Mindanao Operations, Philippines, 1945. Original period Kodachrome. Official caption: “PT boats speed through Polloc Harbor, Mindanao, while supporting landings there, 17 April 1945.”
The boat in the background appears to be PT-150. Note the twin .50cal machine gun in the foreground and 40mm/60 Bofors single over the stern.
NARA 80-G-K-4342 via NHHC
An 80-foot Elco boat, PT-150 (dubbed at various times by her crew as Lady Lucifer, Princessr, and Joker) was built by EB in Bayonne in 1942 and shipped to the Southwest Pacific to join Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron EIGHT (MTBRon 8). After seeing action in New Guinea- they fired a torpedo that missed the Japanese submarine I-17 but managed to strafe the conning tower with .50 cal before it submerged- the mosquito boat became part of MTBRon 12, a squadron that earned a Presidential Unit Citation.
Following operations in the Philippines, she was burned along with dozens of her type there in Samar in October 1945.
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Warship Wednesday, April 16, 2025: Missile Can Number One
Original Kodachrome by Hank Walker, Life Magazine Archives
Above we see the world’s first guided missile destroyer, USS Gyatt (DD-712), launching one of her precious 14 stern-carried Convair SAM-N-7 Terrier two-stage medium-range naval surface-to-air missiles to port, circa early 1957 during her trials. Gyatt, the only Gearing-class tin can to pick up this budget DDG conversion, blazed a path now well-traveled.
The Gearings
In July 1942, the U.S. Navy, fighting a U-boat horde in the Atlantic and the Combined Fleet in the Pacific, was losing ships faster than any admiral ever feared in his worst nightmare. With that in mind, the Navy needed a lot of destroyers. While the Fletcher and Allen M. Sumner classes were being built en masse, the go-ahead for some 156 new and improved Sumners— stretched some 14 feet to allow for more fuel and thus longer legs to get to those far-off battlegrounds– was given. This simple mod led to these ships originally being considered “long hull Sumners.”
These hardy 3,500-ton/390-foot-long tin cans, the Gearing class, were soon being laid down in nine different yards across the country.
Designed to carry three twin 5-inch/38 cal DP mounts, two dozen 40mm and 20mm AAA guns, depth charge racks and projectors for submarine work, and an impressive battery of 10 21-inch torpedo tubes (downgraded to just 5 tubes) capable of blowing the bottom out of a battleship provided they could get close enough, they were well-armed. Fast at over 36 knots, they could race into and away from danger when needed.
Meet Gyatt
Our subject is the only warship commissioned into the U.S. Navy in honor of Pvt. Edward Earl Gyatt, a 21-year-old Marine who earned a posthumous Silver Star with the 1st Marine Raider Battalion during the Guadalcanal campaign in 1942. The Navy remembered nearly two dozen Raiders in similar ways. The future USS Gyatt (DD-712) was laid down on 7 September 1944 by the Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Kearney, New Jersey. She was launched on 15 April 1945, sponsored by Mrs. Hilda Morrell, the mother of the late Private Gyatt. The festivities were muted due to FDR’s recent passing. Gyatt was commissioned on 2 July 1945 at the New York Navy Yard. The total time required to build the new destroyer was nine months, three weeks, and four days.
The cost in 1945 dollars was $8,947,809. USS Gyatt’s first skipper was CDR Albert David Kaplan (USNA ’32), the former XO and skipper of the destroyer USS Mayo (DD 422).
After a shakedown in the Caribbean and post-shakedown availability back in New York, Gyatt was visited by over 5,000 sightseers in Baltimore for Navy Day 1945 in October.
She then reported to Pensacola for plane guard duties and was then shifted to Norfolk as part of the peacetime Navy. She became part of DesRon 4, an outfit she would call home for the next 14 years alongside sisters USS Gearing, Greene, Bailey, Vogelsang, Steinaker, Ellison, and Ware.
As described by her Veterans’ association, she was a speedy girl.
It is understood that the Gyatt in late 1945 set a long-distance speed record for destroyers of its class. The Gyatt maintained, for an extended period, a speed of 31.8 knots per hour. In 1946, on a run from Norfolk to Boston, the Gyatt was the only ship in Destroyer Squadron Four (DesRon 4) to sustain a speed of 38 knots that had been reached by the Gearing (DD 710), Greene (DD 711), and Bailey (DD 713).
A three-month goodwill trip to Latin America in early 1947 saw her represent the U.S. at the inauguration of Uruguayan President Tomas Berreta at Montevideo and call on a variety of other ports.
Gearing (DD-710) and Gyatt moored at Montevideo, Uruguay, January 1947. Marcus Hill via Navsource
She then began a series of five lengthy deployments with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean and Europe at a time when the region was adrift in post-war intrigue as part of the general cool down into the Cold War.
This included spending New Years 1948 at Salonika among sunken ships sent to the bottom during the war, marking the 5th anniversary of the Normandy Landings off Omaha Beach in 1949, assisting the old USS Twiggs in the filming of the tin can movie Gift Horse at Plymouth (released in the U.S. as Glory at Sea) in 1951, escorting the carrier USS Wright (CVL-49) in the Med in 1952, and attending the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
Gyatt, 1954, escorting an Essex-class carrier
Stateside, she participated in two-week naval reserve cruises and annual trips to the Caribbean for exercises and gunnery practice.
In October-November 1949, Gyatt escorted the super carrier USS Midway to the frigid waters of the Davis Strait for appropriately named Operation Frostbite, her crew earning Blue Noses in the process.
By this phase of her career, in a refit at Boston Navy Yard in the summer of 1950, she landed her 20mm guns and picked up Hedgehog ASW rockets in their place. She also had her single mast replaced with a tripod mast and her starboard motor whaleboat deleted.
Gyatt (DD-712) 27 September 1950, NARA 24743163
USS Gyatt (DD-712) at anchor on 10 June 1953 with her glad rags aloft. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. NH 67696
Cold War Missile Slinger
Gyatt entered the Boston Naval Shipyard on 26 September 1955 and was decommissioned on Halloween. The Navy had plans to make her the third operational U.S. warship– and the first destroyer– to carry guided missiles.
The Terrier program, an offshoot of Operation Bumblebee going back to 1948, was moving fast.
A big 27-foot 1.5-ton beam-riding SAM that could hit Mach 1.8 and engage targets as high as 80,000 feet, Terrier had been successfully fired from the converted seaplane tender USS Norton Sound (AV-11/AVM-1) in 1951, then the old battlewagon USS Mississippi in January 1953.
USS Mississippi (EAG-128). Fires a “Terrier” surface-to-air missile from early Mk 1 GMLS launchers during at-sea tests, circa 1953-55. 80-G-K-17878 (Color) and 80-G-659359 (B&W)
The missiles were first deployed on the converted cruisers USS Boston (CA-69/CAG-1) and Canberra (CA-70/CAG-2) in 1956. The cruisers used massive twin-arm Mark 4 GMLS missile launchers fed by bottom-loaded 72-round magazine houses, with the vertically loaded Terriers launched and guided by a pair of Mark 25 Mod 7 (later SPQ-5) radars. To make room, the after 8-inch turret (Turret III) was deleted on each.
USS Boston (CAG-1) fires a Terrier guided missile from her after launcher, during a training cruise in August 1956. Note that she and her sister Canberra carried two launchers over the stern, directed by big Mk 25 radars, in place of their third 8″/55 mount. It was originally planned to extend the conversion to the front of the cruisers as well, but this never happened. NH 98281
For Gyatt, which had a compact 390-foot-long hull compared to the cruisers’ 673 feet oal, she would receive the one-off Mk 8 launcher, which used two rings that held seven missiles each, contained inside a small deckhouse just forward of the launcher. The system was only about a fifth the weight of the larger Mk 9 launchers that would go on to be used on the Providence-class cruisers.
This required the removal of Gyatt’s aft armament to allow for the addition of Terrier missiles, a move that coincided with the landing of most of her WWII-era AAA guns and ASW gear, replaced with more contemporary systems. This saw her billets reduced from 360 officers and men to just 272. As detailed by her Veterans’ association, spanning her 13-month conversion:
The weaponry aft of the number one stack was removed including all depth charges, the number three five-inch gun mount, three quad 40mm guns and the two twin 40 mm guns aft of the bridge and the torpedoes. The Terrier Missile Battery consisted of two missiles, each approximately 27 feet in length, 13.5 inches in diameter, and weighing 2,760 pounds. The magazine that stored fourteen additional missiles was located directly forward of the missile battery. The missiles had a speed in excess of Mach 2. and a range in the order of 20 miles. The missiles had an altitude sufficient enough to engage jet aircraft, and the warhead was of sufficient size that it could destroy other planes flying in the same formation. The missiles’ guidance system was called ‘Radar Beamrider.” Missile targets were tracked by a modified Mark 25 Model 8 gunfire-control radar located atop the original gun battery director forward; the Mark 72 weapons control system provided only a single fire-control channel for both the missile system and 5-inch gun mounts. The ship retained the two forward 5-inch twin gun mounts. Four 3-inch 50-caliber twin mounts replaced the 40 millimeter guns, and the five-tube torpedo spread was replaced by two stacked triple-tube groupings. The Mark 56 fire-control system was set up abaft the stacks for the 3-inch weapons. In addition, there were radar improvements to the SPS-6 air search and the SPS-10 surface search radars. The radar at high altitude had a range of 220 miles, and at low altitude the range was twenty miles. The AN/SPS-6C radar handled the location of aerial targets,; there was no height finding radar, and given the constant changes and alterations in the earlier Terrier system, only the most cooperative targets were in danger. Two Mark 2 Hedgehog Spigot Mortars and two Mark 2 Torpedo Launchers were available to deal with submarines. The ship was also the first warship in the Navy to have a stabilization system added to the hull. The Denny-Brown Stabilization System, pioneered in Great Britain, had been installed to eliminate much of the rolling that is characteristic of destroyers and other small ships. The system had two retractable fins, each with an area of approximately 45 square feet; the fins extended amidships and were well below the waterline. In addition to all this hi-tech equipment the Gyatt was one of the first Navy ships to use solar power when the after emergency diesel generator was replaced with a Solar Gas Turbine Generator, On many occasions, especially in rough weather, this stabilization allowed the Gyatt to stay on station during plane guard detail and refueling operations.
She emerged much different, recommissioned 3 December 1956 at Boston NSY, and reclassified as DDG-1, although she was spotted with her DD-712 hull number for a while. From her deck log:
USS Gyatt (DDG-712) 3 December 1956. NH 67687
USS Gyatt (DDG-1) underway at sea, circa the late 1950s or early 1960s. NH 106723
USS Gyatt (DDG-1) launching Terrier missile, photograph released April 9, 1958. Following her conversion, she was the first Guided-Missile Destroyer. 330-PS-8876 (USN 1015613)
She was widely celebrated, and the Old Man himself, ADM Arleigh “33 Knot” Burke, at the time the CNO, visited Gyatt in March 1959 to personally observe Terrier tests. Transferring to DesRon 6, Gyatt was then sent to Europe on a deployment with the 6th Fleet for a sixth time, 28 January 1960, and as such was the first guided missile destroyer to deploy overseas fleet. Returning to Charleston, her new home port, on 31 August 1960, she had “participated in fleet readiness and training operations throughout the Mediterranean.” It was during this deployment, while on the Riveria, that she hosted Prince Rainer and Princess Grace of Monaco, escorted by 6th Fleet commander, VADM GW Anderson, for a demonstration.
The U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer USS Gyatt (DDG-1) comes alongside of the guided missile cruiser USS Boston (CAG-1), in 1960. Gyatt had sailed to join the U.S. 6th Fleet on 28 January 1960 and was the first guided missile destroyer to deploy with an overseas fleet. Note the Radioplane BTT target drone in the foreground.
In 1960, the rest of the world rushed their DDGs into service, with the Soviets building the Kanin-class (Project 57A), the British ordering the County class, and the French moving forward with the Suffren class. The fix was in.
On stateside operations, Gyatt was on loan to NASA for Mercury Program unmanned nosecone recovery details off the East Coast on at least two occasions (5-10 November 1960 for Mercury-Redstone 1 and 24-26 April 1961 for Mercury Atlas-3).
USS Gyatt (DDG-1) on 30 June 1961. USN 1056266
Gyatt as DDG, 1960 Janes
USS Gyatt (DDG-1) approaching USS Waccamaw (AO-109) from USS Boston (CAG-1) June 1961, Atlantic, via Navsource
She would return to the Med for a seventh deployment from 3 August 1961 to 3 March 1962, spanning 213 days and 39,197 miles.
When she came back home, she was already obsolete.
While the possible Gyatt-style conversion was wishful thinking to turn still-young all-gun Gearings into DDGs– and one that freed up funds for more Big Navy ideas like nuclear-powered submarines and giant aircraft carriers– tests with our subject’s Mk 8 launcher proved less than ideal, and it was decided in 1957, only a year after Gyatt recommissioned, to order a purpose-built class of 16 (eventually 29) new Adams class DDGs, which were 47 feet longer, seven feet wider, and 1,100 tons heavier. Adams (DDG-2) would carry a pair of Mk 11 twin-armed launchers for the new General Dynamics RIM-24 Tartar, which, although it was only 15.5 feet long and weighed half as much as Terrier, offered arguably better performance than the early models of that missile.
Adams class, DDG 1960 Janes
Technologically arcane, just six years after she had been the tip of the spear, Gyatt entered the Charleston Naval Shipyard on 29 June 1962 for an overhaul that removed her short-lived missile system. Installed in its place was equipment for “specialized service” with the Operational Test and Evaluation Force (OPTEVOR). As such, her hull number reverted to DD-712.
USS Gyatt (DD-712) underway in Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 21 November 1966, while serving as an experimental test ship. Note the large mast installed atop her former guided missile magazine and the large object carried on her after main deck. Photographer: PH2 M.L. Ritter. NH 107008
She would spend the next three years in a series of tests and training evolutions between the Caribbean and Maine, typically running evaluations on prototype radio and radar-jamming and anti-jamming (ECM/EW) equipment.
Although she was included on regular refresher training each year and even scheduled to go to the gun line off Vietnam in 1968, her primary job was to set out with a dozen or so subject matter experts from Westinghouse, the NRF, the NSRDC, or the NRL aboard to see how some new gee-whiz black box worked while underway.
At one point, an elaborate water wash-down system was installed topside to experiment with heat-seeking missiles and diversionary flares, a forerunner of SRBOC.
Keeping the memory of her namesake alive, the ship’s sponsor, the mother of the late Pvt Gyatt, visited our destroyer while on a port call to New York City in September 1965.
Worse, surveys had found that Gyatt’s hull began to crack from stress caused by the missile launches.
In October 1968, her work with OPTEVOR finished, she was sent to Key West and then the Washington Navy Yard, relegated to the Select Reserve with her crew reduced to just 120, tasked with training 20-40 USNR personnel, two weeks at a time.
In September 1969, following a material inspection and survey, it was recommended that Gyatt be decommissioned and disposed of as the cost to modernize her was estimated to be $9.8 million, and even a less extensive repair and refit for further service was estimated to run $3.7 million.
On 22 October 1969, she was decommissioned for the second and final time, with the Navy estimating her scrap value to be just $105,000.
From her log that day:Â
Stricken shortly after, all useable equipment was removed, and she was expended as a target ship off Virginia on 11 June 1970, capping a 25-year career.
The end page, from her Veterans’ group:
On the 11th day of June, the ex-Gyatt, as the decommissioned hull was referred, was towed to her final resting-place in the Virginia Capes Operating Area. The ship rendezvoused with surface units under the command of Commander Naval Reserve Destroyer Division Third Naval District, who was embarked in the USS John R. Pierce (DD-753). The ex-Gyatt was the designated target ship for surface gunnery exercises for the division, consisting of the Pierce and three other destroyers. After several hours of five-inch salvos, the Gyatt was listing badly, but still afloat. Air units from the Oceana Naval Air Station joined the exercise with air-to-surface missiles, and shortly thereafter, the Gyatt slid beneath the surface to her final resting place at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The coordinates of the USS Gyatt’s final resting-place are as follows: Latitude. 37 Degrees 20 Minutes North and Longitude, 73 Degrees 52 Minutes West.
She has a memorial at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Texas.Â
As far as legacy is concerned, missile-armed destroyers are the backbone of the fleet these days, with no less than 73 active Arleigh Burke-class DDGs in the Navy.
The future USS Harvey C. Barnum Jr. (DDG-124), named after Medal of Honor recipient Col. Harvey C. Barnum Jr., USMC Ret., is set to commission in the coming months, bringing that number to 74. Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
***Â
Â
Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.
Â
***
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Official caption: “Ensign Le Quy Dang, VNN, and Lieutenant Tylor Field, USN, look for suspicious fishing boats while Lieutenant (J.G.) Phu, Commanding Officer of Junk Division 33, communicates with other units of his division during a patrol. Ensign Dang holds in his hands a powerful little equalizer, an M-79 grenade launcher. April 1965.”
At the beginning of 1965, the VNN Coastal Force consisted of 526 junks assigned to 28 Coastal Force divisions spread out along the entire coast of the Republic of Vietnam. The force included 81 command, 90 motor-sail, 121 motor-only, and 234 sail-only junks.
The command junks were the most capable vessels. Armed with one .50-caliber and two .30-caliber machine guns, these 54-foot junks could reach a maximum speed of 12 knots. At least one American adviser sailed with the Vietnamese crew.
At the end of the day, the operational effectiveness of the junks depended on the motivation and actions of the Vietnam Navy personnel, and this was a weakness the advisers were only too aware of.
April 26, 1965 Chief Gunner’s Mate Edmund B. Canby, underway in one of the command junks of Junk Division 33. He carries an M2 carbine
330-PSA-5-65 (USN 711489) Junk Force personnel load infantry troops aboard the small craft for a seaborne assault against the Viet Cong 1964. Note the M1 carbines and garands
Lookout watch crew member of a unit of Vietnamese junk force maintains vigilance over Viet Cong shipments in search of contraband, May 1962 USN 1105176
Vietnamese Junk Force stand lookout for craft which might be suspected of carrying weapons and other gear to Viet Cong collaborators, May 1962. USN 1105071
Junk force. His tattoo “Sat Cong” means “kill Viet Cong.” Photographed by SFC Bill Curry, before February 1965 USN 1109225
South Vietnamese Coastal Junk Force personnel inspect a boat they stopped in South Vietnamese waters M1 carbines duck hat and sneakers 66-3818
Junk of the South Vietnamese junk force on patrol at Vung Tau, Vietnam, March 1966 USN 1114950
Junk force man alert with Thompson as his junk prepares to move alongside suspicious fishing junk in search of Viet Cong contraband, May 1962 USN 1105074
Engineman First Class Carl L. Scott, advisor to the Vietnamese Coastal Junk Force 1964. Note the mix of pajamas, M1 Garands, and M1 Thompsons
Vietnamese Junk Force Crewmen searching a Viet Cong fishing boat in search of contraband and arms, May 1962. Note the Tommy gun. USN 1105078
Vietnamese Junk Force sailors. Note the sheilded M2 50 caliber machine gun and “evil eyes” on the trawler. Co Van My 15 Mar 1966 K-36321
Junk Force Station, Phu Quoc 1966
Lt. Taylor Field and Edmund B. Canby LIFE junk force April 1965
Hai-Thuyên Force Junk Force Vietnam, putting a WWII-era M1919 to use
Hai-Thuyên Force Junk Force Vietnam. Note the M1919s
After leaving cookie crumbs around the world for months, Springfield Armory on Tuesday announced that the Kuna large format pistol platform is available in the U.S.– and we’ve been kicking one around for a few months.
Designed by popular Croatian gunmaker HS Produkt, the Springfield Armory Kuna (Croatian for “Pine Marten,” the national animal of that country) sub-gun first surfaced last October when it beat the top-shelf B&T APC40 and Steyr M40 for a contract with the PMESP, the Sao Paulo Military Police – the largest police force in Brazil. Chambered in .40 S&W, it also appeared at EnforceTac in Germany back in February with a promised 9mm variant inbound as well. The word was that the svelte little burp gun, using an advanced roller-locked system of operation, had been developed with international counter-terror teams in mind.
Now, it is available in a semi-auto pistol variant in the U.S., initially just in 9mm. It will be sold at launch in a standalone pistol variant as well as a more deluxe version sold with an installed Strike Industries side-folding stabilizing brace. The MSRP varies between $999 to $1,149, with the braced model running higher.
The overall length of the brace-equipped Springfield Armory Kuna is 24.5 inches with the brace deployed and a more compact 15.5 inches folded. The gun can be fired in either position. (All photos unless noted: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Nobody was looking for the Kuna to roll into 2025 and instantly turn heads. Well-made 9mm large-format handguns in the SMG/PCC style have been increasingly popular in recent years, and it is clear that the folks behind the Kuna did their homework and did it well. You get a smooth-shooting and reliable platform that allows easy use with suppressors, lights, and optics for right around $1K. Taking notes from the Echelon, Hellcat, and Hellion when it comes to ergonomics and sights, Springfield is playing the hits here. It feels like a smoother and more updated version of the MP5K on the range.
I took a short jaunt around the Alabama State Docks in upper Mobile Bay and saw some interesting visitors in town for a few months.
Of course, over at MARRS is the bound-for-reefing SS United States. The famous Cold War-era Gibbs & Cox luxury liner and troopship-in-waiting is in Mobile for materials mitigation before her planned reefing near the USS Oriskany off Okaloosa Island.
Meanwhile, over at Austal, the future USNS Point Loma (T-EPF-15) and USS Pierre (LCS-38) are fitting out, with the latter perhaps most remarkable as she is the final installment of her class.
Alabama Shipyard had a three pack of MSC-run assets in for overhaul including the John Lewis-class oiler USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO-206), the hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20), and the Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship USNS Medgar Evers (T-AKE-13).
Ramstein Flag 2025 (RAFL25) just wrapped up. The NATO Allied Air Command exercise was, despite its name, based out of Leeuwarden Airbase in Holland but stretched across RAF bases in England to Danish bases (Skrydstrup) and Luftwaffe installations in Germany, involving more than 90 aircraft from 12 bases supported by 18 nations.
As detailed by U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa:
For two weeks, U.S. Air Force aircraft and personnel from various bases in Europe will participate in NATO Allied Air Command’s Ramstein Flag 2025 exercise. Ramstein Flag 2025 is a multi-domain, tactical-level live fly exercise to train, demonstrate and advance combined warfare capabilities including agile combat employment, integrated air and missile defense, and counter anti-access and area denial in a simulated Article 5 scenario.
The aircraft and patches, as detailed by NATO photographers, are awesome including F-35As from Denmark, the U.S., and the Netherlands; German Eurofighter EF2000s, Finnish F-18Cs, assorted F-16s (including Greek, Turkish, and the first Romainian birds), the Swedish and Hungarian Saab JAS 39 Gripens, and the French Rafale RAF-C.
Turkish F-16 Ramstein flag
Greek F-16 Ramstein flag
Romanian F-16s Ramstein flag
French Rafael Ramstein Flag
Ramstein Flag 2025 Finnish F-18
French Rafael Ramstein Flag
Danish F-35 Ramstein Flag
Members of the Royal Canadian Air Force travelled to the Netherlands to partake in EX Ramstein Flag, a NATO training operation in which the CC-150 Polaris was deployed along with a Tactical Command and Control Team, Air Battle Managers, along with Maintenance and support enablers to conduct combined air operations with multiple foreign allied nations. Two Finnish F-18 Hornets go through refueling operations alongside the Canadian CC-150 Polaris over the Netherlands on 2 April 2025. Photo by: Corporal Luk
JG71 Eurofighter Ramstein flag
F-35 Dutch AF photo Ramstein flag
Hungarian JAS 39-Gripen Dutch AF photo Ramstein flag
A U.S. Navy Patrol Boat, Riverine (PBR) crewman mans his twin M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun mount as the craft patrols the Vung Tau River in Vietnam on 14 April 1966, “in anticipation of trouble with the Vietcong.” Note the alternating mix of M20 red-over-silver-tipped armor-piercing incendiary tracer (API-T), silver-tipped M8 AP-I, and M1 incendiary (light-blue tipped) ammo in his belts.
Journalist First Class Ernest Filtz Photographer, NARA – K-31263
While the war of a million sorties from Yankee Station gets the most attention from Navy historians, the “Brown Water Navy” of the River Patrol Force and Mobile Riverine Force on Operation Market Time and Operation Game Warden involved the efforts of more than 30,000 Bluejackets and deserves to be remembered.
The 6th Guards (Order of Red Banner) Tank Army of Colonel General of Tank Troops Andrei Grigorievich Kravchenko– who had earned a Hero of the Soviet Union title after Kursk as head of the 5th Guards Tank Corps– was formed in Ukraine in early 1944 and, earning its “Guards” title after suppressing the the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket and smashing West during the follow-on Iassy-Kishinev Offensive, entered Hungary on the Debrecen Offensive on the 2nd Ukrainian Front by the end of that year. Still pushing as part of Stalin’s steamroller, it helped smash the last German offensive in the East (Frühlingserwachen under Sepp Dietrich’s 6th SS Panzer Army) along the shores of Lake Balaton in March 1945 and, after brutal street-to-street fighting, by 11 April had outflanked and entered Vienna, which was fully captured by the 15th.
There, in all its majesty, the great 6th Tank Army showed off all of its fine Detroit muscle, courtesy of Lend Lease, M4A2(76)W Shermans in the lead.
Going on to capture Prague by 12 May, the 6th Tank Army was pulled from Central Europe and shipped 11,000 km across Siberia to the Transbaikal. There, the 1,100 armored vehicles of the 6th Tank Army were ready to take on the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria by 9 August 1945 and would fight the last armored battle of WWII, famously racing 150km across the Gobi Desert in the first day of the offensive against the Japanese, seizing the passes of the Greater Khingan mountains and effectively bottling up toughest remaining Japanese units in its wake on the Manchurian plain.
Soviet Japanese Defeat of the Kwantung Army, 1945
Kravchenko was made a Twice Hero of the Soviet Union and, surviving Stalin, would retire from the military in 1955 and pass in 1963.
80 years ago. Awaiting removal of a roadblock on the road to Eisfeld, Germany, a 90mm GMC M36 tank destroyer crew whiles away the time shooting craps. 28th Infantry Division (“Keystone”), U.S. Third Army, 12 April 1945.
Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-204555, National Archives Identifier 6927819
The men are likely “Cossacks” of the 630th TD Battalion, Battle of the Bulge vets who passed from temporary XVIII Airborne Corps control back to the 28th near Wolfstein around this time.
Among the camp gear accumulated on the back of the M36 is a case of “10-in-1” rations, Menu 3, which would include bulk-packed K rations in two 5-serving packs, the first in packages and the second in cans. Of key importance, a 10-in-1 also held ten packages of cigarettes– each holding 10 Chesterfields, Luckies, or Pall Malls– along with ten GI matchbooks and 250 sheets of GI toilet paper. Tough but fair.
