Panzershrek!
Just going to drop this right here.
Enjoy your day, I am at a Glock event and will have cool news for you momentarily.
Last Arizona Vet, arriving via Mark V
The ashes of Lauren Bruner, a survivor of the 7 December 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor and Oahu, be placed inside the wreckage of the USS Arizona (BB-39) in an interment ceremony at the USS Arizona Memorial on Oahu, Hawaii, Dec. 8. Bruner is the 44th and expected to be the last, crew member to be interred in accordance with this U.S. Navy ritual.
“On Dec. 7, 1941, then-21-year-old Lauren Bruner was the second-to-last man to escape the burning wreckage of the USS Arizona after a Japanese plane dropped a bomb that ignited an enormous explosion in the battleship’s ammunition storage compartment.
He lived to be 98 years old, marrying twice and outliving both wives. He worked for a refrigeration company for nearly four decades.”
The last three living Arizona survivors plan to be laid to rest with their families, but Bruner decided to rejoin his old friends.
The dive was accomplished by U.S. Navy divers and Army personnel of the 84th Engineer Battalion’ s 7th Dive det– the latter of which have been training this last week to use two spun copper Mark V dive helmets and matching suits in the ceremony.
SBRs To Get X’d Out of NFA?
What’s not to like about an SBR? (Photo: Battle Arms Development )
Legislation announced Tuesday would remove short-barreled rifles from regulation under the National Firearm Act and treat them like regular firearms.
Under current law, as regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, SBRs are classified as a rifle with an overall length of fewer than 26-inches and/or a barrel of fewer than 16-inches in length. Marshall’s bill would remove such limits from NFA enforcement, regulating SBRs in the future under the same rules as other rifles.
According to statistics from the ATF, some 413,167 SBRs were listed on the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record (NFRTR) as of May 2019. Such figures have steadily risen through the years as these firearms become more popular and gun owners elect, for example, to legally convert AR and AK-style pistols to SBRs after processing a Form 1 and paying a $200 tax stamp. In 2014– just a half-decade ago– there were only 137,201 SBRs on the books.
More in my column at Guns.com.
MSC Adding Fast Hospital Ships ?
Saturday’s DOD Contract announcements included this little gem, converting a pair of Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports (EPF) currently under construction–USNS Apalachicola (EPF 13), and Cody (EPF 14)— into hospital transports. The EPFs are speedy (43-knot) little (1500 ton, 337ft o.a.) trimarans made by Austal and manned by the civilian mariners of the MSC to carry a reinforced company-sized unit of ground-pounders or cargo intra-theatre. The Navy has been brainstorming using an EPF equipped with an expeditionary medical unit (EMU) inside the mission bay that, while falling short of a full-size hospital ship, would allow an EPF/EMU to serve as a quick transit platform for rapid medical response.
Paint it white and put a red cross on it…
From the announcement:
Austal USA, Mobile, Alabama, is awarded a not-to-exceed $9,198,875 fixed priced incentive firm target (FPI(F)) undefinitized contract action modification to previously-awarded contract N00024-19-C-2227 for the immediate procurement of long-lead-time material, engineering, and production to support changes to the arrangement of the 02 and 03 Levels on Expeditionary Fast Transports (EPF) 13 and 14. The EPF class provides high speed, shallow draft transportation capability to support the intra-theater maneuver of personnel, supplies and equipment for the Navy, Marine Corps and Army. Work will be performed in Mobile, Alabama, and is expected to be complete by November 2021. Fiscal 2018 and 2019 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy-SCN) funding for $4,599,438 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year — fiscal 2018 SCN (62%); and fiscal 2019 SCN (38%). The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity.
Radar Plot from Station Opana
Radar Plot from Station Opana, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii December 7, 1941. NARA 2600930
On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese bombers staged a surprise attack on U.S. military forces at Pearl Harbor Hawaii. In less than three hours, the United States suffered more than 2,400 casualties and loss of or severe damage to 188 airplanes and 8 battleships. At one station, Army privates were running the radar and at 7:02 a.m., a large white blip appeared. The privates marked this activity and the continuing movements of incoming planes. Pvt. Joseph Lockard reported this to the Information Center, but a group of American B-17s were due to arrive that day from San Francisco, and Lockard was told to forget about what he saw.
It was only after arrival at camp that they received word that at 7:55 a.m. the Japanese had begun dropping bombs on Pearl Harbor. They realized that the planes they had been tracking on the radar plot were not American, but the Japanese attacking force. They had witnessed the start of World War II for America, but they hadn’t realized it.
(Text adapted from “Congress Investigates: Pearl Harbor and 9/11 Congressional Hearing Exhibits” in the September 2011 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication Social Education)
A Handgun That Saw Hell
On 7 December 1941, the Mahan-class destroyer USS Shaw (DD-373) was in the old New Orleans YFD2 drydock at the Pearl Harbor Naval Yard. Soon after the Japanese attack began, she suffered three direct hits by 500-pound bombs and two more that landed inside the dock itself. Within 20 minutes, the resulting inferno, fueled by wooden shoring and blocks under her hull, reached her forward magazine.
The resulting spectacular explosion, caught on cameras across at Ford Island, blew Shaw’s bow off and filled the holed dock with water and blazing fuel oil.
USS SHAW exploding Pearl Harbor. NARA 80-G-16871
In the days after the attack, a civilian employee at PHNY found a battered and burned Colt M1911 transitional model on the deck of YFD2 that remained above water. Besides Shaw’s 1936-dated bell which is at the U.S. Navy Museum in Washington, the pistol is part of the destroyer’s legacy and remains at Pearl today.
(NPS)
More in my column at Guns.com.
Graf Spee’s SMS Scharnhorst found off Falklands
Scharnhorst and her sister were very distinctive with their four large funnels.
The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust has for the past half-decade been looking for the German battle fleet of Adm. Maximilian Graf von Spee lost near the South Atlantic British colony on 8 December 1914. It looks like the charity has hit paydirt in a sort by finding the armored cruiser SMS Scharnhorst, the flagship of Spee’s doomed German East Asia Squadron.
Scharnhorst, built in Hamburg in 1905, was the first to be sunk when the Germans met with VADM Doveton Sturdee’s battlecruiser squadron, hammered below the waves by the much stronger HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible.
Battle of the Falkland Islands, 1914 by British Artist William Lionel Wyllie, showing Scharnhorst slipping below the waves as Gneisenau battles on
Sinking of the Scharnhorst, 1914, painted by Admiral Thomas Jacques Somerscales currently on display at the Royal Museums Greenwich
In all, over 2,200 German sailors perished on the sea that day, including von Spee himself and his two sons – Heinrich aboard the Scharnhorst’s sister ship Gneisenau, and Otto aboard the smaller cruiser Nürnberg.
The Scharnhorst was discovered on the third day of the research vessel Seabed Constructor’s search, 98 nautical miles southeast of Port Stanley at a depth of 1610 meters.
Armoured Cruiser SMS Scharnhorst composite. Via Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust
Her silhouette is perfect. Via Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust
Her bow, note the casemated guns. Via Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust
Another bow shot, note the teak planking is still intact. Via Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust
Her 8..3″ main guns, at apparently max elevation. Via Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust
Note the “Krupp” tag. Via Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust
Wilhelm Graf von Spee, the current head of the Graf von Spee family, said:
“Speaking as one of the many families affected by the heavy casualties suffered on 8 December 1914 at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, the discovery of SMS Scharnhorst is bittersweet. We take comfort from the knowledge that the final resting place of so many has been found, and can now be preserved, whilst also being reminded of the huge waste of life. As a family, we lost a father and his two sons on one day. Like the thousands of other families who suffered an unimaginable loss during the First World War, we remember them and must ensure that their sacrifice was not in vain.”
P-38 101
I’ve always had a soft spot for P-38s (the guns, not the can openers, as I find the longer P-51 type a much better form of the latter and don’t even get me into the P-38 Lightning) since I was a kid.
With that, I had the great opportunity recently while in the GDC Vault to find examples made by all three WWII makers– Walther, Spreewerk, and Mauser– as well as some Cold War-era West German Ulm-marked guns.
There you go…
For insights into how to tell them apart and what to look for, check out my column at Guns.com. https://www.guns.com/news/2019/12/04/the-world-of-german-p-38s-walther-mauser-spreewerk-and-otherwise
That’s a lot of British flattop
HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08), the first semi-active big deck aircraft carrier to sail under the White Ensign since the F-4 toting HMS Ark Royal (R09) was retired in 1979, has returned home to Portsmouth after more than a month at sea working up with British-flown F-35s.
Upon coming home, she was met by her brand spanking new sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales (R09– the same pennant as Ark Royal’s!) for the first time.
Boom, 130,000 tons of Royal Navy carriers.
HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) is expected to deploy in 2021ish while HMS Prince of Wales (R09) is to follow in 2023
The last time more than 130,000 tons of British carriers were in one place at one time was Bruce Fraser’s 1944-45 Pacific Fleet. His force included six Implacable/Illustrious-class fleet carriers, four Colossus-class light carriers, two maintenance carriers, and nine escort carriers, for a total of 320,000-tons of flattop real estate parking for 750 embarked aircraft.
The British fleet carriers HMS Indomitable (R92), HMS Indefatigable (R10), HMS Unicorn (I72), HMS Illustrious (R87), HMS Victorious (R38) and HMS Formidable (R67) at anchor, with other shipping, 1945. IWM MH 5309
The Commanding Officer of HMS Queen Elizabeth, Captain Steve Moorhouse said:
“Homecomings are always a special occasion, but to be returning to Portsmouth with HMS Prince of Wales welcoming us home makes this a particularly special occasion.
“This has been an extremely successful deployment for HMS Queen Elizabeth. Embarking UK F-35 Lightning jets for the first time and integrating them within the carrier strike group is a significant milestone and we are well set for an equally demanding 2020 and our first operational deployment in 2021.”
Recently, it was detailed that the HMSQE-class has deck parking for 45 F-35s, which is a serious (and seriously unlikely without USMC cross-decking) airwing.
Photo via Chris Canvas
Also of note, the Indian government is talking of moving ahead with a plan (and formal offer from BAE) to acquire a CATOBAR version of the class for their own use as well, in response to China moving towards a four-carrier fleet.
Which makes the planned first deployment of HMSQE in 2021 to the Indian Ocean a no-brainer.
Maybe there will be another British (Commonwealth) Pacific Fleet in the future?
Bad Day for Old Museum Ships
USCGC Bramble WLB 392, back in her pre-2019 Port Huron days
The retired U.S. Coast Guard cutter Bramble (WLB-392), a WWII-era veteran of the Bikini tests and the historic 1957 voyage through the Northwest Passage left federal service in 2003. She then spent a quiet life as a museum ship in Port Huron, Michigan for years.
Then, in 2018 she was sold to a man who wanted to repeat the famous five-month trek of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutters Storis, SPAR and Bramble, along with the crew of the Canadian icebreaker HMCS Labrador from May to September of 1957.
He even hired a documentary film crew to cover the whole thing with the name “Bramble Reborn”
The bad part is, Bramble’s new owner ran out of funds, and the ship was seized for debts run up with the Epic Shipyard in Mobile, Alabama and other creditors. She was sold at public auction for $80,000 on Wednesday, her future unknown.
Tragically, the U.S. Coast Guard Historian’soffice had put the ship’s 1944-dated bell in safekeeping when she was decommissioned in 2003 and only returned it to the museum in 2014. Now, it may be gone, along with the vessel, for good.
B-427
The LA Times reports that the former Soviet SSK B-427, which has been part of three different maritime museums since she was decommissioned in 1994 and is currently docked adjacent to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, “is expected to be sold soon to an anonymous buyer, with plans to remove the rusting sub by mid-May. The 48-year-old Russian Foxtrot-class submarine, known as the Scorpion, had hosted paying visitors for 17 years before it fell into such disrepair that it became infested with raccoons and was closed to the public in 2015.”
Oregon relics
Battleship Oregon in the Willamette River in Oregon, 20 April 1941, after she was, ironically, preserved whole as a museum ship since 1925.
In a (possibly) bright spot, the 20-foot-high smokestacks of the old USS Oregon (Battleship No. 3) have been stored on private property for nearly a decade at the Zidell Yards in South Waterfront. An effort is being made to install them in Portland’s Tom McCall Waterfront Park, where the Spanish-American War/Great War vessel’s mast has stood since 1956. However, the plan seems to be faltering.
A proposed design for adding the USS Oregon’s smokestacks to its memorial (which currently features just the mast) at Portland’s Tom McCall Waterfront Park. (Courtesy of Oregon Maritime Museum)
Hopefully, they will find a home there. If not, they too could go to the scrapper.