USS Stormes (DD-780) coming alongside USS Leyte (CV-32) for refueling during Operation Frigid, 17 November 1948. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 102748
An Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer, she is the only ship to be named for CDR Max Clifford Stormes, a Navy Cross holder that was killed in action during the night of 14/15 November 1942, when the destroyer USS Preston was sunk at Guadalcanal.
Stormes was commissioned 27 January 1945, survivied a Japanese kamakazie attack, was brought back from mothballs for Korea where she shelled enemy lines, screened large fleet units, rescued downed pilots, and performed antisubmarine duties because, although the Norks didn’t have subs, other interested parties in the area did. She worked the Cuban Blockade and Yankee Station, in the end picking up one battle star for World War II, three for service in Korea, and one for Vietnam.
Decommissioned in 1970, she was sold to the Shah of Iran two years later and served that country’s government as Palang (Leopard) (DDG-9) until 1994, though she rarely left dockside after 1980.
Warship Wednesday Nov. 16: Estonia’s national hero, AKA the Soviet’s immortal submarine
Here we see the Kalev-class allveelaev (coastal submarine minelayer) EML Lembit (1) of the Estonian Navy as she appears today on dry land in Tallinn. Curiously enough, the British-built sub was one of the most successful of the Soviet Navy.
Lembit (also Lambite, Lembito or Lembitus) is the elder of Sakala County and national hero who led the struggle of the Estonians against the German feudal lords in the 12th century and the name was seen as a no-brainer for a new Estonian Navy. Their first operational gunboat in 1918 when the country broke from the newly Bolshevik Russia was given the moniker. The country’s first naval combat, on 20 January 1919, was when they sent the gunboat Lembit (which had been the Russian Beiber, c. 1906, 990-tons) to suppress a pro-Bolshevik revolt on Saaremaa island. Lembit was scrapped in 1927, but her name would live on.
The mighty Estonian gunboat Lembit (1918-1927)
Two other Estonian surface ships, the Russian 1,260-ton Novik-class destroyers Spartak and Avtroil, had been captured by British cruisers Caradoc and Calypso and destroyers Vendetta, Vortigern and Wakeful 26 December 1918 and handed over to the Estonians in 1919 who later put them into service as Lennuk and Vambola (Wambola), respectively.
In 1933, the Estonians sold these two ships to *Peru as BAP Almirante Villar and Almirante Guise who were gearing up for a conflict with Colombia that never emerged. (*Note: the Peruvians kept them in service, despite their Brown-Boveri steam turbines, Vulkan boilers, and Pulitov armament, until as late as 1952 and their hulks are now in scuttled condition off San Lorenzo)
With the money from the sale of the two pre-owned Russian destroyers (for $820,000), and national subscription of scrap metals and donations, the Estonian government contracted with Vickers and Armstrong Ltd. at Barrow-in-Furness for two small coastal submarines (Vickers hulls 705 and 706).
As the Estonian Navy only had a single surface warfare ship, the Sulev— which was the once scuttled former German torpedo boat A32— they were largely putting their naval faith in the two subs augmented by a half dozen small coastal mine warfare ships, a Meredessantpataljon marine battalion and some scattered Tsarist-era coastal defense installations.
Class leader Kalev and Lembit were ordered in May 1935, then commissioned in March and April 1937 respectively.
Small ships at just 195-feet overall, they were optimized for the shallow conditions of the Baltic– capable of floating on the surface in just 12 feet of water and submerging in 40. Their maximum submergence depth was 240 feet, though their topside and surfacing area was reinforced with 12mm of steel for operations in ice.
Their periscopes were made by Carl Zeiss, and their 40mm gun by contract to the Czech firm of Skoda.
While they did carry a quartet of 21-inch tubes and, if fully loaded and four reloads carried forward, would have eight steel fish to drop on a foe, her main armament was considered to be the 20 mines she could carry.
The Estonians purchased a total of 312 SSM (EMA) Vickers T Mk III anchored sea mines, each with a 330 pound charge and the ship’s 39-inch wide mine tubes were configured for them. These mines used electric fuzes and one, marked I / J-04, was lost in training in 1939, then later found by fishermen from Cape Letipea in 1989. Defused, it is on display at Tallin alongside Lembit. Besides one in a Russian museum, it is the only preserved Vickers T-III.
The mines were carried two each in 10 vertical tubes (5 per side).
Oddly enough, the torpedo tubes fitted with brass sleeves to change their diameter to accept smaller WWI-era 450mm torpedoes the Estonians had inherited from the Russians.
Lembit’s four tubes were sleeved to accept older 450mm torpedoes, though the Soviets removed the inserts to fire regular 533mm ones during the war. The torpedo room kept four reloads (note the cradle for one to the lower left) and 16 sailors– half the crew– bunked among the fish.
Their 40mm gun was specially sealed inside a pneumatic tube and could be ready to fire within 90 seconds of surfacing.
Close up of her neat-o 40mm Skoda-mdae Bofors which could withdraw inside the pressure hull. Word on the street is that the Soviet’s first generation SLBM tubes owed a lot to this hatch design.
The Estonians were rightfully proud of the two vessels when they arrived home in 1937.
Lembit on Baltic trials in 1937. Some 100 Estonian officers and men trained in Great Britain alongside Royal Navy sailors on HMs submarines in 1935-37 to jump start their undersea warfare program.
Lembit and her sister in Tallin, the pride of the Estonian Navy
Another profile while in brief Estonian service, 1937-40
Lembit was the only Estonian submarine to ever fire her torpedoes, launching two at a training hulk in 1938.
In early 1940, the Germans expressed interest in acquiring the submarines from neutral Estonia, which was rebuffed.
With no allies possible due to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of the year before and the Estonian internment of the Polish submarine ORP Orzeł, which escaped from Tallinn to the UK while the Soviets and Germans were battling Poland (with two guards from Lembit, Roland Kirikmaa and Boris Milstein aboard), Moscow demanded military bases on Estonian soil, threatening war if Estonia did not comply.
The Estonians signed a mutual defense agreement with the Soviets on 28 September 1939, which soon turned into an outright occupation and consumption by the Soviets on 6 August 1940. Her bosun, Herbert Kadajase, removed the ship’s emblem from her conning tower the night before and spirited it away, hiding it at his home.
Thus, the Estonian Navy was amalgamated into the Red Banner Fleet with the torpedo boat Sulev being handed to the Soviet Border Guard and the two British-made submarines cleared for combat.
This view of Lembit and her sister illustrate their “saddle” mine tubes amidships. The bulge on each side housed five mine tubes, each capable of holding two large ship-killing Vickers sea mines. “Allveelaev” is Estonian for submarine
Folded into the 1st Submarine Brigade of the Baltic Fleet, forward based in Liepaja, the ships were given almost fully Soviet Russian crews with a few Estonian veterans (torpedomen Aart Edward and Sikemyae Alfred, electricians Sumera and Toivo Berngardovich, sailor Kirkimaa Roland Martnovich, and boatswain Leopold Pere Denisovich) who volunteered to remain in service, primarily to translate tech manuals, gauges and markings which were written in Estonian.
When the balloon went up on the Eastern Front, Kalev completed two brief combat patrols and set a string of 10 mines then went missing while carrying out a special operation in late 1941. According to some sources, her mines blew up two ships. She is presumed sunk by a German mine near the island of Prangli sometime around 1 November 1941.
The Soviets kept Lembit‘s name, though of course in Russian (Лембит), and she proved very active indeed.
Surviving Luftwaffe air attacks at Liepaja, she made for Kronstadt where he brass torpedo tube sleeves were removed and she was armed with Soviet model 21-inch torpedoes.
1942 entry in Conways Fighting Ship for the USSR, showing Kalev and Lembit.
Lembit was sent out on her first mission in August 1941 with 1LT Alexis Matiyasevich in command (himself the son of Red Army hero Gen. Mikhail S. Matiyasevich who commanded the 7th Army during the Russian Civil War, holding Petrograd against Yudenich’s White Guards in 1919 and later, as head of the 5th Army, smashed Kolchack in Siberia and ran Ungern-Sternberg to the ground in Mongolia).
During the war, Lembit completed seven patrols and remained at sea some 109 days (pretty good for a sea that freezes over about four months a year).
Each patrol led to 20 mines being laid, totaling some 140 throughout the war. These mines claimed 24 vessels (though most did not sink and many that did were very small). She also undertook eight torpedo attacks, releasing 13 torpedoes.
Her largest victim, the German-flagged merchant Finnland (5281 GRT), sank near 59°36’N, 21°12’E on 14 September 1944 by two torpedoes. It was during the fight to sink the Finnland, which was part of a German convoy, that Lembit was hit in return by more than 50 depth charges from escorting sub-chasers, causing a 13-minute long fire and her to bottom, with six casualties.
On 12 December 1944, Lembit– according to Soviet records– rammed and sank the German submarine U-479, though this is disputed. Heavily damaged in the collision, she spent most of the rest of the war in Helsinki.
In Helsinki, Winter 1944-45
Keeping her in service was problematic and her worn out batteries were reportedly replaced by banks of several new ones taken from American Lend-Lease M3 Lee tanks that the Soviets were not impressed with when compared to their T-34s.
The Soviets, with their stock of prewar Estonian/English sea mines largely left behind in Tallin, tried to use local varieties of their Type EF/EF-G (ЭП ЭП-Г) anchor contact mine but they wouldn’t work properly with the Lembit‘s tubes. This was corrected by a small shipment of British Vickers T Mk IV mines that arrived via Murmansk through Lend Lease in 1943 just for use with Lembit. The T-IV, though slightly larger than the mines Vickers sold the Estonians pre-war, fit Lembit like a charm.
Her crew was highly decorated, with 10 members awarded the Order of Lenin, 14 the Order of the Red Banner, and another 14 the Order of the Red Star.
Awarding of the crew Lembit medals For the Defense of Leningrad June 6, 1943
Finally, by decree of the Supreme Soviet, on 6 March 1945 Lembit herself was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and named an “Immortal Submarine.”
Lembit after the war.
When the war ended, Lembit was decommissioned in 1946, used as a training ship until 1955 then loaned to a shipyard for a time for study–with her specialized gun hatch extensively researched for use with Soviet ballistic missile hatches. During this time period, much of her brasswork, her Zeiss periscope, and other miscellaneous items walked off.
While in postwar Soviet service, Lembit lost her name and in turn was designated U-1, S-85, 24-STZ, and UTS-29 on the ever-shifting list of Russki pennant numbers through the 1970s.
She was sent back to Tallin in the late 1970s, her name restored, and turned into a museum to the submariners of the Soviet Navy in 1985.
Her service was immortalized by the Soviets, who rewrote history to make her Estonian origin more palatable. In Moscow’s version, the hard working people of Estonia saw the error of their independent bourgeois ways and eagerly joined the Red Banner to strike at the fascists.
When Estonia decided not to be part of the new post-Cold War Russia, a group of patriots boarded Lembit (still officially “owned” by the Red Navy) on 22 April 1992 and raised the Estonian flag on her for the first time since 1940. Reportedly the Russians were getting ready to tow her back to St. Petersberg, which was not going to be allowed a second time.
In 1996, the newly independent Estonian postal service issued a commemorative stamp in connection with the 60th anniversary of Lembit‘s launch.
Lembit has since been fully renovated and, as Estonian Ship #1, is the nominal flag of the fleet, though she is onshore since 2011 as part of the Estonian State Maritime Museum. Located in Tallin, the site is a seaplane hangar built for the Tsar’s Navy and used in secession by the German (1918 occupation) Estonian, Soviet and German (1941-44 occupation) navies.
The crest swiped by Bosun Kadajase in 1940? His family kept it as a cherished heirloom of old independent Estonia and presented it to the museum
Click to very much big up
In 2011, some 200 technical drawings from Vickers were found in the UK of the class and have been split between archives there and in Estonia.
Her Russian skipper, Matiyasevich, retired from the Navy in 1955 as a full Captain and served as an instructor for several years at various academies, becoming known as an expert in polar operations. He died in St. Petersburg in 1995, just after Lembit was reclaimed by the Estonians, and was buried at St. Seraphim cemetery, named a Hero of the Russian Federation at the time.
His memoir, “In the depths of the Baltic Sea: 21 underwater victories” was published in 2007.
Specs:
Displacement standard/normal: 665 / 853 tons
Length: 59.5m/195-feet
Beam: 7.24m/24.7-feet
Draft: 3.50m/12-feet
Diving depth operational, m 75
No of shafts 2
Machinery: 2 Vickers diesels / 2 electric motors
Power, h. p.: 1200 / 790
Max speed, kts, surfaced/submerged: 13.5 / 8.5
Fuel, tons: diesel oil 31
Endurance, nm(kts) 4000(8) / 80(4), 20 days.
Complement: 38 in Estonian service, 32 in Soviet
Armament:
(As completed)
1 x 1 – 40/43 Skoda built folding and retracting Bofors.
4 – 533mm TT, sleeved to 450mm (bow, 8 torpedo load),
20 British Vickers T-III sea mines
1x .303 Lewis gun
(Soviet service)
4 – 533 TT (bow, 8 torpedo),
20 British Vickers T-IV sea mines
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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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The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Air and Marine Operations (AMO), released its Vision 2025 report earlier this month. In case you missed it, AMO consists of some 1,300 agents who act as a mini-Coast Guard/Air National Guard with a fleet of aircraft and littoral assets who run down smugglers.
The big word in the plan is more integration through their Domain Awareness Network as a force multiplier to get the biggest bang for their buck.
An excerpt of the plan, forcast to a decade from now:
Texas Gulf Coast – 2025
A DHC-8 aircraft on routine patrol detects and identifies numerous fishing vessels. As each vessel is identified by name and registration number, a mission sensor operator aboard the DHC-8 accesses AMO’s domain awareness network to check law enforcement and open source databases, while simultaneously streaming video and sensor data of the vessel into the network.
AMOC is also observing the vessels over the network. An intelligence research specialist discovers a link between a particular vessel and a known TCO, and advises the aircrew, passing all relevant information via the network. A CIV responds, relying on the same information to plot an intercept and plan a tactical approach. As the interceptor closes its range with the fishing vessel, it begins to contribute to the operating picture.
Meanwhile, a P-3 Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft has been following a track of interest from the Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico. A fully-networked common operating picture reveals that the air track is approaching the suspect vessel. An air interceptor launches and immediately begins using this same operating picture to calculate its intercept. The P-3 AEW assumes on-scene command and begins to de-conflict air traffic. As the air track approaches the fishing vessel, it descends below normal land-based radar horizon, but the P-3 AEW and a coastal tethered aerostat radar system maintain contact. That data is seamlessly networked as all assets share an uninterrupted tactical picture.
From six miles away, the crew of the DHC-8 observes a single-engine airplane overfly the fishing vessel and drop several packages before continuing Northbound. As the fishing vessel retrieves the packages, the crew of the CIV sees this video in real-time and begins a final intercept. The CIV stops the suspect vessel, seizes 45 bales of cocaine still in plain view, arrests the crew and seizes the vessel. The air interceptor continues to use radar data from the AEW to covertly follow the airplane into a municipal airport, detain the pilot, and eventually obtain a search warrant. A search of the airplane reveals an additional kilo of cocaine. Agents arrest the pilot, and seize the cocaine and airplane.
Seems the Panama City commercial shipbuilder who is crafting up to 25 new mil-spec OPVs (light frigates) for the USCG is getting some serious subcontractors.
Northrop Grumman Corporation has been awarded a contract from Eastern Shipbuilding Group (ESG) for the design of C4ISR [command, control, communications, computers and intelligence] and machinery control systems (MCS) for the U.S. Coast Guard Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPCs). The systems being supplied include integrated bridge systems, command and control consoles, navigation and combat data distribution systems, ship-wide computer network systems, machinery control systems and propulsion control systems
“Our suite of integrated C4ISR and machinery control systems will provide the Coast Guard the long-term offshore capability needed to perform Coast Guard missions,” said Todd Leavitt, vice president, maritime systems business unit, Northrop Grumman. “This high priority investment will allow the Coast Guard to affordably and efficiently modernize the fleet, while extending their existing capabilities and effectively addressing the changing needs of their missions.”
“Argentine snapshot showing an Argentine from Batallon de Infanteria Marina 5 (5 BIM) on Mount Tumbledown during the 1982 Argentine occupation of the Falkland Islands. The soldier is wearing a British Second World War style helmet (probably looted as a souvenir from the Falkland Islands Defence Force (FIDF) stores in Port Stanley) and is carrying a Ballestos Molina (sic) pistol under his left arm. This photograph was one of many confiscated from Argentine prisoners by 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines Intelligence Section.”
Argentina’s “almost 1911,” the Ballester Molina of Hispano-Argentina Fábrica de Automóviles S.A. (HAFDASA) was adopted in the 1930s by not only the Argentine Army, but the Navy, police forces, and coast guard. They were also exported to Latin American countries without their own arms making plants, such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru with some 113,000 made altogether.
Ironically enough, it seems that at least 8,000 and possibly as many as 15,000 Argentine made .45s were sold to the British government for use by commando units hungry for mean looking and reliable hardware to fight the Germans in occupied Europe. These guns were meant for the Special Operations Executive (SOE), known as Churchill’s Secret Army.
And the British versions are sought after today.
British owned “B-prefix” Ballester Molina made in Argentina for the Brits in WWII. Via the National Firearms Museum
(Photo: USMC 63280. Colourised by Paul Reynolds. Historic Military Photo Colourisations)
Official caption: BOUGAINVILLE OPERATION, November 1943. Cpl William Coffron, USMC, fires at a sniper on Puruata Island, during landing operations in Empress Augusta Bay, Bougainville, November 1943. He was covering Marine gun positions firing from Puruata on Torokina Island nearby.
It should be noted that Marines only recently switched from Springfield 1903s augmented by Johnson M1942 rifles and Reising SMGs to the M1 shown above at the time of the operation.
In honor of the battle which took place 73 years ago this month, SECNAV has come through with a decent ship name.
The naming ceremony took place at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina last week.
LHA-8 will be the second ship to be named after Bougainville, an island in the northern Solomons, which was the location of a World War II campaign in 1943-1944 during which allies secured a strategic airfield from Japan. Success at Bougainville isolated all Japanese forces left in the Solomons.
The first Bougainville was an escort carrier that was launched in 1944, a year after the Bougainville campaign began. She was decommissioned for the first time in 1946. She was then brought back into service for five years before earning two battle stars for its service in World War II and being struck from the naval register in 1960.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the water…
On Oct.25, there was a LNG tanker, Galicia Spirit, which was attacked by a skiff off the Yemen coast. While at first thought, you may think pirates, but there is much more to the story.
In an update on Thursday, Teekay said it had now conducted an investigation with security experts. This indicated that “the skiff (small boat) that engaged in an attack on the Galicia Spirit using small arms was also carrying a substantial amount of explosives.”
It added: “While the intentions of the attackers and the use of the explosives is unknown, the investigation findings indicate that the explosives would have been sufficient to have caused significant damage to the vessel.
“It appears, however, that when the skiff was approximately 20m (meters) from the vessel, the explosives detonated, destroying the skiff and ending the attack.”
Also last week, came news that a crew of a South Korean chemical tanker recently thwarted the first attack the pirates of the Somali coast in over two years.
European Union’s counter-piracy naval force (EU Navfor) confirmed on Nov. 4 that six armed men attacked chemical tanker CPO Korea 330 nautical miles (610 km) east of Somalia on Oct. 22, the first reported attack on a major vessel off the country for two and a half years.
The last reported attack was in February 2014 and involved a container ship which came under fire from gunmen in waters near Somalia, EU Navfor said.
The Russians have always been a fan of rapid-fire naval guns going back to the days of Hotchkiss revolving cannons back in the Tsar’s Imperial Navy. In the mid 1970s the Soviets came up with the first operational CIWS system (predating the Dutch Goalkeeper and U.S. Phalanx) when they added a radar, FCS and other local controls to their AK-630 30mm gatling gun mount which had joined the fleet in 1963.
Now, the most recent update to this system is the AK630-M2 “Duet” which debuted in 2007.
With twin superposed 30 mm 6-barreled GSh-6-30 rotary cannon, this Tulamashzavod produced beast drops a theoretical 10,000 rounds per minute though its internal magazine only holds 4,000 rounds at the ready.
In comparison, the good ole Phalanx, with its single smaller 20 mm 6-barreled M61 Vulcan, only packs 1,550-rounds and can fire at slightly half that rate.
Here is a pretty good vid of the Duet in action (its Russian, but you don’t really need to speak it to get the gist).
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Alex Schomburg
Born Alejandro Schomburg y Rosa in 1905 in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico– then just seven years removed from the Spanish Empire– the young man who would go on to be called the “Norman Rockwell of Comic books” moved to New York City in the early 1920s. After learning his trade, that of a commercial artist, while working with his three older brothers, he took on standalone work making lantern screen drawings, art, and illustrations for NYCs myriad of comics and pulps including Thrilling Wonder Stories and Flying Aces.
With war in Europe in 1939, sci-fi tech guru Hugo Gernsback, something of the Arthur C. Clarke of his day, enlisted the budding Schomburg for a series of covers of his tech mag Radio Craft and Popular Electronics covering emerging military electronics.
He also worked with Liberty puzzles to make a series of combat tableaus.
Schomburg also illustrated a number of war pulps.
Then, with war firmly gripping U.S., Schomberg took some more “dynamic” work for Timely Comics which largely consisted of American heros slam dunking dirty “japs” and Nazis with a little assistance from their super powers. You see, in that age, there was no need for super villains, and Berlin and Tokyo produced them in real life.
This included Capt.America long before he became a Marvel icon, as well Sub-Mariner, Ka-Zar the Great, The Angel, Black Terror, the Fighting Yank, the Green Hornet and the Human Torch– in just a decade producing something like 600 comic covers alone.
While no doubt cracking reading for its day, they come off rather like propaganda with a skosh of racism when looked at some 70 years later.
While not an official “war artist” you better believe that most teenage Coasties, Bluejackets, Devil Dogs and Joes had a copy of one of his comics in his sea bag or ruck at one time or another during WWII. The things they carried, indeed.
There’s so much to look at in a Schomburg cover… a compendium of vignettes all worked into one overall scene by The Man Who Made Perspective His Bitch. Seriously… each cover is about the wonkiest perspective possible, often with one character’s upper body in the foreground, and then their lower body in the far distant background, and yet it all works… it all comes together to form a cohesive whole. And that’s why he’s number one. Because he cheated. He was so good he didn’t need to play by the rules.
Eschewing comics, he moved into more sci-fi cover novel cover art which kept him busy the rest of his life and a Hugo award nomination.
He died in Beaverton, Oregon on April 7, 1998 and there are extensive galleries of his work online at Paul Tobin’s page (who lists him as the No. 1 cover artist in the U.S.) Pulp Covers and Alex Schomberg.com.
A by-the-numbers look at a Joint Forcible Entry Exercise featuring paratroopers of the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment and 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Some 513 paratroopers dropped on the objective in less than 90 seconds by a flight of 7 C17s. (U.S. Army video by Staff Sgt. Daniel Love, U.S. Army Alaska)
