The bells of Balangiga

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In the (believed) friendly village of Balangiga, on the morning of 28 September 1901, local Filipino insurgents fell on the regulars of C Company, 9th U.S. Infantry, during the unit’s breakfast, effectively putting most of the 78-man unit on the casualty list.

As noted by the Army’s Center for Military History in a colossal understatement, “The Army retaliated brutally, killing large numbers of civilians as well as insurgents. When American military authorities court-martialed soldiers accused of atrocities, the trials fed the flames of controversy at home.”

Brig. Gen. Jacob Hurd Smith, USA and Major Littleton Waller, USMC, both underwent separate courts-martial for their roles in the punitive campaign. At their trials, both officers maintained that they had followed orders and Waller was acquitted but Smith drummed out of the service. A veteran of the Battle of Shiloh (from which he carried a Minie ball in his hip for the rest of his life), Smith’s call to leave the area as a “howling wilderness” and effectively shoot any male older than 10 earned him the label of “The Monster” in the press of the day. Regardless, he later was interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

Part of Smith’s legacy was the capture or otherwise taking away of three church bells during the Samar campaign as war trophies. Today, one is at slated-for-deactivation Camp Red Cloud in Uijeongbu (former home of the 9th INF), while the other two are rusting away at F.E. Warren AFB (formerly Fort D.A. Russell) in Wyoming. With the only unit of the 9th, the 4th battalion, currently stateside at Fort Carson, and the Philippines increasingly vital to U.S. interests in the Far East (read = South China Sea), Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis visited Warren this week and announced the beginning of the process to return of the Bells of Balangiga to the Philippines in front of the two bells located there.

“To those who fear we lose something by returning the bells please hear me when I say the bells mark time, but courage is timeless,” said Mattis. “It does not fade in history’s dimly lit corridors nor is it forgotten in history’s compost.”
Presenting the bells supports our nation’s continued partnership with the Philippines.

Jose Romualdez, Philippine Ambassador to the United States, and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis stand for a photo, Nov. 14, 2018, in front of the bells of Balangiga on F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo. During the visit, the Bells of Balangiga were officially presented to the Philippine government. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Braydon Williams)

“History teaches us that nations with allies thrive,” said Mattis. “It reminds us too that all wars end. By returning the Bells of Balangiga to our ally and our friend the Philippines we pick up the responsibility of our generation to deepen the respect between our people.”

Steadfast in loyalty

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This Bavarian Pickelhaube spiked helmet likely was brought back to the United States as a war souvenir after the Great War. The motto on the helmet “In Treue fest” translates as, “steadfast in loyalty,” and was the motto of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Said kingdom largely ceased to exist on 7 November 1918, when King Ludwig III fled from the Residenz Palace in Munich with his family, in effect relinquishing the 700-year Wittelsbach dynasty to the self-proclaimed socialist People’s State of Bavaria (Volksstaat Bayern) of theatre critic Kurt Eisner who would, in the absence of an official abdication by Ludwig, awkwardly and briefly fill the void.

German helmet, probably acquired by soldier Walker Harrison Jordon, ca. 1918. Jordan Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (193.00.00)

 

Don’t throw dice on Patrick’s watch

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New York-born Marsena Rudolph Patrick (USMA 1835) spent 15 years in the Army, fighting against Mexico and in the Seminole campaigns, resigning to head to the private sector after reaching the rank of captain in 1850. When the Civil War came, he was quickly made New York state militia’s inspector general and by 1862 was a brigadier of volunteers from the Empire State.

After seeing service at Antietam, Joe Hooker made him a sort of spymaster general, as head of the Bureau of Military Information, and was later head of the provost marshal forces in NoVA, leaving the service again as a Maj. Gen (Volunteers), in June 1865.

Culpeper, Va.: Provost Marshal General Marsena R. Patrick (center) and staff, Sept. 1863 by Brady photographer Timothy O’Sullivan, LOC LC-B8171-7075

Patrick did not abide fools and his punishments were legion. The below drawing by Alfred R. Waud in October 1863, now in the Library of Congress, shows men of the 96th New York playing endless games of dice, Patrick’s detail for those caught gambling.

LC-DIG-ppmsca-21212 (digital file from original item) LC-USZC4-4185 (color film copy transparency) LC-USZCN4-278 (color film copy neg.) LC-USZ62-14781 (b&w film copy neg.) LC-USZ62-6977 (b&w film copy neg.)

From the drawing board of a Budapest banker

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So I’ve been fooling with a vintage Frommer Stop this week. You do know of Rudolf Frommer, a bespectacled and balding banker who resembled the fictional Ernst Stavro Blofeld and, among other claims to fame, compiled the first Hungarian-German Stock Exchange dictionary of terms, yes?

Although not a trained engineer, after the banker joined the management of the Hungarian gun company FEG in 1896 to help it restructure after insolvency, he started taking out patents on his early semi-auto pistol designs. While interesting, they were over-engineered. However, they worked and over 300,000 of his Stop models were produced between 1910 and 1929, seeing service with military and police forces throughout Central Europe in both World Wars.

More in my column at Guns.com

The sad and drawn out death of a modern frigate

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Unless you have been under a rock, the saga of the Royal Norwegian Navy’s Fridtjof Nansen-class AEGIS frigate HNoMS Helge Ingstad (F313), which somehow collided with the Maltese-flagged oil tanker Sola TS last week. The incident, while Ingstad was performing navigational training in the inner Fjords at 0400, left the relatively new 5,300-ton FF fighting for her life.

Foto: Marius Villanger / Forsvaret

That’s not gonna buff out. Foto: Jakob Østheim / Forsvaret

As noted by the Norwegian Navy at the time, she was grounded and started listing:

Due to the damage to the frigate it was moved to a safe place and the crew was evacuated in a professional manner. There are no reports of damages or leaks from the oil tanker and no report of serious injuries, though eight crewmembers are being treated for minor injuries.

Now, after a week of attempting to save her, the list grew and she is all but on the bottom at this point.

Foto: Jakob Østheim / Forsvaret

Foto: Jakob Østheim / Forsvaret

Even if she is raised, it’s unlikely that her expensive AN/SPY-1F 3-D radar and other sensors are going to be up to snuff after weeks, or months, in salt water. The class cost $500 million per ship, with about half of that in weapon systems and electronics, mostly spent with Lockheed-Martin and Kongsberg as well as a host of other European tech companies.

Norway only built five of the Nansen-class frigates, a modification of the Spanish Navy’s Álvaro de Bazán-class vessels. The theory on five was to have four in the rotation for normal deployment with the fifth boat as a “spare” to allow for training, extended dry dock-level maintenance, and overseas operations (the class has been involved in EU counter-piracy ops off Somalia and UN efforts off Syria). That flexibility is now gone.

Ingstad was part of Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG1) and had just participated in the giant Trident Juncture 2018 meant to be a show of force on display for Moscow. U.S. Navy Adm. James G. Foggo, head of the 6th Fleet, even spent some time on her decks.

So naturally, the Russians are talking much smack about the whole thing on state-owned media. (Google: Kursk, or Admiral Kuznetsov, to see about the whole pot and kettle thing).

Warship Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018: The Quilt City Slugger

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to 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. 14, 2018: The Quilt City Slugger

Bain News Service Collection, Library of Congress photo LC-B2-11-14

Here we see the Dubuque-class gunboat USS Paducah (Gunboat No. 18) of the U.S. Navy on a sunny Spring day, 28 May 1912, while assigned to the Caribbean Squadron. This humble 200-feet of rock and roll served Uncle in both World Wars and kept on chugging post-1945.

Designed at the turn of the century as a slow (12 knot) but decently-armed (2 4-inch, 4 6-pounders, 2 1-pounders) steel-hulled gunboat capable of floating in two fathoms of brackish water, the Dubuque-class gunboats were both built at the Gas Engine and Power Co. and Charles L. Seabury Co., Morris Heights, N.Y.

Both class leader Dubuque and sister Paducah were the first U.S. Navy warships named after those mid-sized river cities, which seems appropriate as the ships themselves could be used in rivers, bays, and lakes otherwise off-limits to larger men-of-war of the day. Still, they were handsome ships with a pair of tall stacks, twin masts, and a raked bow, and fast enough for what they were intended for.

With their armament pumped up while under construction from a pair of 4″/40cals as designed to a full set of six of these guns (rivalling light cruisers of the day) and augmented by a Colt M1895 Potato-Digger machine gun for landing duties, they were well-suited to wave the flag in far-off climes on the cheap and patrol out-of-the-way backwater ports in Latin America, West Africa, the Pacific and the Caribbean.

Yes, they were the Littoral Combat Ships of 1905!

USS DUBUQUE (PG-17). NH 54576

Commissioned 2 September 1905, Paducah was soon dispatched to the Caribbean Squadron “to protect American lives and interests through patrols and port calls to the Caribbean and Central and South American cities.”

Patrolling Mexican waters in the aftermath of the Vera Cruz incident through the summer of 1914, she then returned to her Caribbean operations, performing surveys from time to time.

At the Portsmouth Navy Yard, New Hampshire, prior to World War I. NH 42990

Group portrait of ship’s baseball team, prior to World War I. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Jacoby. Catalog #: NH 42993

In dry dock at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, New Hampshire, prior to World War I. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Jacoby. Catalog #: NH 42991

In dry dock at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, New Hampshire, prior to World War I. Gunboat astern is either MARIETTA or WHEELING. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Jacoby. Catalog #: NH 42992

In dry dock at the Portsmouth Navy Yard New Hampshire, September 1916. On left is USS EAGLE, 1898-1920. Description: Courtesy of John G. Krieger, 1967 Catalog #: NH 43475

When the U.S. entered WWI in 1917, Paducah was tapped to perform overseas escort and coastal patrol duties in Europe, reaching Gibraltar 27 October. Based from there, the plucky gunboat escorted convoys to North Africa, Italy, the Azores, and Madeira.

She logged an attack on an unidentified U-boat 9 September 1918 after it had sunk one of her convoys, and was credited with possibly damaging the submarine, although this was not confirmed by post-war audits. Her sister Dubuque spent the Great War investigating isolated harbors and inlets in the Caribbean and on the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia to prevent their use by German submarines, an ideal tasking for such a vessel.

After post-WWI survey duty in the Caribbean, Paducah was re-engined with twin 623.5ihp vertical triple-expansion engines, and her armament reduced. She then transferred to Duluth, Minn in May 1922, to serve as a training ship for Naval Reserve forces in the 9th District. Sister Dubuque likewise pulled the same service, taking Reservists on cruises from her home port of Detroit into Lakes Superior and Michigan every summer, and icing in for the winter. Good duty if you can get it.

Photographed during the 1930s, while serving as a training ship for Naval Reserves on the Great Lakes. NH 76516

When WWII came, both Paducah and her sister returned to the East Coast in early 1941, and, based at Little Creek, Va. throughout the conflict, trained Armed Guard gunners in Chesapeake Bay for details on merchant vessels. Some 144,970 Armed Guards served during the war, trained at three bases, with over 1,800 killed or missing in the conflict. Witnessing a staggering 1,966 air attacks and 1,024 submarine attacks, 467 guard crews participated in destroying enemy planes in addition to engaging surface raiders and submarines.

USS Dubuque, 12 December 1941 Norfolk, VA Photo caption: “Looking down from the crow’s nest toward the bow of the U.S.S. Dubuque, which is now being used to train gun crews for U.S. Armed Merchant ships. In the foreground, is a rangefinder, while crews move about two slim, deadly looking guns similar to those being used on merchantmen.” International News Sound photo via Navsource http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/09017.htm

Decommissioning 7 September 1945, both transferred to the Maritime Commission 19 December 1946 and Paducah was sold the same day to one Maria Angelo, Miami, Fla. Then came a second career for Paducah as Dubuque was sent to the breakers.

Purchased for a song by the Israeli group Haganah and renamed Geulah (Hebrew: Redemption) a scratch crew of mostly-American volunteers sailed her first to France and then Bulgaria, taking aboard an amazing 2,644 Ma’apilim refugees for passage to Palestine through the British blockade.

Fitting out as a Palestine immigrant blockade runner, probably at a Florida port on 5 March 1947. She was renamed GEULAH for that role. Courtesy of Paul H. Silverstone, 1983 Catalog #: NH 94973

The British trailed her off Palestine and raided the vessel in Haifa harbor, impounding the ship among others used by the Israelis until the new government formed. (See fellow Warship Wednesday alumni Gresham).

SS GEULAH, ex-USS PADUCAH (PG-18) Arriving off Palestine with Jewish immigrants on 2 October 1947, being intercepted by HMS Mermaid. Courtesy of Paul H. Silverstone, 1983 Catalog #: NH 94972

Geulah being boarded by British troops after she had been towed into the port of Haifa, during the night of 2 October 1947. Photo from “The Jews’ Secret Fleet” by Murray S. Greenfield and Joseph M. Hochstein, Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem, and New York Via Navsource http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/09018.htm

Later the Israeli Navy was able to reclaim Paducah/Geulah in 1948 after independence, but following inspection, the desperate organization realized they were not that desperate, and, after a brief stint as a tramp steamer, sold her for scrap in Naples in 1951.

The only other Paducah commissioned in the Navy was the 109-foot large harbor tug, YTB-758. Built at the Southern Shipbuilding Corp., Slidell, La., she joined the fleet in 1961 and was decommissioned 1970. Struck from the Naval Register, 25 June 1999, she is in commercial service today in Connecticut as Patricia Ann, berthed at New London.

The large harbor tug USS PADUCAH (YTB-758) nudges the attack carrier USS JOHN F. KENNEDY (CVA-67) toward pier 12, Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, Virginia. Catalog #: K-61228 National Archive. Photo by JOI TOM Walton Wed, Oct 30, 1968

The silver punch bowl from the old gunboat Paducah, donated to the Quilt City in 1946 by the Navy, is on display at the city’s Market House Museum.

Specs:

USS DUBUQUE (PG-17) and USS PADUCAH (PG-18) Drawing by F. Muller, circa 1902 NH 54575

Displacement 1,237 t.
Length 200′ 5
Length between perpendiculars 174′
Beam 35′
Draft 12′ 3″
Propulsion: Two 235psi Babcock and Wilcox boilers, two 500ihp Gas Engine Power Co. vertical triple-expansion engines, two shafts, 200 tons coal
1921 – Two 630ihp vertical triple-expansion engines.
Speed 12 kts, as designed
1921 – 12.9 kts.
Complement 162, as designed
1914 – 172
1921 – 161
Armament:
(1905)
Six 4″ (102/40) Mk VII mounts (replaced by newer 4″/50s in 1911)
Four Driggs-Schroeder Mk II 57mm 6-pounders
Two 1-pounders
One .30-06 cal. Colt machine gun
(1921) Four 4″/50 rapid fire mounts and one 3″/23 mount
(1940)
One 5″/38 dual-purpose mount
Two 4″/50 gun mounts
One 3″/50 dual-purpose mount

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

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

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SBD of Morocco

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Yes, a Navy dive bomber on a dirt road in North Africa. It happened.

Below we have a U.S. Navy SBD (Scout Bomber, Douglas) Dauntless dive bomber, likely of Carrier Air Group 4’s VS-41 “Tophatters,” using a road as a makeshift runway, near Safi, Morocco, in November 1942. The historic port, about 140 nautical miles south of Casablanca, had been captured just hours before by three WWI-era U.S. Navy destroyers carrying a raiding force of light infantry in the opening moves of Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa.

NHHC 208-N-6070

Note special insignia used during this operation, with a wide white circle around the regular star & circle emblem, predating the Invasion Stripes of D-Day.

Developed by the famous ‎Ed Heinemann (father of the A-20 Havoc, A-26 Invader, A-1 Skyraider, A-4 Skyhawk, et al), the SBD was perhaps the most iconic carrier-borne strike plane of the war, with four squadrons of them responsible for scratching all four Japanese flattops at Midway, disabling three of them in the span of just six minutes. They also proved their mettle at the Coral Sea and in the Guadalcanal campaign with many, as evidenced above, operated from shore.

The SBD was probably from USS Ranger (CV-4) who for the Torch Landings had 18 such aircraft in VS-41. Another 18 SBDs were carried, nine each, on *two escort carriers USS Sangamon (ACV-26) and USS Santee (ACV-29). SBDs from Ranger, besides proving their worth plastering land-based targets, had also socked the French battleship Jean Bart on 10 November 1942 in Casablanca harbor with a pair of 1,000-pound bombs, finishing what the battleship USS Massachusetts had started.

VS-41 lost three aviators in North Africa– ARM George E. Biggs, Ens Charles E. Duffy, and ARM Aubra T. Patterson– and had four others shot down and captured (briefly) by the French. Founded in 1919, VS-41’s lineage is today carried by VFA-14, flying F/A-18Es.

*Two other escort carriers took part in the Torch landings but did not carry SBDs: USS Suwanee (ACV-27) with 29 F4F Wildcats and nine TBFs, and USS Chenango (ACV-28) carrying a load of 76 Army P-40Fs on a one-way trip.

More on Torch’s naval actions here.

‘Always carry a firearm east of Aldgate, Watson’

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This beautiful .38 Colt M1902 military model pistol, serial no. 38109 was formerly the property of one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, KStJ DL.

Lot 1025 Holts Auction 20th September – F A . Via Invaluable

Complete with a 6-inch barrel it had and a Webley “been left with Doyle’s London solicitors in 1921 when the Firearms Act first became law. It appeared Sir Arthur did not trust the authorities. The pistols were stored in the solicitors safe deposit box and appear to have been forgotten when he died in 1930. It was only when a rationalization of the various deposits was undertaken in 1974 that the weapons were found and sold.”

Excelsior!

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Born Stanley Martin Lieber, Stan Lee spent much of his life in the comics industry– with a break for WWII service in the Army– and with fellow artists, co-created legions of iconic characters.

Lee grew up in the Bronx and by age 17 was working at Timely Comics, a company that would later grow into Marvel. Some seven months before the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor brought the country into World War II, Lieber, using the Lee pseudonym, wrote his first comic, Captain America #3.

Setting down his pencils, Lee soon put on a uniform and joined the Army Signal Corps shortly after hearing of “The Day Which Shall Live in Infamy,” working as a lineman before his skills were put to use in making training posters and doing technical writing– so just think, some of those horrible WWII TMs could have included work by Lee!

In 2012, Lee was inducted into the Signal Corps Regimental Association and presented with an honorary membership into the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment.

“This is one of my proudest moments,” Lee said.

The move came just after he popped up in a classic WWII “pink and green uniform” during a cameo as a four-star general in the first Captain America film. Quite a promotion from the T-5 days!

Always a class act, he occasionally appeared at Veterans events over the years and made sure to interact with Servicemembers whenever possible.

U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Adam Eggers

And of course showed up as a hard-drinking WWII Army Vet in  Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015):

Stan, you will be missed.

Excelsior!

Vouching for an unsung specialist, 174 years ago today

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Below we see a letter of recommendation of one Asa Curtis from Commodore William Montgomery Crane to SECNAV John Young Mason, on this day in 1844.

Mr. Asa Curtis, Gunner in the Navy, has requested that I would give my opinion of him to the Department. This officer entered the Navy in 1812, was on board the Constitution at the capture of the British frigates “Guerriere” and “Java”; he afterwards served with me five years – two at the Boston Navy Yard, and three years at sea on board two ships of the line and a frigate. I found him a capable and meritorious officer, and I take pleasure in recommending him to the notice of the Department.

If you haven’t heard of Curtis, you should have.

Born in Scituate, Massachusetts in 1794, Curtis not only served on Constitution, joining the famous warship as an able seaman at age 18, but also on the sloop-of-war Ontario, the frigate Constellation, and the 74-gun ships of the line North Carolina and USS Delaware, among others.

Importantly, the meticulous Curtis left behind detailed notes and logs on everything from watchbills, cordage tables and dimensions to tacking, mooring and gunnery surveys on these vessels, all of which provide some of the most thorough information about the early 19th Century Navy as could be asked for.

In all, his career spanned 46 years, most of it underway, and died in 1858 while on the 50-gun frigate USS St. Lawrence in Brazilian waters during the punitive expedition to Paraguay over the Water Witch incident.

As for Crane, who recommended him for further service his own career ranged from fighting the Barbary pirates to being installed as the first Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance (and Hydrography) and, for the latter, Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division is named in his honor.

More on Curtis, here.

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