That Key West experience

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“Military Men standing by a small gun. Fort Zachary Taylor. Key West. 1918. Monroe County Library”


Looks like a 3-inch gun on a masking parapet mount without the gun shield (which would have gone on the hooks) mounted. Taylor had six of these guns in two batteries (Adair and Dilworth) between 1899-1920 during the installation’s Endicott Period, which would correlate to the uniforms, which curiously are Naval though the fort was an Army Coastal Artillery post. Perhaps they were just checking out the landlubber’s gun…

From the position, it looks like Battery Adair, which mounted four Driggs-Seabury low-angle 3-inchers in M1898MI mounts, emplaced to cover controlled minefields leading up to the fort’s masonry walls. The battery was named after the late 1st Lt. Lewis D. Adair, 22nd U.S. Infantry, who died 5 Oct 1872, of wounds received in action with Sioux Indians at Heart River Crossing, Dakota Territory. Adair, who at the time of his last battle was fifteen miles from Heart Butte, on Heart river, while on duty with his company escorting the Northern Pacific Railroad survey of the area, was reportedly given his death blow by the great Hunkpapa Sioux chief Gall.

According to Fort Wiki, the end of the Great War ended the battery’s usefulness and “On 27 Mar 1920 all four guns were ordered removed and the carriages salvaged. The guns were transferred to Watervliet 17 Sep 1920 and the mounts were scrapped 20 May 1920.”

Getting it done with the Junipers

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You don’t typically think of a 225-foot Juniper-class Coast Guard buoy tender as a national defense (MARDEZ) and homeland security asset, but Coast Guard Cutter Aspen just returned to her homeport last week after sailing nearly 7,000 nautical miles during a 30-day patrol, which included a cocaine interdiction off Mexico as part of Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) South.

Aspen‘s efforts resulted in the interdiction of a suspected smuggling vessel carrying more than 224 pounds of cocaine worth approximately $3.3 million and the apprehension of six suspected smugglers.

The interdiction occurred Oct. 10, after the Aspen deployed two 23-foot interceptor boats which made a three-hour pursuit to intercept a suspected smuggling vessel approximately 400 miles off the coast of Mexico.

Coast Guard members aboard two interceptor boats from the Coast Guard Cutter Aspen, a 225-foot sea-going buoy tender, maneuver in the Eastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico during a counter-smuggling patrol, Oct. 13, 2017.

Also during the deployment, the Aspen conducted exercises with the Mexican and Canadian navies aimed to help strengthen international partnerships while degrading and disrupting transnational criminal organization networks. Not bad for a ship whose primary mission is aids to navigation.

From left to right are Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Nanaimo (MM702), a Kingston-class Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel, Aspen and what looks to be a Holzinger-class patrol vessel of the Armada de México.

“This was a very successful deployment and I could not be more proud of the crew,” said Lt. Cmdr. Justin Vanden Heuvel, Aspen‘s commanding officer. “Utilizing a buoy tender as a platform to execute counter-narcotics missions shows the versatility and adaptability of the Coast Guard and the Aspen crew. Day in and day out the crew expertly conducts a wide variety of missions including search and rescue, aids to navigation, fisheries enforcement and in this case, the interdiction of illegal contraband destined for the United States.”

While built for tending navigational aids, 225’s have also proved useful in everything from salvage to sovereignty and fishery patrols, to ice operations (sistership USCGC Maple covered the Northwest Passage in 47 days this summer) and even carrying special operations detachments on training missions in the littoral.

The shattered Guards at Inkerman, a special Combat Gallery Sunday

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the-roll-callelizabeth-thompson1874

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Calling the Roll After An Engagement, Crimea, by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler.

Painted in 1874, currently in the Royal Collection. The painting depicts a roll call of soldiers from the Grenadier Guards during the Crimean War following the Battle of Inkerman 5 November 1854– some 163 years ago today.

In the dramatic and almost forgotten battle, some 70,000 men of Russian Gen. Prince Alexander Menshikov fell on Lord Raglan’s 9,500 British soldiers and 3,500 French allies.

The horrible battle was one of the precursors to modern war and saw advanced (and brand new) British Pattern 1853 Enfield rifles and superior marksmanship triumph from elevated positions at Home Hill over waves of Russian infantry armed with smoothbore muskets more at home at Borodino, the allies came out on top.

Prince busters, Philly edition with Niobe tie-in

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NH 42252 Explosive Torpedoes Found under the interned German ships Prinz Eitel Friedrich and Kronprinz Wilhelm after they were seized by the United States in April 1917 scuttling charge

Photographed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, 12 April 1919. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 42252 *Click to big up and read the list of items*

“Explosive Torpedoes Found under the interned German ships Prinz Eitel Friedrich and Kronprinz Wilhelm after they were seized by the United States in April 1917. These devices, shown here disassembled with components labeled, were placed by the ships’ German crewmembers in anticipation of the seizure, in hopes of disabling the ships and thus rendering them useless to the U.S. ”

A 16,000-ton passenger liner turned German auxiliary cruiser (Hilfskreuzer) with the help of 14 small deck guns, SMS Prinz Eitel Friedrich had claimed 11 Allied ships over the winter of 1914-15 before she escaped destruction at the hands of the Warship Wednesday alumni, Royal Canadian Naval Service’s HMCS Niobe, by presenting herself to the captain of the port at Hampton Roads. She was later moved to Philadelphia Naval Yard and interned alongside Kronprinz Wilhelm. She was renamed USS DeKalb (ID-3010) and placed in commission on 12 May 1917 to serve as a troopship to carry Doughboys “over there.” She was later used as the liner Mount Clay, scrapping in 1927.

SS Kronprinz Wilhelm in better days

The 24,000-ton liner/hilfskreuzer SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm had much the same story as Friedrich and renamed USS Von Steuben after her seizure in 1917 in honor of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, of Valley Forge fame. She put into Halifax on the afternoon of 6 December 1917 to respond to the terrific explosion at the port– which also damaged HMCS Niobe, giving her and Friedrich another connection.

Postwar, she continued to sail for the U.S. Shipping Board simply as Von Steuben until 1923.

In a final tie-in between the two German liners and Niobe, the Canadian vessel was scrapped in Philadelphia in 1923.

On Clausewitz

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Dr. T. Echevarria, Army War College faculty, Aug. 29, 2017. Carlisle Barracks Wil Washcoe Hall:

Followed up with Prof. V.E. Bellinger, Professor of Clausewitz Studies, Army War College, Bliss Hall, 30 Aug. 2017

Meet Bridget, she like long walks, and taking shots at the Kaiser’s men across No Man’s Land

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The gun that fired the first American shot at Sommerville, near Nancy Oct 23 1917

The 75mm artillery piece that cranked out the first U.S. shot on the Western Front in World War I a century ago last week is still in the Army’s custody.

The M1897 gun, a French-made field gun named “Bridget” is on display today in the Large Weapons Gallery at the U.S. Army Military Academy Museum at West Point but on Oct. 23, 1917, it fired the first shot across “No Man’s Land” by American forces in France.

This map purports to illustrate America’s first artillery salvo of the war, fired on October 23, 1917, by guns in the American 1st Division. Sergeant Alexander Arch barked the order “fire” to the crew manning the 75mm field gun. U.S. Army. First Sector Occupied by Americans 1917, inscribed: “First shot in the war Oct. 23, 1917 6:30 am. . . .” U.S. Army base map, 1918. Printed map annotated in color. Hines Collection, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress (195.00.00)

The gun was sent back to the states in 1918 and is at West Point today, still with the names of the “First Shot” crew who fired it 100 years ago last week.

More in my column at Guns.com

Superfortress greets the dawn

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View of Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber on deck.

The label on back:

“Superfortress greets the dawn. Poised for flight as dawn breaks, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress is given a final engine check before the four Wright Cyclone ’18’ engines lift the mighty monster into the air. Silhouetted here against the morning sky, the wing, spanning more than 141 feet, embodies a completely new design, believed to be the most efficient ever devised. Designed and engineered by Boeing Aircraft Company, the Superfortress is being produced by Boeing’s three plants and by three other major manufacturers. All external armament has been deleted from the picture for security reasons. Cleared by War Department. From: Boeing News Bureau, Seattle, Wichita.”

Stamped on back: “Courtesy of News Bureau, Boeing Aircraft Company, Seattle, Washington. Designers and builders of the B-29 Superfortress, B-17 Flying Fortress, Stratoliner, Clipper.” Handwritten on back: “Aircraft in action.”

Photo and caption via the Detriot Public Library

A bit of desert that will always be Scotland

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“The graves of two Scottish soldiers are marked by upturned rifles in the sand, North Africa, 5 November 1942,” some 75 years ago this quiet Sunday.

Photo by No 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit, Smales (Sgt) IWM (E 18952) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205204021

This reminds me of Scottish poet Roderick Watson Kerr‘s piece, From the Line. Kerr himself was invalided out after picking up the MC while a junior officer in the 2nd Royal Tank Corps during the Great War.

From the Line

Have you seen men come from the Line,
Tottering, doddering, as if bad wine
Had drugged their very souls;
Their garments rent with holes
And caked with mud
And streaked with blood
Of others, or their own;
Haggard, weary-limbed and chilled to the bone,
Trudging aimless, hopeless, on
With listless eyes and faces drawn
Taut with woe?

Have you seen them aimless go
Bowed down with muddy pack
And muddy rifle slung on back,
And soaking overcoat,
Staring on with eyes that note
Nothing but the mire
Quenched of every fire?

Have you seen men when they come
From shell-holes filled with scum
Of mud and blood and flesh,
Where there’s nothing fresh
Like grass, or trees, or flowers,
And the numbing year-like hours
Lag on – drag on,
And the hopeless dawn
Brings naught but death, and rain –
The rain a fiend of pain
That scourges without end,
And Death, a smiling friend?

Have you seen men when they come from hell?
If not, – ah, well
Speak not with easy eloquence
That seems like sense
Of ‘War and its Necessity’!
And do not rant, I pray,
On ‘War’s Magnificent Nobility’!

If you’ve seen men come from the Line
You’ll know it’s Peace that is divine !
If you’ve not seen the things I’ve sung –
Let silence bind your tongue,
But, make all wars to cease,
And work, and work for Everlasting Peace !

–from War Daubs (London: John Lane, 1919) via the Scottish Poetry Library

I think this is needed…

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One thing the international shooting sports organizations are looking at in recent years is expanding into more “fit” activities.

One of the exhibition sports seen overseas in this concept is Target Sprint. The event makes competitors run a 400m track, then take their rifle from a storage rack and shoot at five falling targets from a 10m standing position with a time penalty for each missed shot. The athlete then repeats the lap and shoots again, followed by another lap to the finish line.

A very groovy and more modern sporting rifle style version was last week in Texas, the annual Waco Tactical Fitness Biathlon. The event takes place over a five-mile course with several shooting stages. Each competitor has to show up with a centerfire rifle and pistol, eye and ear pro, enough ammo to complete the stages, and a stopwatch. While running between stations, rifles have to be unloaded and pistols have to be holstered.

The course is no joke, with photos showing competitors clamoring over plywood walls, taking a 60-pound sand dummy for a drag, monkeying around on horizontal ladders, firing from treetop cuckoo nests and simulated rooftops, and, oh yeah, running.

“If you can’t do a few pull-ups, scramble up and down rough/rocky hills and push through wooded areas, some of the obstacles will be difficult to overcome,” says the site. (Photos: WTF)

More in my column at Guns.com.

Battle Cat headed to the scrapper, and likely a park in South Texas

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Blast from the past, first, from a decade ago:

Sailors man the rails aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) as the ship leaves San Diego, Aug. 28 2007. Kitty Hawk is making its final voyage after 47 years of service to Bremerton, Wash., where it will prepare to decommission early next year. Approximately 1,600 Sailors are making the deployment, along with nearly 70 former Kitty Hawk Sailors, including a few dozen of the ship's original crew, known as plankowners. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Lily Daniels/Released)

Sailors man the rails aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) as the ship leaves San Diego, Aug. 28 2007. Kitty Hawk is making its final voyage after 47 years of service to Bremerton, Wash., where it will prepare to decommission early next year. Approximately 1,600 Sailors are making the deployment, along with nearly 70 former Kitty Hawk Sailors, including a few dozen of the ship’s original crew, known as plank owners. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Lily Daniels/Released)

Now, from the Kitsap Sun:

The Kitty Hawk (CV 63) will be disposed of by dismantling, according to Naval Sea Systems Command spokeswoman Colleen O’Rourke.

O’Rourke cited an annual report to Congress that outlines the Navy’s five-year shipbuilding plans. In this fiscal year’s edition, released in April 2016, the Kitty Hawk was listed as one of the Navy’s inactive ships slated for scrapping.

The Navy has not yet determined when the Kitty Hawk will depart its berthing in Bremerton, where the ship will go to be dismantled or what company will be awarded the contract, O’Rourke said.

Laid down in 1956, Kitty Hawk became the oldest active warship in the Navy (besides Constitution) in 1998 and held that title for a decade until she was officially decommissioned on 12 May 2009 after almost 50-years in the fleet. Between her launch date and now, 57.4 years have passed.

Kitty Hawk is currently held in Maintenance Category B receiving the highest degree of maintenance and preservation to a retired ship, though with USS Ford entering the fleet, she will likely be downgraded to Category C or X in coming months as the big new carrier moves through a 10-month shakedown and goes through working up for her first deployment. She recently has been used to help train ship-less carrier crews on the West Coast.

Though plans have been floated to look into reactivating “Shitty Kitty” the CNO has downplayed that and she now will most likely head to Texas, where all the conventional carriers in the past few years have gone.

As a result the city of Laguna Vista is set to unveil the Rio Grande Valley’s first ever Aircraft Carrier Memorial. As noted by the Brownsville Herald the memorial will include bollards, or posts that secured the ships, from the USS Independence, USS Ranger, and USS Constellation.

Kitty Hawk will no doubt join the collection in good time.

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