Great War coastal grave robberies made right

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Authorities in the UK are getting it done when it comes to those illegally salvaging trophies from war graves offshore.

Last month, the bell of the SS Mendi was presented to the President of South Africa by the Prime Minister Theresa May at a ceremony in Cape Town. Mendi, a 4,000-ton steamship of the British and African Steam Navigation Company, was requisitioned for WWI service and never made it back home.

On 21 February 1917 a large cargo steamship, Darro, collided with her in the English Channel south of the Isle of Wight. Mendi sank killing 646 people, most of whom were black South African troops of the 5th Battalion of the Native Labour Corps. In a terrible twist, her bell was looted by persons unknown from the wreck and in 2017 given to a BBC reporter who turned it over to the Maritime & Coastguard Agency. After a year on display in England, it was repatriated to South Africa.

Another example, that of the two props from the Kaiserliche Marine coastal minelaying U-boat SM UC-75, which was sent to the bottom after she was rammed and sunk by the RN destroyer HMS Fairy, 31 May 1918, concluded last week. The props, reported by the BBC as found in a storage unit in Bangor, Gwynedd, a year ago and thought destined for the scrap metal trade, will go to the Royal Navy Museum in Portsmouth while and one back home to Germany.

The returned propeller was handed to German naval attaché CPT Matthias Schmidt by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s chief executive, VADM Sir Alan Massey, in London.

“It’s not a case of ‘finders’ keepers’ and all recoveries of wreck material must be reported to the Receiver of Wreck so that legal owners can be given an opportunity of having their property returned and museums and other institutions can be given an opportunity to acquire artifacts of historic significance,” the MCA’s receiver of wrecks, Alison Kentuck.

A mix of old and new at Connaught

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This month is the annual Canadian Armed Forces Small Arms Concentration, in which some 300 shooters from Canada’s military as well as teams from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States are competing. First organized back in 1868, the modern event is held at the Connaught Ranges and Primary Training Centre in Ottawa and has lots of hardware on display, both old and new.

Nothing quite tells the story like this shot, showing a Canadian Forces member in CADPAT with their Colt-Canada C7A2 and Elcan sight, followed by a Britsh Army competitor in their newly-adopted Multi-Terrain Pattern (MTP) camouflage armed their likewise-new SA80A3 (L85A3) Enfield and holstered Glock 17. At the end, a Canadian Ranger with a No. 4 Lee-Enfield.

The Canadian Ranger Patrol Group, part-time soldiers who range across the country’s wildest expanses, are still outfitted with .303 Enfield rifles, although the C-19 Sako in .308 is replacing them:

(Photos: Canadian Forces)

Another classic, the Browning-Inglis Hi-Power, produced in Toronto during WWII, are also still in service with the Canadians. Note the Glock 17s used by the Brits and Dutch on the range.

British soldiers with the new and improved SA80A3, the latest version of the Enfield L85 bullpup rifle which, for better or worse, replaced the classic FAL in the 1980s.

More in my  column at Guns.com

 

DARPA at 60

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DARPA has their 60th-anniversary magazine, full of articles such as “Fighting in Megacities” and “Security and Surprise at Biological Scales” up for public viewing here.

It features 180 pages of DARPA’s past, present, and future (although about half of it is ads from the MIC)

Combat Gallery Sunday: Sons of Empire

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Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, photographers and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday: Sons of Empire

Here we see the 1899 Boer War-era poster “Defenders of the Empire” showing a great selection of British Commonwealth military 1899 unforms by artist Harry Payne. It is for the 1914 National Relief Fund.

The poster was published by Raphael Tuck & Sons, Ltd and also billed as “Sons of the Empire,” for the benefit of the Transvaal War Fund for Widows and Orphans.

It shows 23 assorted figures ranging from Grenadier Guards and Gordon Highlanders to the 5th Royal Irish Lancers. Overseas units from Australia, New Zealand, Rhodesia and Natal are also present as are men from the Royal Marines and Royal Navy.

A better image with a different background, omitting Indian troops to the right and adding more Naval gunners, to the left:

And last but not least, the key:


Born in 1858 at Newington, London, Payne was a noted military illustrator who notably also made an extensive series of oilette uniform postcards for Tuck & Sons that typically sell today for less than $20.

HARRY PAYNE MILITARY Postcard c.1910 TROOPER 3rd PRINCE OF WALES DRAGOON GUARDS

1914 Raphael Tuck, Harry Payne Artist-Signed Postcard Royal Scots Greys

Payne died in 1927 but his voluminous work will no doubt live on.

Thank you for your efforts, sir.

If you are a fan of the Palm, your Kalash could soon be happy again

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If you miss the gear, don’t worry. Well. Maybe worry…

U.S. Palm founder, Robert Anderson, waved the white flag last August citing a “downsizing economy, industry instability, and internal factors” but the company’s social media page last week teased a zombie-like rebirth before making it official that, in association with Century Arms, the Palm is back in business.

Besides its distinctive waffle mags and grips, the combined effort with Century is billed as helping to launch a number of designs and prototypes that never made it to market. (Photo: US Palm)

Now people have mixed feelings about CAI, but apparently USP will still be doing things the right way, so that’s a win.

Hey, maybe they will even carry some of these custom aspen/poplar AK forends that have been all over social media lately. Talk about an aesthetic that is in the eye of the beholder…

I say old boy, is that a Type 94?

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The British Army in Burma 1945: Soldiers examine a captured Japanese 37mm Type 94 anti-tank gun, January 1945. A U.S.-marked Bren carrier fitted with deep wading screens passes by in the background.

No 9 Army Film & Photographic Unit, Wackett, Frederick (Sergeant) http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205205185 Copyright: © IWM.

Per TM-E 30-480: Handbook on Japanese Military Forces, Technical Manual, U.S. War Department, October 1, 1944, via Lone Sentry:

Model 94 (1934) 37-mm gun. (1) General description. This weapon (fig. 212) is referred to by the Japanese as the “Infantry rapid fire gun.” It is an infantry close support weapon firing both high explosive and armor piercing high explosive ammunition. It has a semiautomatic, horizontal, sliding type breechblock. When the shell is loaded, the rear of the cartridge case trips a catch that closes the breechblock. Recoil action of firing opens the breech and extracts the cartridge case. Sighting is by a straight telescopic sight. This weapon has marked on the barrel the following [94 model 37-mm gun] which reads “94 model 37-mm gun.”

Characteristics.Caliber 37-mm (1.46 inch).
Length (over-all in traveling position) 114 inches.
Width (over-all in traveling position) 47 inches.
Weight 714 pounds.
Traverse 1,062 mils (60°).
Elevation +480 mils (27°).
Maximum range 5,000 yards.
Muzzle velocity (armor piercing ammunition) 2,300 feet per second.

On the rocks

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So China just launched their first domestically-produced icebreaker, joining a c.1994 Russian-built unit, the 21,000-ton Xue Long (Snow Dragon) previously purchased to double the size of their fleet operating on their new “Polar Silk Road.”

Xue Long II

Named Xue Long 2 (way to branch out) the new 14,000-ton ship is larger than our only true polar icebreaker, USCGC Polar Star, not to mention being about 50-years newer.

Meanwhile, Canada last month picked up a trio of new (to them) medium icebreakers from commercial trade for a song from a company in Sweden. Commissioned into the Canadian Coast Guard, they will revitalize that force until new purpose-built ships can be made.

The new-ish Canadian breakers, soon to be painted red and white

Good thing the USCG isn’t having a problem getting new, modern breakers through Congress.

Oh, wait.

Bonus: Why icebreaking matters, from Matt Hein, a Surface Warfare Officer currently studying for his Masters in Security Studies at Georgetown University.

The man behind the 1911 poster

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One of the most iconic images of the M1911 is the Great War recruiting painting “First to Fight” by James Montgomery Flagg.

Flagg’s portrait, made from a sitting by then-U.S. Marine Capt. Ross Erastus “Rusty” Rowell, graces man caves and military museums around the world.

Photo courtesy of Archives & Special Collections Branch, Library of the Marine Corps

According to the Marine Corps Museum, who provided the photos:

Flagg combined two important attributes of the Corps in the painting “First to Fight and Always Faithful.” He used quick strokes of the brush to create this work and only lightly painted the white stripes of the flag. And like many of the artists working for the Recruiting Bureau, Flagg donated his services.

The original painting is currently on display in the museum’s Combat Art Gallery exhibit A World at War: The Marine Corps and U.S. Navy in World War I.

As for Rowell, the Iowa State College grad and former U.S. Geological Survey topographer joined the Marines as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1906. Following WWI, he became a Marine aviator and early flight pioneer, later commanding VO-1M in Nicaragua during the Banana Wars and Commanding General, Marine Aircraft Wings, Pacific (MAWP) during WWII. He retired after 40 years of service in 1946, ranked major general. He is buried at Arlington.

Jacks and Enfields, 73 years ago today

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13 Sept 1945- Royal Navy landing party complete with Brodie helmets and Enfield rifles head for shore at Hong Kong from the Illustrious-class aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable (background) to guard key points as British forces move in to conduct surrender of Japanese.

Commissioned 10 October 1941, the 30,000-ton Indomitable was supposed to be dispatched to the Far East to support Force Orange, the ill-fated HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse at Singapore, but didn’t make it to the Pacific in time to help either the battlewagons or the colony.

She did, however, provide yeoman service in the Mediterranean before heading back to settle scores against the Japanese in early 1944, fighting at Palembang and Okinawa. She was the flagship of Rear Admiral C H J Harcourt, CB, CBE, when he sailed into Victoria Bay in the above image.

Indomitable went to the breakers in 1955.

Smith’s answer to the G30

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So I’ve been carrying a S&W M&P M2.0 Compact in 9mm since last October off and on and, over 2,000-rounds later, I really dig it and it has been holding up well. Size-wise, it is a dead ringer for the Glock 19 and has a lot of bonuses that the G doesn’t.

My M2.0 chilling, also, forgive the homage to Alex Colville’s Pacific.

I also from time to time carry an assortment of Glocks to include my G19X, Gen 3 Gen 19, and Gen 4 G30– with the latter being a 10+1 round .45ACP with a 3.78-inch barrel. I like it so much that one of the characters in my zombie fiction franchise carries one.

With that being said, my interest was piqued to find out that Smith now has an M2.0 Compact in .45ACP, complete with a 10+1 round capacity and a 4-inch barrel. Color me on the T&E team for that one.

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