales during his first, second, and third Antarctic Expeditions, exploring more than 60% of the Antarctic continent.

“The crew of Polar Star is proud to follow in the footsteps of legendary Antarctic explorers like Shackleton, Amundsen, and Byrd,” said Capt. William Woityra, commanding officer of Polar Star. “Even today, more than a century later, we carry on that legacy of exploration, reaching new places, and expanding human understanding of our planet.”

Throwback Thursday: Hedgehogs!

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The likely landing beaches on Normandy in 1944, after Rommel took over, were filled with obstacles, element “C,” tetrahedrons, barbed wire, mines, and so-called Czech hedgehogs. These were arranged to direct landing forces down natural beach exits that would be blocked with overlooking and self-supporting pillboxes. You know, the first 10 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

“Detailing Information On Normandy Beach Defenses Was Obtained From ‘Dicing’ Shots Like This. Every Type Of Anti-Landing Obstacle Appears In This Photo, Including Most Formidable, Steel-Concrete Hedgehogs, (Left Center) And Tetrahedra In Left Foreground.” (U.S. Air Force Number 57359AC)

“Operation Overlord (the Normandy Landings)- D-day 6 June 1944. The British 2nd Army: Royal Navy Commandos at La Riviere preparing to demolish two of the many beach obstacles designed to hinder the advance of an invading army.” IWM A 23992

“A small landing craft holed in the bows by obstacles without serious damage completes this study of obstacles and hedgehogs piled against the groin of one of the beaches.” IWM A 24033

When talking of the Czech hedgehogs, the trope is that the name came from the extensive border defenses erected along the German-Czech border in the late 1930s, essentially a steel version of the ancient Cheval de frise, which had been used to defeat cavalry charges and break up the momentum of attacks going back for centuries. Made simply of cut I-beams riveted together (during the 1930s and 40s), and enhanced with concertina and land mines, they could be effective if used in conjunction with the right tactics (i.e. channeling incoming attackers into an ambush or enfilade.)

While famous at Normandy, they were also used extensively on land, as seen by this October 1940 shot from the Western Desert.

Original wartime caption: Patrolling anti-tank defenses of “hedgehogs” and “Dragon’s Teeth” at Mesa Makul Fortress, 1st Bn South Staffordshire Regt. IWM E 831

While the hedgehog became scarce in Europe after 1945, with wartime examples soon cut up for scrap metal, they made a return along the Iron Curtain in the 1960s then promptly went extinct once again when the Berlin Wall fell. They became so rare, in fact, that in Western Europe and the U.S. it became a cottage industry for folks to make reproductions for film, paintball fields, and battlefield museum use.

Looks legit, eh? This is a repro hedgehog made by Brutal Rust, who says, ” Get yourself a few hedgehogs for your next family get-together or maybe even for your next business venture. We will happily build as many as you need.”

Well, in the past couple of weeks, hedgehogs have made a big comeback!

Hedgehogs on beach reportedly near Odessa, Ukraine Feb 2022

Ukraine’s Odessa opera theater with anti-tank hedgehogs, 1941 and 2022.

 

The Wolverines’ Egyptian MAADI AKM, err ARM, Saga

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When the iconic 1984 how-to-be-an-American-partisan training film Red Dawn was filmed in the early 1980s, Kalashnikov pattern rifles were hard to get in the U.S.A.

You know Red Dawn, right?

While there were some Type 56s captured Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, and inevitably some came back to the U.S. in duffle bags and transit chests– one even popped up at Wounded Knee in 1973, about the only legal AKs floating around in the U.S. were a handful of Finnish-made Valmet models, which are kinda close but just not the same thing.

A U.S. Navy sailor in Vietnam with a captured Type 56 AK carbine, a Chinese Type 53 Mosin with a grenade launcher attachment, and an RPG-2. 

Then, Steyr (of Austria), working from their Secaucus, New Jersey American import arm, in 1982 brought in the ARM made by Maadi of Egypt, a true (albeit semi-automatic) variant of the classic AK-47 automatic infantry rifle.

They certainly looked the part.

These included the standard post front and tangent rear sights, an Egyptian “Pharaoh’s Crown” crest on the right side of the rear sight base, and a Maadi logo on the reverse, a threaded muzzle with a flash director, and a 2-position safety/dust cover. These were furnished with a plastic pistol grip and laminate forearm and stock. Included with the rifle were three steel 30-round mags and a 1982-dated Steyr instruction sheet.

With these, along with a few Valmets for flavor, John Milius had his rifles and Red Dawn marched into the history books.

Explained by the Internet Media Firearms Database:

The AKM is the standard weapon used by the Soviet paratroopers and the Wolverines throughout the movie. According to Long Mountain Outfitters, the AKM rifles used in the movie were actually Egyptian Maadi MISR (imported into the US as the ARM) semi-auto rifles, some of the first semi-automatic Kalashnikov-type rifles ever imported into the United States (besides the Clayco AKM copies).

Fifty-three (53) such rifles were used in the movie, 32 of which were converted to full-auto by Class 3 manufacturer Pearl Manufacturing specially for the film. These guns were later used in numerous other movies. These weapons are not to be confused with the post-1989 imported firearms called “MISR” which were modified to comply with the federal import ban.

As detailed by Sons of Liberty Gun Works, here are the serial numbers of the rifles used on set, all among the first 2,000 Steyr brought in (SN# S0001999 and under) including “Robert’s Gun” and a Krinkov conversion:

Happy hunting, and stay warm.

Warship Wednesday, March 2, 2022: Burnt Java

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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, March 2, 2022: Burnt Java

NIMH photo

Here we see the Koninklijke Marine naval docks at Soerabaja (Surabaya), on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies. The photo was taken 80 years ago today, 2 March 1942, from the coal jetty towards the West. With the Japanese fast approaching, the Dutch started the destruction of the yard at 11:30 am and you can make out the 1,500-ton dry dock sunk along with the patrol boats P19 and P20. The new 2,500-ton drydock is listing to the right with a cloud of smoke from the Perak oil tanks in the background.

While the scuttling of the Vichy French fleet at Toulon in 1942, and the self-destruction of the Royal Danish Navy at its docks in Copenhagen in 1943 to keep them out of German hands are well-remembered and often spoken about in maritime lore, the Dutch wrecking crew on Java at Soerabaja and Tjilatjap gets little more than a footnote.

Dominated by the Dutch for some 125 years before the Japanese effort to uproot them, Java was one of the centerpieces of the Indonesian archipelago in 1942 and a principal base for the colonial forces. While Borneo, Sumatra, and other islands may have had more resources– including natural rubber and pumping 20 million barrels a year of oil– Java was the strategic lynchpin. Defended by the (nominally) 85,000-man Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) along with their own air force, the ML-KNIL, it was the Dutch Navy and its shore-based long-range patrol craft of the MLD naval air service that was the colony’s first line of defense.

Japanese invasion map of the Netherlands East Indies cropped to show the landings and attack on Java. Note the location of the Dutch naval bases and how far the island is from Darwin. (OSS Collection Stanford University)

However, with the ML-KNIL/MLD’s aircraft swatted from the sky, and the Dutch navy’s largest units– the cruisers Hr.Ms. De Ruyter and Java— sunk at the Battle of the Java Sea on the night of 28 February along with following on Battle of Sunda Strait on 1 March that saw two Allied cruisers sent to the bottom, Java was wide open, and future war criminal Gen. Hitoshi Imamura’s 16th Army started landing on the island at three points directly after.

While Dutch Lt. Gen. Hein Ter Poorten’s force of three KNIL divisions and a mixed brigade worth of British/Australian/American reinforcements would seem on paper to be an even match for Imamura’s troops, the Japanese had the momentum from the start and by 8 March, the Dutch radio station at Ciumbuluit signed off with “Wij sluiten nu. Vaarwel tot betere tijden. Leve de Koningin!” (We are closing now. Farewell till better times. Long live the Queen!)

This effectively ended the short-lived ABDACOM command, severed the Malay-Timor barrier protecting Australia, and was the near-height of the Japanese success in the South Pacific. In March 1942, the Japanese would mount no less than 17 air raids on Western and Northern Australia.

Unescapable

The noose around Java was tight and several vessels that tried to break out failed.

The Japanese cruisers Takao and Atago found the old destroyer USS Pillsbury (DD-227) near nightfall on 2 March and sent her to the bottom with all hands.

At roughly the same time, the Japanese heavy cruiser Maya, accompanied by destroyers Arashi and Nowaki, found the British destroyer HMS Stronghold (H50) trying to escape from Tjilatjap to Australia and sank her, recovering 50 survivors.

The Australian Grimsby-class sloop HMAS Yarra (U77) was escorting a convoy of three British ships (the depot ship HMS Anking, the British tanker Francol, and the motor minesweeper HMS MMS 51) and survivors from the Dutch ship Parigi, from the fighting in Java to Fremantle when they were attacked on 4 March by three Japanese heavy cruisers– Atago, Takao and Maya, each armed with ten 8-inch guns– and two destroyers. The 1,080-ton sloop gave her last full measure but was unable to stop the massacre of the convoy and the Japanese were especially brutal, with reports of close-range shelling by the two Japanese destroyers, witnessed by 34 survivors on two rafts. The blockade-running Dutch freighter Tawali, rescued 57 officers and men from Anking that night, while the escaping Dutch steamer Tjimanjoek found 14 further survivors of the convoy on 7 March, and two days later 13 of the sloop’s ratings were picked up by the Dutch submarine K XI (a vessel that would go on to serve with the British in the Indian Ocean through 1945).

Persian Gulf, August 1941. Aerial port side view of the sloop HMAS Yarra II. She would be sunk along with her three-ship convoy while trying to escape Java on 4 March 1942. (AWM C236282)

Survivors

To be sure, the last large Dutch surface ship in the Pacific, the cruiser Hr.Ms. Tromp had escaped destruction and would serve alongside the Allies for the rest of the war, while her sister Jacob van Heemskerck, arriving too late to be sunk in the Java Sea, would duplicate her efforts.

Likewise, several Dutch submarines had managed to evade the Japanese dragnet and make for Australia, where they would continue their war.

Others, under an order of the Dutch navy commander on Java, RADM (acting) Pieter Koenraad, were ordered to attempt to escape after receiving the code KPX. (Koenraad and his staff embarked on the submarine Hr.Ms. K-XII, which made it to Australia safely, and from there he left for England, returning to Java in 1945 with the Free Dutch forces)

The 500-ton net-tender/minesweeper Hr.Ms. Abraham Crijnssen, capable of just 15 knots and laughably armed, famously decided to try for Australia camouflaged as a small island, leaving Java on 6 March with a volunteer crew and making it to safety on 20 March.

Personnel covered the ship in foliage and painted the hull to resemble rocks. The ship remained close to shore during the day and only sailed after sunset, sometimes traveling less than 50 miles a night. “Mijnenveger Hr.Ms. Abraham Crijnssen (1937-1961) gecamoufleerd in een baai (Soembawa) in Indische wateren in 1942.” (NIMH 2158_000014 and 2158_028298)

The scuttling itself

This left all the vessels too broken, under-armed, or small to break through the Japanese blockade and make it 1,200 miles across dangerous waters to Australia. Not wanting them to fall into the hands of the Japanese, the Dutch, and their Allies took the wrecking ball to over 120 vessels on Java at Soerabaja, Tanjon Priok, at Tjilatjap on 2 March.

The largest of these under Dutch naval control, Hr.Ms. Koning der Nederlanden was a 70-year-old 5,300-ton ramtorenschip ironclad that had been disarmed and turned into a barracks ship in 1920. She hadn’t left the harbor in generations under her own steam, so this was a no-brainer.

The Hr.Ms. Koning der Nederlanden originally mounted a pair of Armstrong 11-inch rifled muzzle-loading guns in each of her two turrets and was protected by 8 inches of iron plate. Used as an accommodation ship for the flotilla of Dutch submarines in the islands, she was set on fire and sunk at Soerabaja on March 2. (Photo NIMH)

Other large ships sent to the bottom were a group of Allied merchantmen trapped in the harbors including three 7,000-9,000-ton Dutch Java-China-Japan Lijn line cargo ships– Tjikandi, Tjikarang, and Toendjoek— scuttled as blockships. In all, 39 merchantmen were torched, mostly small Dutch coasters and empty tankers, but including three British Malay vessels (SS Giang Seng, Sisunthon Nawa, and Taiyuan) that had escaped Singapore, the 1,600-ton Canadian freighter Shinyu, and the small Norwegian tramps, Proteus and Tunni.

The two most potent Dutch combat vessels left in Java, the Admiralen-class destroyers (torpedobootjagers) Hr.Ms. Banckert and Witte de With did not survive the day. These 1,650-ton Yarrow-designed boats were built in the late 1920s and, capable of 36 knots, carried four 4.7-inch guns and a half-dozen torpedo tubes. Both had been severely mauled in surface actions with the Japanese and were unable to evacuate to Australia. The Dutch built eight of these destroyers and lost all eight in combat with the Germans and Japanese within 22 months of Holland entering the war.

Hr.Ms. Banckert seen in better days (Photo NIMH)

Hr.Ms. Witte de With (Photo NIMH)

Marine docks in Soerabaja. The photo was taken from the warehouse towards the East. Start of the destruction 11:30 am. The 3,000-ton dry dock with the destroyer Hr.Ms. Banckert is seen sinking. The dock had been torpedoed by Hr.Ms. K XVII before the submarine was able to submerge and make for Freemantle with the port’s commanding admiral aboard. On the right is the 227-ton tug/coastal minelayer Hr.Ms. Soemenep.

Speaking of destroyers, the old four-piper Clemson-class destroyer USS Stewart (DD-224) had been severely damaged at Badung Strait, only making it to Soerabaja with her engine room still operating while submerged. Written off, her crew was evacuated to Australia on 22 February and the ship, stricken from the Navy List, was left to the Dutch to scuttle.

USS Stewart (DD-224) steaming at high speed, circa the 1920s or 1930s. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 61898

The Dutch, who had a huge submarine fleet in the region, had three small “K” (for Koloniën or Colonial) subs scuttled at Soerabaja, the 583-ton circa 1923 KVII-class Hr.Ms. K X, the 828-ton circa 1926 K XI-class Hr.Ms. K XIII, and the 1,045-ton circa 1934 K XIV-class Hr.Ms. K VIII.

Colonial Submarine Hr.Ms. K X seen here upon arrival at Surabaya. In the background both the Java class light cruisers (Java and Sumatra) and on the far right a Wolf-class destroyer. 25 December 1924. Fast forward over 17 years later and the little sub was in repair at the same port and unable to get underway for Australia

Onderzeeboot Hr.Ms. K X

Onderzeeboot Hr.Ms. K VIII in drydock

De onderzeeboot Hr.Ms. K XIII op zee

The Hr.Ms. Rigel, a 1,600-ton unarmed local government-owned (gouvernementsvaartuig) yacht used by the Dutch governor-general that had been converted to a minelayer, was too fine to let the Japanese have but too slow to make run the blockade. She ended her career on 2 March as a blockship at Tanjong Priok.

Hr.Ms. Rigel in her prewar livery (Photo NIMH)

When referencing mine craft, the ten Djember (DEFG)-class auxiliary mijnenvegers (minesweepers), small 100-foot vessels of just 175 tons constructed specifically for work in the islands, were all either scuttled or left wrecked on the builders’ ways in Java. Similarly, the five even smaller 74-ton Ardjoeno-class auxiliary minesweepers, the twin 150-ton Alor and Aroe, and the twin 145-ton Ceram and Cheribon, were in the same lot, with the Dutch sinking these as well.

Minesweepers of the 3rd Division, auxiliary minesweepers of the Alor-class in action in the Dutch East Indies in 1941. These were all sunk by their crews on 2 March 1942. Small vessels like these had no hope of storing enough fuel to make it 1,200 miles to Allied lines. (Photo NIMH)

The Alors were built as regional police vessels (politiekruisers) for use in coast guard roles and were outfitted as sweepers in 1939 under naval command. (Photo NIMH)

One great unrealized hope that could have spoiled the Japanese landings was the 17 TM-4 class of motor torpedo boats. Begun at Navy Yard Soerabaja in 1940, they were small and quick vessels, just 63 feet long with a 5-foot draft, they could make 36 knots.

TM-4 klasse motortorpedoboot Hr.Ms. TM 8 portside. Note her two stern torpedo tubes and two forward light machine guns.

Motortorpedoboot Hr.Ms. TM 5 Hr.Ms. TM 8 en Hr.Ms. TM 6. Note the exhaust pipes for their three gasoline aviation engines, salvaged from old seaplanes

Motortorpedoboot Hr.Ms. TM 5 op hoge vaart met op achtergrond Hr.Ms. TM 8

TM8 getting on the plane

As the islands were cut off from Europe due to the German occupation of their homeland, much use of surplus parts was made. This included Lorraine Dietrich gasoline engines from condemned 1920s Dornier Wal and Fokker T-4 aircraft as well as Great War-vintage 17.7-inch torpedo tubes from scrapped Roofdier-class destroyers and Z-class torpedo boats.

Their only other armament was twin Lewis guns. “Motortorpedoboot Hr.Ms. TM 5 (1940-1942), Hr.Ms. TM 8 (1940-1942) en Hr.Ms. TM 6 (1940-1942) afgemeerd.”

Just 12 TM-4s were completed by March 1942, and they were all scuttled, while the other half-dozen were left unfinished onshore.

In the same vein as the TM-4s, the Dutch had planned to build at least 16 130-ton B-1-class subchasers at three different yards around the colony. These 150-foot motor launches, armed with a 3-inch popgun, some AAA pieces, and 20-depth charges, would have gone a long way towards providing the Dutch some decent coastal ASW. However, none were completed in March 1942 and the work done by the time of the fall of Java was disrupted as much as possible.

As a stopgap before the B-1s were complete, the Dutch had ordered eight small wooden-hulled mosquito boats from Higgins in New Orleans.

The Dutch Higgins boats substituted 16 depth charges for the more familiar torpedo tubes used on these vessels’ follow-on brothers as the Navy’s PT boats. They also had a 20mm gun and four .50 cals, in twin mounts with plexiglass hoods. Classed as OJR (Onderzeebootjager= Submarine hunter), the first six arrived as deck cargo in December 1941 and February 1942 but saw little service.

Onderzeebootjager Hr.Ms. OJR 4 (1941-1942) wordt te New Orleans a/b van het ms Poelau Tello gehesen voor verscheping naar Ned. Indië

Two had been lost in gasoline explosions and the Dutch scuttled the remaining four in Java (OJR-1, OJR-4, OJR-5, and OJR-6) on 2 March.

Incidentally, the two undelivered Higgins boats (H-7 and H-8) were delivered after the fall of the Dutch East Indies to the Dutch West Indies where they patrolled around Curacao.

Onderzeebootjager Hr.Ms. H 8 (1942-1946) op weg van New Orleans naar Curaçao

The local Dutch government had several small patrouillevaartuigen gunboats at their disposal outside of naval control, dubbed literally the Gouvernementsmarine or Government’s Navy. Dubbed opium jager (opium hunters), they engaged in counter-smuggling and interdiction efforts around the archipelago as well as tending aids to navigation, coastal survey, and search and rescue work. Once the war began, they were up-armed and taken under navy control and switched from being gouvernementsvaartuig vessels.

Small patrol boats scuttled in Java on 2 March 1942 included Hr.Ms. Albatros (807 tons), Aldebaran (892 tons), Biaro (700 tons), Eridanus (996 tons), Farmalhout (1,000 tons), Fomalhaut (1,000 tons), Gemma (845 tons), Pollux (1,012 tons), and Valk (850 tons).

Flotilla vessel (opium hunter of the Gouvernements-navy) Valk

The arrival of the submarine Hr.Ms. K XIII in the Emmahaven. In the background is the survey ship Eridanus of the Gouvernementsmarine (GM). Taken over by the Navy in September 1939, Eridanus was converted to a gunboat and later scuttled at Soerabaja on 2 March 1942, along with the submarine shown.

Epilogue 

In all, of the more than 120 ships destroyed by the Dutch on Java, almost 90 were small vessels under 1,000 tons such as the Djembers, the TM torpedo boats, and the assorted coastal patrol, subchasers, and minelayers. Many of their crews were marched into Japanese POW camps to spend the next four years in hell, while a small trickle was able to escape on their own either into the interior– keep in mind that about half of the rank and file in the Dutch Far East fleet were local Indonesians– or manage somehow to make for Allied-controlled areas.

The Japanese were able, as the war dragged on, to raise and salvage many of the scuttled vessels and return them to service in the IJN. Likewise, several of the TMs and B-1s that were left unfinished were eventually launched under the Rising Sun flag.

Imperial Japanese Navy Type-101 MTB, ex-Dutch TM4 ,1943, under attack by USAAF aircraft

Of the larger ships, the destroyer Hr.Ms. Banckert was raised by the escort-poor Japanese in 1944, partially repaired, and put in service as the patrol craft PB-106. On 23 October 1945, VADM Shibata Yaichiro, CINC, Second Southern Expeditionary Fleet, surrendered Java to Free Dutch Forces, and Banckert/PB-106 was returned to the Dutch, who promptly sank her in gunnery exercises.

The stricken Asiatic Fleet destroyer, ex-USS Stewart, whose hull had been broken and her crew had left her scuttling to the Dutch, was also salvaged by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and entered service as Patrol Boat No. 102 in 1943, rearmed with a variety of Dutch and Japanese weapons and her funnels retrunked into a more Japanese fashion. Found at Kure after the war, she was taken over by a U.S. Navy prize crew in October 1945 and steamed under her own power (making 20 knots no less!) across the Pacific to Oakland.

Her old hull number was repainted and a Japanese meatball was placed on her superstructure, she was sunk by the Navy in deep water in May 1946.

Ex-USS Stewart (DD-224) under attack while being sunk as a target on 24 May 1946. Airplanes seen include an F4U Corsair in the lead, followed by two F6F Hellcats. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-702830.

When the Dutch returned to Java in 1945, besides resuming control of the few vessels still around that had been refloated by the Japanese– craft which was soon discarded– they embarked on a campaign to salvage many of the rest, with hulks shipped off to Australia where they were broken into the 1950s. 

Remains of former Dutch submarine K VIII, Jervoise Bay, Cockburn Sound, Western Australia in 1956 after being blowup for scrapping.

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The Rat Attack! 1958 edition

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The below drawing shows the use of the U.S. Navy’s latest anti-submarine weapon a rocket-assisted torpedo or “RAT,” which incorporated a rocket for the initial launch, a stabilizer pack with a parachute to slow missile for proper water-entry speed, and finally, a sound operated homing torpedo, all held together by an airframe.

NHHC 330-PS-8786 (USN 710060).  The photograph was released on February 10, 1958.

According to the caption of the project graphic:

Propelled by a rocket motor the “RAT” is launching skyward, and dropped accurately to the surface in the vicinity of an enemy submarine. After dropping the airframe, “RAT” uses a parachute and goes beneath the surface, sheds its torpedo and nose cap, and by sound seeks out and destroys the target. “RAT” can be installed in the majority of U.S. destroyers at relatively low cost by utilizing existing five-inch gun mounts and by a slight modification of search and fire-control systems now in use. No additional personnel are required to handle the missile which is 13 ½ feet long and weighs only 480 pounds.

When fielded, of course, RAT, in its third (Charlie) generation, ballooned up to become the 1,073-pound RUR-5 ASROC, for Anti-Submarine Rocket, an acronym the brass probably thought was a better idea when talking to Congress for money.

ASROC Anti-Submarine Rocket at IOC. “Ready for loading into a launcher aboard the destroyer leader USS Norfolk (DL-1) during the weapon evaluation test at Key West Florida. ASROC was developed by the Naval ordnance test station, China Lake and Pasadena California, with the Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company as prime contractor, 24 June 1960.” USN 710732

The original GMLS and Matchbox-launched ASROC was pulled from service in the 1990s with the needless slaughter of the fleet’s steam-powered cruisers and Spruance-class destroyers, replaced by the more advanced (and VLS-compatible) RUM-139 VL-ASROC, which today carries an Mk.54 ASW torpedo to an undisclosed distance “over 10 miles.”

USCG Legacy in the Ukrainian Navy

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Ukraine inherited a lot of assets from the old Soviet Black Sea Fleet in 1992 including the lion’s share of the personnel, armaments, and coastal facilities of the famed organization. However, over the course of two decades of continued neglect and atrophy, the once-mighty Fleet by 2014 largely just consisted on paper and, what still existed then largely was either captured/surrendered to the Russians or was destroyed in conjunction with the Russian seizure of Crimea, the hub of the old Black Sea Fleet and the modern Ukrainian Navy.

Since 2014, the Ukrainians have tried to rebuild, with the old commercial seaport of Odesa its primary base. This has included a little help from Washington in the form of five retired old former 110-foot U.S. Coast Guard Island-class patrol boats.

These guys:

*P190 Sloviansk, ex-USCGC Cushing (WPB-1321)
*P191 Starobilsk, ex-USCGC Drummond (WPB-1323)
*P192 Sumym ex- USCGC Ocracoke (WPB-1307)
*P193 Fastiv, ex-USCGC Washington (WPB-1331)
*P194 Vyacheslav Kubrak, ex-USCGC Kiska (WPB-1336)

The first two were transferred and delivered to Ukraine in 2019 after training 34 crewmen across 10-weeks to man them and the second two were shipped to the country last December after their crews were likewise trained at the USCG Yard. Kiska/Kubrak was set to be delivered in January 2022, but I am not sure that happened. The plan is to send them as many as seven Islands, or at least that was the plan.

Armed with a single Mk 38 Mod 0 Bushmaster forward and two M2HBs, they dropped their coast guard flash and gleaming white paint for a more utilitarian haze grey in Ukrainian service.

P191 Starobilsk, ex-USCGC Drummond (WPB-1323), seen exercising with US destroyer USS Roosevelt (DDG80) in the Black Sea 29 Sept 2020

As the largest ship of the Ukrainian fleet, the Nerei/Krivak III/Menzhinskiy-class frigate Hetman Sahaidachny (F130), is widely reported to have been scuttled by her crew at Nikolayev last week, things don’t look good for the old Islands.

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