One phrase that pops up in conversations on collectible firearms of all stripes is that of “import marks,” or the lack thereof. Not strictly needed until 1968, they have evolved over the years from being somewhat subtle to loud and proud.
To clear the air on that, I wrote a piece on the subject over in my column at Guns.com.
As I’ve covered in the past, Sean Connery’s on-screen main piece while holding down the Bond gig across seven installments was a Walther PP/PPK.
One of the most famous of these was the “origin gun” used in 1962’s Dr. No, where M, assisted by Major Boothroyd (in a nod by Fleming to a real British firearms guru), pulls Bond’s pipsqueak Beretta 418 in .25AC (“nice and light, for a lad’s handbag”) for the much more powerful .32ACP Walther (insert modern ballistic snobs having a heart attack right about here).
Of course, the movie kinda screwed it up and used a Beretta M1934 in 9mm Corto and a Walther in .380ACP to recreate the scene from the novel, but still…
Said pistola, SN19174A as confirmed by Bapty prop house– who provided weaponry for every Bond film from Dr. No through To Die Another Day— is up for auction at Julien’s next month.
While the U.S. Army’s museum system (which let me poke around its “attic” in Anniston a few years ago) has 46 small outlets, typically run at the division and branch level and not necessarily open to those without a CAC card, there is no public National Museum of the Army.
Well, I should say that there was no National Museum of the Army, until yesterday.
The Old Guard kicked off the Museum’s Opening Ceremony at Fort Belvoir, VA, Nov. 11, 2020.
The National Museum of the United States Army celebrates over 240 years of Army history and honors our nation’s Soldiers—past, present, and future—the regular Army, the Army Reserve, and the Army National Guard, and I have to say it looks great. I can’t wait to check it out on my next trip to NoVa.
The 185,000-square-foot facility has 11 galleries and nearly 1,390 artifacts available for visitors to see. Those wishing to tour the museum can do so by first visiting the website and ordering a free ticket.
Looks like they got around to cleaning out the attic.
In 1932, Colt ordered a small batch of modified M1911 pistols from Doehler Die Casting Co. of Toledo, Ohio– the largest producer of die-cast metal in the world. The thing about Doehler is that they were known at the time for a high tensile strength corrosion resistant bronze alloy called “Brastil.”
From the American Society for Metals’ “Woldman’s Engineering Alloys,” circa 1936.
As such, the experimental guns used standard M1911 internals, wooden grip panels, and a receiver and slide made of die-cast Brastil rather than forged steel.
They certainly were distinctive, almost fit for Christopher Lee.
In the end, only two Brastil M1911s were made and this one, SN#2, has been in the collection of the Springfield Armory since 16 August 1932.
From the 1924 overhaul plans of the Pennsylvania-class dreadnought USS Arizona (BB-39), listing her battery. Besides the traditional battlewagon muscle such as 14″/45, 5″/51, and 3″/50 guns, keep scrolling down passed the two submerged torpedo tubes, two 1-pounder boat guns, and quartet of four-pounder saluting guns, and you see her impressive small arms locker for fielding a light battalion-sized landing force of bluejackets armed with 350 M1903 Springfields, 100 GI .45s, an unspecified number of Krag 1898s (which may have been line throwers), two .30-cal machine guns, and a 3-inch field piece.
Oh yeah, and 10 cutlasses– arms that remained an ordnance allowance item until 1949.
For reference: Atlantic Fleet sailors in formation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, landing force drill, circa 1909, complete with packs and rifles.
Collection of CQM John Harold. Catalog #: NH 101534
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates there are about 20 million living American Veterans including 1.6 million over age 85. The largest group, some 7.7 million, are Gulf War-era vets followed by 6.2 million who served during the Vietnam-era. There are 1 million Korean War-era vets.
The smallest group are living World War II-era veterans, whose numbers have declined to about 325,000. Keep in mind over 16 million members of the Greatest Generation served during those trying years.
By the end of the decade, the VA expects the number of WWII vets to decline into the low four-digit numbers.
Remember to thank all Veterans for their sacrifices today.
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1946 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, Nov. 11, 2020: Spaghetti & Stringbags
U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1977.031.085.071
Here we see a great bow-on shot of the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious (87) underway in the Indian Ocean during the Spring of 1944, while the British flattop was operating with USS Saratoga (CV-3) during WWII. “Lusty” was one of the luckier of HM’s early fleet carriers during the conflict, and a handful of hopelessly obsolete aircraft flying from her decks, borrowing a bit of that luck, would pull off an amazing feat some 80 years ago today.
While today the U.S. Navy is the benchmark for carrier operations, the British would be incredibly innovative in the use of such vessels in warfare. This included being the first country to lose a carrier in combat when HMS Courageous (50) was lost to a German U-boat in the third week of the war and sistership HMS Glorious was embarrassingly lost to the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the withdrawal from Norway in June 1940. With that being said, it was a good thing that Illustrious was on the way to make up losses.
Laid down at Vickers Barrow-in-Furness on 27 April 1937, 13 months after German troops marched into the Rhineland as part of the British rearmament due to such muscular action, Illustrious was the lead ship of a new class of a planned six aircraft carriers designed from the first steel cut to be modern flattops. Displacing 25,000-tons full load, they had a 740-foot overall length and the ability to touch 30-knots on a trio of steam turbines.
U.S. ONI sheet on the Illustrious class
Carrying up to 4.5-inches of armor– to include an armored flight deck designed to withstand 1,000-pound bombs– and protected by 16 excellent QF 4.5-inch Mark I guns, both of which would have rated her as a decent light cruiser even without aircraft, the class could carry 36 aircraft in their hangars, which was smaller than American and Japanese carriers of the same size, but keep in mind the Brits guarded their birds inside an armored box. Further, they were fitted with radar, with Illustrious having her Type 79 installed just before she joined the fleet.
HMS Illustrious (87) underway 1940. Note the 4.5″ (11.4 cm) Mark I guns in twin Mark III UD mountings. IWM FL2425
Commissioned 25 May 1940, during the fall of France, Illustrious was to do her workup cruise to Dakar but plans changed once the French surrendered, sending the carrier instead to do her shakedown in the relative safety of the West Indies. Meanwhile, Italy had clocked in on Germany’s side, declaring war on 10 June.
HMS Illustrious landing Swordfish in June 1940. Picture: Fleet Air Arm Museum CARS 1/171
By 30 August, she set out for the Mediterranean on her first operational deployment, sailing for Alexandria in convoy with Force F. Within a week, her airwing, which included Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers of Nos. 815 and 819 Squadrons, would be flying combat missions against Axis-held airfields on Rhodes.
While Illustrious carried a mix of quaint Fairey Fulmar and Sea Gladiator fighters, it was her embarked Swordfish, biplanes capable of just 124 knots and nicknamed “flying stringbags,” that made up the bulk of her strike capability.
Swordfish could carry a torpedo or up to 1,500 pounds of bombs or mines, although their combat radius while doing so was only about 200nm. Self-defense amounted to two .303-caliber Vickers guns.
On the 17th, Swords from Illustrious drew blood during shipping attacks on Benghazi harbor, sending the Italian Turbine-class destroyer Borea to the bottom while air-dropped mines would take out several merchantmen. The proven carrier then spent the next several weeks riding shotgun on convoys between Malta and Egypt.
Then, on 10 November, Illustrious was detached on Operation Judgement, a planned midnight home invasion of the Italian fleet’s main base at Taranto under the cover of darkness, where her airwing would target Rome’s mighty battleships at anchor. As an ace in the hole, they had up-to-date reconnaissance photographs of the harbor, taken by Martin Maryland light bombers flying from Malta.
The carrier strike force? Even including aircraft cross-decked from HMS Eagle, Illustrious could count a mixed bag of just 21 Swordfish of Nos. 813, 815, 819, and 824 Squadrons. To give them a boost in range, each would be fitted with a spare av gas tank that they only had to leave their rear gunner behind to accommodate– what could go wrong?
The first wave, of 12 aircraft, would launch at 20:40 on 11 November and consist of six Swords each with a single 18-inch torpedo, backed up by four Swords each with a half-dozen light 250-pound bombs, and two aircraft with a mix of 16 parachute flares and four bombs each.
The second wave (!), of nine aircraft, would launch an hour later and included five torpedo carriers, two with bombs and two flare-droppers. In all, the Brits planned to bring a total of 11 Mark XII torpedoes and 52 almost lilliputian bombs.
250-pound bombs that would later be dropped on the Italian fleet at Taranto on HMS Illustrious’s flight deck
The tiny force of biplanes faced some serious opposition.
Besides the masses of guns on the Italian ships themselves– which were under standing orders to keep their AAA batteries at least half-manned even when the vessels were anchored– around the Regia Marina’s primary roadstead were land-based anti-aircraft batteries that held no less than 21 4-inch, 84 20mm and 109 13.2mm guns at the ready in addition to smaller numbers of 125mm, 90mm, and 40mm guns. While there was no air-search radar at Taranto, the Italians did have at least 13 “war tuba” sound-detection devices capable of hearing aircraft engines as far out as 30 miles away. Two dozen powerful searchlights scanned the heavens.
Even if the British bombers could get inside the harbor, the Italians had over 23,000 feet of counter-torpedo netting ready to catch any trespassing Royal Navy fish. Further, there was a flotilla of 90 barrage balloons tethered by steel cables, deployed across the harbor in three rows.
While the Brits caught some breaks– two-thirds of the barrage balloons were not on station due to storms and a lack of hydrogen; and 2.9km of the torpedo nets were coiled up, in need of repair– it was still a dangerous mission as witnessed by the more than 12,000 shells of 20mm or greater from shore-based batteries alone during the strike.
Cobb, Charles David; Taranto Harbour, Swordfish from ‘Illustrious’ Cripple the Italian Fleet, 11 November 1940; National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/taranto-harbour-swordfish-from-illustrious-cripple-the-italian-fleet-11-november-1940-116445
In the end, just two Swords were lost while three of six Italian battleships present were seriously damaged, and the last of 18 recovered aircraft were aboard Illustrious by 0230 on 12 November.
The brand-new 35,000-ton fast battleship Littorio suffered three torpedo hits, while the older battlewagons Caio Duilio and Conte di Cavour picked up one each, with the latter so wrecked she would not be repaired for the duration of the war. Bombs lightly damaged the 13,000-ton heavy cruiser Trento, the destroyers Libeccio and Pessagno, and two fleet auxiliaries in addition to falling on the dockyard and oil depot. The fleet suffered nearly 700 casualties, although less than 10 percent of that figure was mortal.
The raid upset the balance of power between the strong Italian fleet and the weaker British force in the Med at a crucial period.
As a booby prize, the Italians captured two downed British Fleet Air Arm members and were left with several dud bombs and torpedoes to examine. Two RN aircrewmen were killed. The morning after the Taranto raid, the undamaged battleship Vittorio Veneto, assuming ADM Inigo Campioni’s flag from the crippled Littorio, led the Italian fleet to Naples. Campioni would be relieved of command three weeks later, replaced by ADM Angelo Iachino.
Interestingly enough, this attack took place while both America and Japan were at peace and each country’s navy took notes from the engagement, although they were applied very differently by the respective note takers a year later.
As encapsulated by the Royal Navy today, “The Fleet Air Arm’s attack on Taranto ranks as one of the most daring episodes in the Second World War. It transformed the naval situation in the Mediterranean and was carefully studied by the Japanese before their carrier-borne strike on the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in December 1941.”
Much more on Operation Judgement can be read at Armoured Carriers.com and the 26-page paper, The Attack at Taranto, by Angelo N. Caravaggio in the Naval War College Review.
Post-Taranto
How do you top a 20-aircraft raid from a five-month-old carrier that sidelined half of the Italian battlefleet? For the rest of the war, Illustrious was a one-ship fire brigade supporting operations in the Med to include earning honors for keeping Malta alive during Operation Excess.
Her luck ran out on the Excess run on 10 January 1941– hit by five bombs from a swarm of 18 He 111s and 43 Stukas 60 miles west of Malta. “Illustrious was the main target and was enveloped in waterspouts and mist of exploding bombs. Some bombers diving from an altitude of 12,000 feet delayed bomb release until they pulled-out lower than the height of Illustrious’ funnel.”
THE BOMBING OF HMS ILLUSTRIOUS AT MALTA. 10 JANUARY 1941, ON BOARD THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER. (A 9793) The view of the flight deck from the ship’s bridge.(Same as MH 4623). Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205143579
Even so, she reached Malta that day and would suffer 126 dead and 91 wounded by the time she departed the besieged island stronghold– the subject of continuing German and Italian air attacks the entire time she was there.
She was sent to Norfolk Naval Shipyard in the ostensibly neutral United States for repair, eventually arriving there via the Suez Canal on May 27.
HMS ILLUSTRIOUS At the Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia, following battle damage repairs, November 1941. NH 96323
Post repairs, Illustrious was soon back in the war, covering the landings at Diego Suarez in Vichy-held Madagascar during Operation Ironclad in 1942, where her Swords were back at work.
The Royal Navy battleship HMS Valiant fires its 38.1 cm guns during exercises as seen from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious (87). 22 December 1942, Indian Ocean. The planes in the foreground are Fairey Fulmars of B Flight, 806 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm, with Grumman Martlets of 881 NAS parked aft. Lt. D.C. Oulds, Royal Navy official photographer IWM A 15152
She then shipping back to the Med for the Salerno landings in 1943.
BIG SHIPS AT MALTA. OCTOBER 1943, ON BOARD HMS FORMIDABLE AT GRAND HARBOUR, VALLETTA, MALTA. (A 19815) The aircraft carrier HMS ILLUSTRIOUS steams into Grand Harbour, as men line the flight deck of HMS FORMIDABLE to watch her progress. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205152374
From there she set out for the Indian Ocean in 1944 where she worked alongside USS Saratoga and raided the Japanese-held island of Sabang (Operation Cockpit).
HMS Illustrious and USS Saratoga Trincomalee, Ceylon part of Operation Cockpit
HMS Illustrious (87) steaming past the U.S. carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3) in the Indian Ocean, 18 May 1944. Note the crews of both ships assembled on deck to pay farewell. NNAM.1977.031.085.012
HMS ILLUSTRIOUS, part of the Eastern Fleet, stationary, coastal waters (photographed from the cruiser HMS MAURITIUS). IWM A 13559
HMS Renown and Illustrious in Trincomalee Harbor, Ceylon in early 1944.
Royal Navy aircraft repair carrier HMS Unicorn (I72, left) and HMS Illustrious (87), probably pictured at Trincomalee, Ceylon, in 1944. NNAM No. 1996.488.037.044
Corsairs in the armored box hangar of HMS Illustrious. Tight spaces!
A long way from Sea Gladiators! HMS Illustrious in the Indian Ocean. The flight deck being cleared of Corsairs at sunset ready for the Avenger dusk patrol to land on. May 1944
By January 1945, she was off Sumatra in the Japanese-held Dutch East Indies, launching raids on the vital Soengi Gerong oil refineries near Palembang while dodging kamikazes.
She was the first ship in Green Island’s Captain Cook dock, 11 February 1945
Speaking of which, she continued to reap the divine wind off Okinawa in April, with a Japanese D4Y3 Judy making contact with her deck, leaving the carrier with a vibration in her hull and the remains of a Japanese rubber dinghy as a trophy.
The Bridge and Island crew of HMS illustrious had a remarkably close call on 6 April 1945 when a kamikaze attack plane scored the thinnest of glancing blows with its wingtip ripping the ray dome just forward of the Bridge with the plane spinning into the sea causing no casualties to the crew
Sailing at a reduced speed of 19 knots for Sidney and emergency repairs, she ended the war in the dockyard.
Post-war
The Illustrious class entry in the 1946 edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships
Post-VJ-Day, Illustrious was used for deck-landing trials until being place in reserve in late 1947.
Armoured carrier HMS Illustrious carrying out flying trials in 1947. Seafire is on an out-rigger just forward of the island, and the aircraft aft is a Sea Fury
Hawker Sea Fury about to land on HMS Illustrious 1947. Just a great view of her stern QF 4.5″ gun batteries as well, with the turrets trained seaward
Recommissioned the next year, she was used for further trials and training duties, clocking in as a troop carrier to Cyrus in 1951.
HMS Illustrious, off Norway, 1954, at the tail-end of her career. Note the long-serving TBM Avengers on her deck and twin 4.5-inch guns forward. Via the Municipal Archives of Trondheim
She attended Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation Review at Spithead in June 1953 and continued to provide some service, she never again deployed as an operational carrier.
Battleship HMS Vanguard at Spithead on June 1953, with the bruiser old aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious.
Illustrious was sold to BISCO for breaking-up at Faslane, arriving there on 3 November 1956.
As for her three sisters that were completed, HMS Formidable (67) and HMS Indomitable (92) had been broken up shortly before Illustrious leaving only HMS Victorious (R38) to soldier on, paid off in 1968 and scrapped the next year.
What could have been: Blackburn Buccaneer flies past Illustrious-class aircraft carrier HMS Victorious note Sea Vixen, Gannetts and Westlands on deck
Epilogue
While the name HMS Illustrious would go on to be used by an Invincible-class Harrier carrier, which was retired in 2016, several artifacts of the WWII-era vessel endure.
Of course, as a great ship, she was the subject of great maritime art:
HMS Illustrious entering the Basin at John Brown’s Shipyard, Clydebank (Art.IWM ART LD 1371) image: the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious is guided into the basin of John Brown’s shipyard at Clydebank in Scotland by three tug boats. Another Royal Navy warship is moored to the side of the dock. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/3031
Hamilton, John Alan; HMS ‘Illustrious’ under Attack: Excess Convoy, January 1941; IWM (Imperial War Museums); http://www.artuk.org/artworks/hms-illustrious-under-attack-excess-convoy-january-1941-7670
Cobb, Charles David; Operation ‘Excess’, ‘Illustrious’ under Air Attack, 19 January 1941; National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/operation-excess-illustrious-under-air-attack-19-january-1941-116447
Macdonald, Roderick; HMS ‘Illustrious’ under Air Attack, 10 January 1941. The scene of the attack is viewed from the cockpit of one of ‘Illustrious’ own Fairey Swordfish aircraft. By Roderick Macdonald circa 1980 via the Fleet Air Museum E00728/0001http://www.artuk.org/artworks/hms-illustrious-under-air-attack-10-january-1941-40645
Macdonald, Roderick; HMS ‘Illustrious’ under Attack in the Grand Harbour, Malta; Fleet Air Arm Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/hms-illustrious-under-attack-in-the-grand-harbour-malta-40646
“Task Force of Two Navies” Watercolor by Dwight Shepler, USNR, 1943, depicting U.S. and British warships in the Pentland Firth during an operation toward the Norwegian coast, coincident with the Sicily invasion, July 1943. Alabama (BB 60) is in the lead, followed by HMS Illustrious and HMS King George V. Three British carrier-based fighters (two “Seafires” and a “Martlet”) are overhead. Official USN photo # KN-20381, courtesy of the U.S. Navy Art Collection, Washington, DC, now in the collections of the National Archives.
No place to land by Michael Turner, showing FAA Royal Navy F4U Corsairs return to their carrier HMS Illustrious after the April 1945 Kamikaze attack
And of a variety of scale models from Heller, Aoshima, Revelle, and others.
The plans for Illustrious are in the Royal Museums Greenwich.
The rubber survival dinghy recovered from the kamikaze that struck her deck off Okinawa is in the IWM.
Japanese Kamikaze pilot’s aircraft dinghy (MAR 595) Dinghy from a Japanese Kamikaze aircraft, recovered from HMS ILLUSTRIOUS, 1945. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30004058
While both her original ship’s bell– which was damaged in 1941 by the Germans off Malta– and her U.S.-cast replacement, presented while she was at Norfolk, are preserved.
This week, the Royal Navy is planning a spate of remembrance activities concerning the 80th anniversary of Taranto, keeping the memory of Lusty and her 21 stringbags alive.
Specs:
Displacement: 28,661 tons, full load
Length: 710 ft
Beam: 95 ft
Draft: 28 feet
Propulsion: 6 Admiralty 3-drum boilers, 3 Parsons geared turbines producing 110,000 shp, three shafts
Speed: 30.5 knots, range= 10,700nm @ 10 knots
Complement: ~1,200 designed. Up to 1,600 during 1944-45
Armor: 3 to 4.5-inches
Aircraft: 36, later increased to 60
16 × QF 4.5-inch naval gun (8 × 2)
40 x QF 2 pounder naval gun (5 × 8)
Later fitted with:
3 x Bofors 40 mm gun (3 x 1)
38 x Oerlikon 20 mm cannon (19 x 2), (14 x 1)
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It’s been a long way from Tun Tavern. Some 245 years to be exact.
I hope you left out MREs and scotch for Chesty last night.
U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3C Orion aircraft from Patrol Squadron VP-49 at Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland, 1971. (U.S. Navy Photo)
Going back to the first act of Red Storm Rising, American ASW aircraft based in Iceland was a mortal thorn in the side of the Red Banner Fleet’s submarines headed to the Atlantic. Originally established by the U.S. Army Air Force as Meeks Field in 1942 during the occupation of Iceland in WWII, by 1951 Naval Air Station Keflavik was up and running and remained in operation until it was closed in 2006 following the thaw in the Cold War.
Now civilian-run Keflavik Airport for the past 14 years, occasional NATO Air Policing units visit off and on to keep roaming Russian Bears away and, since 2016, Navy P-3s have increasingly passed through while new hangars have been constructed to accommodate P-8 Poseidons.
And, in an underreported story, ADM Robert Burke, commander of both U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa (CNE-CNA) and Allied Joint Forces Command (JFC) Naples, said it was possible a squadron of Poseidons could operate from Keflavik again.
Sig Sauer’s variable powered 1-6×24 TANGO6T is a first focal plane ruggedized riflescope with a flat dark earth anodized aircraft-grade aluminum main tube, with a magnification that allows either relatively close-quarter shots or use against more distant targets. The optic is already in use with the Army on the Squad Designated Marksman Rifle (SDMR) and with SOCOM as the Squad-Variable Powered Scope, or S-VPS.
It has now been picked by the Army as the new Direct View Optic (DVO) for use on the M4A1 Carbine.
More in my column at Guns.com.