Here we see a Colt Government Model Serial # C8792 and it shows all the classic signs of the initial M1911s including the double-diamond grips, the lanyard loops on the frame and magazine, early patent numbers and C-prefix serial that traces back to a 1914 commercial run of these guns.
The gun is currently in the NRA Museum in Fairfax, VA, but has a rather spotty history from 1917-2007.
Note the marking, “1st Reserve Park Division” CANADA, Storer’s original unit before he transferred to the flying corps. The 1st Canadian Division embarked for France during February 1915 and was soon holding the line near Ypres.
After over a year of sitting in the trenches as a member of the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps, young Lt. Hume-Storer had endured enough and put in for re-assignment to the Royal Flying Corps. In December of 1916, pilot officer candidate Hume-Storer passed his flight training in Britain and soloed.
On February 17, 1917, Captain John Cameron Hume-Storer R.F.C.(C.A.S.C.), took off on a routine morning patrol from Ramsgate to Dover on the English Channel, a short 15-mile journey. He was never heard from again. No trace of wreckage from his plane was ever found and no ground reports indicated that the young pilot had experienced any adverse weather.
Did he overshoot Dover and wind up ditching in the English Channel? Did he make it all the way to the Western Front and wind up behind the lines somewhere, forgotten in some shell hole?
Did he fly into limbo?
All we know for certain is that John Cameron Hume-Storer’s battered pistol was to turn up in an American gunshop in 2007. Did he pass it into the care of a friend for safekeeping during his routine flight? Or perhaps only this pistol was destined to return from whatever place his plane traveled to on that fateful day in 1917?
As for the good Captain himself, he is memorialized at Hollybrook Cemetery, Southampton and is recorded on page 260 of the First World War Book of Remembrance
Sturm, Ruger this week announced a new polymer-framed double stack 9mm that is poised to give most of the “combat” handguns on the market some serious competition.
Ruger’s polymer evolution
Back in 1996, Ruger revamped their P85/89 line by trading in the traditional frame of that gun for a new frame made of a fiberglass-reinforced polyurethane, based on Dow’s “Isoplast” formula. This new gun, the P95 managed to lower the price point (I picked up a new one at the time for $279) on the already affordable line to undercut the cost of the leading polymer 9mm guns of the time– Glock’s 17/19 series. The P95 was chunky but it was popular and you still see lots of them around. Heck, production didn’t end on these guns until 2013 when the last P95PR was made and the line was replaced by the more svelte and crowd-pleasing SR9 series.
When the SR9 came out, it was set to do what Ruger’s P85/89/95 has never really pulled off– being a large caliber pistol in a slim, ergonomic profile. Say what you want about the P85, it may have been reliable, inexpensive, and accurate, but it’s darn bulky. Well the SR9 fixed that, producing a striker fired combat handgun that still used a large capacity double stacked magazine (that held 17+1 rounds) whose overall width was just 1.18-inches. Now that’s slim, jack. Better yet, it tipped the scales at just 26.5 ounces.
Now, we have a new kid on the block that looks like a shadowy contender to the Army’s XM17 contract.
Ever wondered if Patton really did shoot down a German plane with his pistol? Does the gun always beat the blade? Or how Buffalo Bill shot so well? Well the answers to these and other gun mysteries are explained here.
Don’t Guns beat swords?
The old adage is that you never bring a knife to a gunfight, but what if it’s a big knife? Like as big as a Scottish claymore sword? These huge two-handed weapons were popular in Scotland for more than three hundred years. Over five feet long and sometimes as heavy as 23-pounds, these brutal blades were king of the Highlander’s battle weapons for centuries. This even held true when facing firearms. In the 1689 battle of Killiecrankie, some 3000 Jacobite Royalists armed with traditional swords, axes, and dirks (a small dagger) met over 4000 Government troops armed with muskets. Seems open and shut who won right? Well the sword-armed Highlanders rushed the Government’s lines and, working with naked blades, nearly wiped out their better-armed opponents.
Today many professional soldiers who know the deal still carry blades into battle and use them. In a famous instance with Silver Star winner David Bellavia, what had started as a fight with a machinegun against a house full of insurgents ended with the use of a Gerber Gator.
George S Patton, anti-aircraft gunner
It’s April 1943 and there is a meeting in Italy between a group of US generals. On one side is George S Patton, commander of a US Army operating in Italy against the Germans. On the other, British RAF Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Tedder and US Army Air force Lt Gen Carl Spaatz. The two air force officers confidently declare that the US/British forces have achieved air superiority in the area and Patton’s ground troops have nothing to fear from Hitler’s pilots. Just then, a group of German fighter planes makes a strafing run down the very street in which the meeting is being held.
In the 1970 film Patton, this meeting is dramatized complete with the fearless blood and guts general bailing out of the meeting, then firing his Colt semi-auto up at the attacking aircraft. While it is a well-known and verified fact that General Patton did engage in a close in gunfight in a Mexican hacienda with genuine outlaws in 1916, it seems that the airplane story is pure Hollywood. The meeting did happen, as did the German attack, but no mention is made outside the film of Patton ever going mano-a-avion with a pair of German Heinkels.
Patton Redux
Even though we want the 1943 story above to be true, there is an earlier Patton pistolero account that has been verified. In 1912, 26-year old Lieutenant Patton was part of the US Olympic team. Competing in Stockholm against 32 athletes from ten nations, Patton took part in the Modern Pentathlon. This sport, involving swimming, fencing, horse riding, athletics, and shooting, was a natural for military men of the age. Well, George beat all of the competitors from Russia, Germany, France, and Britain, but in turn only finished in fifth place behind four Swedish supermen. This was largely because he finished 20th in the shooting event.
But hold on there, the reason Patton finished so low in shooting was because he used the then-current issue US Army .38-caliber revolver whereas the four Swedes used .22 pistols. Patton maintained that he shot through his own larger holes and the judges counted those rounds as misses. Had his target been correctly counted, he would have garnered an Olympic medal.
In a November 1945 informal rematch in the Stockholm Olympic Stadium against eight of the former competitors, Patton outshot George Laval, the winner of the 1912 event and proved a point.
Uncanny marksmanship
Exhibition shooters of the late 19th century were steady entertainment. Such greats as Annie Oakley, Dr. A. H. Ruth, and Ad Toepperwein toured the country and shot thousands of glass balls, clay pipes, steel plates, and wooden blocks to the joy of the awed masses. To young children these feats of marksmanship were almost indistinguishable from magic. Men shrugged and confidently assured their wives– very quietly– that they were just as good a shot as the entertainer was.
The thing was, many showmen of the time used special gallery ammunition that, for one reason or another, gave them an edge in shooting. Buffalo Bill Cody, an expert sharpshooter who took thousands of buffalo on the plains, preferred a custom load of 20-grains of black powder under a quarter-ounce of chilled bird shot in his .44-40 caliber Winchester 1873 rifles. These shot shells were mainly used so that the shooter wouldn’t send wild bullets cascading out into town and into innocents two blocks over, but they also contributed greatly in point-shooting marksmanship.
Russian roulette anyone?
Popularized in the film the Deer Hunter, the foolhardy exercise that is Russian roulette is one of the stupidest things you could do with a firearm. In a nutshell, this practice is uses a revolver loaded randomly with one cartridge and swapped from player to player until the inevitable result. This game however, may have just sprung from the minds of Hollywood screenwriters rather than in Russia. In fact, the first mention of the game itself comes from a Swiss-born pulp fiction writer living in the US in 1937.
The Russians did, however, invent a drinking game called “cuckoo” in which drunken officers in the Tsarist period would turn off the lights and fire randomly into the room at other officers who ran for cover, yelling cuckoo.
That’s almost as stupid as playing Russian roulette with a semi-auto. Hey, it happened in 2000 in Texas, garnering the dimwitted player his very own mention in the Darwin Awards.
The Bayonet is dead, right?
SOUTHWEST ASIA (Sept. 17, 2015) U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan Ripoyla moves to his next firing position during a bi-lateral training exercise. Ripoyla is a rifleman with India Company, Battalion Landing Team 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The 15th MEU, embarked aboard the ships of the Essex Amphibious Ready Group, is a forward-deployed, flexible sea-based Marine air-ground task force capable of engaging with regional partners and maintaining regional security. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Jamean Berry/Released)
First used to replace columns of pikemen of the 17th century, the bayonet was a simple spike placed into the muzzle of an early musket and used as a rudimentary spear. These spikes soon moved to a bayonet lug on the side of the barrel, keeping the muzzle open to fire and have been carried by soldiers in the field for over four hundred years. Even today, in an age of unmanned drones, smart bombs, and lasers, the bayonet is still in the toolbox of the infantrymen. There are still moments when soldiers meet in close combat and the deciding factor is the bayonet even in our modern times. As late as the Korean War the US Army had organized bayonet charges when needed. In both Iraq and Afghanistan , the British Army has met desperate situations with the proper application of cold steel on the end of their rifles.
The Boob Tube
While takin care of business one night, Elvis Presley, the Mississippi-born king of rock and roll, decided to take a load off and watch some television. It was then that none other than Robert Goulet popped up on the screen. For those not in the know, Presley and Goulet had a long-standing feud over a girl. You see, when Elvis was doing his time in the Army in West Germany (see “GI Blues” for more info), Goulet was pitching woo to the man’s girlfriend. Well, that never really sat to well and in 1974, some 25-years after the Goulet went Mack daddy on Elvis’s prior old lady, the two came face to face via television. An early fan of everyday carry (he once left a .45 behind in Tom Jones bathroom while going code brown), Elvis drew and fired a round into the screen.
So yes, while we can’t verify whether he was eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich at the time, we can assure you that the King did, in fact and on purpose, smoke one of his own television sets while it was on. The 25-inch RCA, complete with bullet hole in the lower right hand side of the picture tube, is currently on display in Graceland. Remember your firearms safety and do not try this at home kids.
151221-N-XJ788-019 ARABIAN GULF (Dec. 21, 2015) Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class Clairey Lovette, from Knoxville, Tenn., uploads rounds into an MK-38 Mod-2 25mm gun aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3). Kearsarge is the flagship for the Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and, with the embarked 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), is deployed in support of maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Travis DiPerna/Released)
Named after the Mohican-class sloop of war USS Kearsarge who helped capture the Confederate raider CSS Sumter and sent the CSS Alabama to Davy Jones, today’s Kearsarge is the fifth vessel to carry that name.
Between then and now there was the USS Kearsarge (BB-5) which was launched during the Spanish American war and endured as late as 1955, USS Kearsarge (CV-12) an Essex-class aircraft carrier that was renamed Hornet prior to launch in WWII as a tribute to that lost carrier and another Essex— USS Kearsarge (CV-33) who served in Korea and Vietnam before being scrapped in 1974.
Today’s Big K, nearly the size of the old carriers and a good bit larger than either the namesake sloop or battleship, was commissioned 16 October 1993 at Pascagoula, she is home ported at Norfolk.
From 1907 to current production (by Ishapore), there have been an estimated 20 million or so Short Magazine Lee Enfield bolt action rifles produced, and one of the more sought after, short-lived and peculiar of the breed has been the No. 5 Mk I, more popularly known as the Jungle Carbine.
Essentially an improvement of the 1880s vintage Lee–Metford rifle, the Short Magazine Lee Enfield with its 10-round detachable box magazine, full length stock, fast-operating turn-bolt action, and excellent sights was a rugged and dependable service rifle that saw hard use by the British Army and her Commonwealth Allies (South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, et. al) in both World Wars as well as the Korean conflict and a host of small colonial actions thrown in for good measure. The evolutionary timeline of these rifles had, by gone through seven official modifications until the Rifle No. 4 Mk I was adopted as a standard rifle in 1942.
Lee-Enfield No 4 Mk I rifle, made in 1943. Caliber .303 British. From the collections of Armémuseum (Swedish Army Museum), Stockholm, Sweden.
This gun was a simplified rifle designed for wartime production and used metal stampings for stock bands, North American birch rather than imported European walnut for the stocks, a heavier free-floating barrel for increased accuracy and a slightly redesigned receiver that could be made faster. This coughed up a rifle that was some 45-inches overall in length and tipped the scales (unloaded and without bayonet or strap) at 9-9.5 pounds depending on the weight of the wood.
With His Majesty’s Tommies jumping out of airplanes and fighting in far off jungles against the Japanese in Burma and elsewhere, a lighter and more compact Enfield was needed. Enter…
The 7-pound, 39.5-inch overall No. 5 Mk I Jungle Carbine:
Although this gun saw little use in WWII, it proved popular in Africa, Korean and Malaya in the 1950s and 60s…
“Sergeant R Beaumont of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI), attached to the Malay Regiment, instructs a Dyak tracker in the use of modern firearms.” Via IWM Triva: ‘The Koylis’ date back to 1755 and in 1968 were amalgamated to form The Light Infantry Regiment which in turn was merged with the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment, the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment and the Royal Green Jackets to become The Rifles in 2007. As a note of trivia, 80s television character Jonathan Quayle Higgins III of Magnum P.I. fame was a member of the West Yorkshire Regiment.
Warship Wednesday Dec.30, 2015: Subkiller of the Florida Keys
Image by Chris Eger. All others this post are either by me, or the USCG Historian’s office
Here we see the Treasury-class United States Coast Guard Cutter Samuel D. Ingham (WPG/AGC/WHEC-35) dockside of the old Navy submarine base at Key West near Fort Zachary Taylor, part of the Truman Annex to Naval Air Station Key West, where she has been as a museum ship since 2009.
Same view of Ingham back in the late 1960s, just after she picked up her “racing stripe.”
In the mid-1930s, the Coast Guard had some 40~ oceangoing cutters consisting of a few pre-WWI era slow boats and a host of 165 and 240/250-foot vessels designed for bluewater rum-runner busting during Prohibition. With the Volstead Act repealed and the boozecraft disappearing, the new push in the Treasury department once Mr. Roosevelt took office was for long-legged boats to help patrol the nation’s burgeoning international air traffic routes to affect rescues and provide weather support.
Although the Coasties came up with their own design for a stretched version of their 250-foot Lake-class cutters, the Navy had just coughed up a new gunboat design– the two Erie-class gunboats USS Erie (PG-50) and USS Charleston (PG-51) — which the service could save some bread on by gently modifying. Instead of the Erie‘s 6”/47 Mk17s, the Coast Guard went with 5”/51’s and saved money in other areas, building their cutters out at about 30 percent less cost than the Eries.
These seven new cutters, classified gunboats (WPG) in Treasury service, were all named after former Secretaries of that cabinet branch with USCGC George M. Bibb (WPG-31) laid down 15 August 1935 followed quickly by Campbell, Warship Weds alumni Spencer, Duane, Taney, Hamilton and the hero of our story, Ingham— named after Andrew Jackson’s Treasury boss. However, shortly after commissioning all of the names were trimmed to the last name only.
U.S.S. ‘Samuel D. Ingham’ Entering At Havana Harbor-Nov. 12 1936
Capable of over 20-knots and with the capability to carry a seaplane (a JF-2 amphibian), these 327-foot long, 2400-ton cutters could roam across the ocean and back again with an impressive 12,300-nm range. A pair of 5-inch/51-caliber guns augmented a few 6-pounder guns was impressive enough for shallow water (can float in 13 feet of sea) gunboat and seen as more than adequate to stop smugglers and sink derelict vessels on the high seas. In a pinch, the armament could be increased in time of war, which the Navy was keenly aware of.
These cutters were designed from the outset to accommodate a floatplane
Built at Philadelphia Naval Yard (Ingham was born at Great Spring near New Hope, Pennsylvania in 1779), the cutter carrying his name was commissioned on 12 September 1936 and was the fourth cutter to bear that name. She was assigned to Port Angeles, Washington, where she participated in arduous Bering Sea patrols until the start of WWII in Europe.
Ingham’s crew undergoing the prewar battle practice, in this case firing both of her main 5-inch 50-caliber main batteries.
Given a tasking for “Grand Banks Patrols,” Ingham was homeported in Boston with orders to identify foreign men-of-war, be on the lookout for any “un-neutral” activities, and report anything of an unusual nature. Each cruise lasted approximately two weeks. The cutters ran with their ensign illuminated by searchlight at all times and prefaced all signals with Coast Guard identification. This transitioned to three-week long weather station duty in the North Atlantic with embarked meteorologists.
In December 1940, she was up-armed with things growing increasingly tense in the North Atlantic and transferred for duty with the Navy on 1 July 1941 and her Coast Guard crew intact, spending part of the year as a floating embassy in spy-rich Lisbon for the U. S. ambassador to Portugal.
Assigned to CINCLANT at the U.S. entrance to the war, she soon began a series of convoy operations, escorting no less than 28 convoys back and forth from the East Coast to Iceland between Dec. 1941 and March 1943. Some were pure milk runs. Others were not.
On SC-107, 16 ships were torpedoed.
On ONSJ-160, Ingham reduced speed and ceased zigzagging as a force 12 hurricane developed and then had to spend three days searching for stragglers.
It was in this duty she rescued survivors from the torpedoed SS Henry R. Mallory, Robert E. Hopkins, West Portal, Jeremiah Van Rensseler, and all hands of the Matthew Luckenback.
Then there was the time she gesunken a U-boat.
Ingham fitted out for escort of convoy and anti-submarine warfare. Note her camouflage
Ingham, along with USS Babbitt and USS Leary was near Iceland, where they stumbled on the brand new German Type VIIC submarine U-626 which was on her maiden patrol on 15 December 1942. The cutter made sonar contact with an object and dropped depth charges on the sub, sinking her and killing her entire crew of 47 though some argue the point.
During the 8 to 12 watch tonight, while on patrol 3 miles ahead of the convoy, we picked up screw-beats of a submarine while listening, ran in and dropped three 600-pounders. Then, getting contact on the U-boat again by echo-ranging we made another run and gave it a 10-charge barrage. Search was continued for some time, but contact was not regained. There is a strong possibility that we sunk him without forcing him to the surface.
Another surface action in June 1942:
On the 16th, the Ingham broke away from the convoy to investigate a light brown smoke on the horizon and on approaching closer definitely sighted a submarine with conning tower and diesel oil smoke from the exhaust plainly visible. The Ingham increased speed to 19 knots and gave chase, firing one round from the forward 5″ gun at a range of 13,000 yards.
Then in 1944, she found herself in the Med, chasing sonar contacts off Morocco and Spain before assuming flagship of the Senior Mediterranean Escort Group.
U.S.C.G.C. W 35. NAVY YARD, NEW YORK. 28 May 1944 Photo No. F644C6169
Then in May, Ingham proceeded back to the states for conversion to an AGC (Combined operations communications headquarters ship) which took most of the rest of the year and led to her shipping for the Pacific, arriving Dec 26th at Humboldt Bay, reporting to Commander, Seventh Fleet.
USS Ingham, CG (WAGC-35)U.S. Navy Yard, S.C. . .U.S.S. INGHAM, (W 35), Starboard BowPhoto No. 2878-44 11 October 1944
By February 1945, as the flag of Commander, Task Group 76.3, Ingham was the HQ and guide ship for the Mariveles-Corregidor Attack Group in the PI and later oversaw the beach landings at Tigbauan, Pulupandan, Macajalar Bay, Sarangani Bay and the seizure of Balut Island. In these attacks she frequently let her 5-inchers release hate on Japanese shore positions while dodging underwater obstacles and swimming sappers.
Ingham as an AGC 1944
Commander Dean W. Colbert wrote in his memoir of life on board Ingham of her crowding at the time with four men assigned to a single rack:
“. . .during major landings, we accommodated up to 360 persons onboard and there was literally standing room only. . .Mealtime was a carefully orchestrated operation. Up to 1000 meals per day were prepared and served out of a galley roughly the size of a kitchen in a 4-bedroom house. . .It was a challenge by any standard, but Ingham’s crew rose to the occasion. Many of the ‘black gang’ . . .and other crew members had been on board during the worst of the U-boat campaigns in the North Atlantic. As a whole, the crew was superb, especially the chief and first class petty officers. They were a tremendously capable and reliable group.”
The end of the war found her off Okinawa as the flag of Adm. Buckmaster who sailed into Shanghai and Haiphong to help coordinate occupation efforts with Chinese army officials.
On 6 January 1946, she arrived back on the East Coast in New York, landed her armament, got her white paint scheme back, and picked up where she left off as a cutter.
Homeported at Norfolk, Virginia, she spent the next 22 years on quiet weather station duty, assisting those in peril at sea and conducting law enforcement operations.
Then came another war.
1965. She would pick up the racing stripe two years later, and ship for Southeast Asia a year after that.
Becoming part of Coast Guard Squadron Three in 1968, Ingham soon became part of the Navy’s Operation Market Time interdiction and coastal surveillance effort in Vietnam. She spent a year in CGS3, conducting numerous naval gunfire support missions, serving as a mothership to Navy Swift boats and Coast Guard 82-foot patrol boats, sending medical teams ashore to win hearts and minds in local seaside hamlets, and stopping anything that moved inside her area of operation.
As noted by her official USCG history, “She participated in Operation Sea Lords and Operation Swift Raiders, earning an unprecedented two Presidential Unit Citations, the only cutter to be so honored.”
18 July 1978 Photo No. G-BPA-07-18-78
Still homeported in Virginia, Ingham picked up where she left off in 1969 and continued ocean station duty until the stations themselves were disbanded in 1980.
Atlantic Weather Observation Service “ocean stations” on which thousands of Coast Guardsmen served through most of the Cold War
After that, she was a favorite vessel of the USCGA in New London, taking cadets on summer cruises that lasted up to 10 weeks at a time and continuing to do so until 1985.
She took breaks from cadet training to seize drug runners (the Honduran fishing trawler Mary Ann, where the boarding team discovered 15 tons of marijuana in 1979, and the vessel Misfit carrying 35 tons of marijuana in 1982) as well as saving hundreds of lives during the Mariel Boatlift in 1980– often landing refugees and towing Cuban vessels to Key West for processing.
She outlasted all of her sisters in service, with Hamilton being torpedoed during the war off Iceland 29 January 1942, Spencer sold for scrap in 1981, Campbell decommissioned in 1982 and sunk as a target, Bibb and Duane decommissioned in 1985, and Pearl Harbor survivor Taney decommissioned 7 December 1986.
On 1 August 1985, Ingham‘s hull numbers were painted gold, signifying she was the oldest commissioned Coast Guard vessel in service, period. On 24 May 1988, she was decommissioned with a salute from President Reagan. It was the first time in 52 years that she did not have an official tasking.
Ingham in her pre-1967 livery by William H Ravell
USCGC Ingham Decommissioning Ceremony 1988:
Saved as a memorial, she was at first a museum ship at Patriot’s Point, S.C., and then, after dry-dock and repairs, at Key West. A maritime museum keeps her in excellent condition and in 1995 was made the official site of the USCGs WWII memorial per order of the commandant.
I had a chance to tour Ingham last month and here is a sampling of her current disposition:
The ship is a time capsule from her last use in May 1988. I was told the only thing the Coast Guard did when they turned her over was dewat the guns, remove the classified documents from the safe, and pull some sensitive internal panels from the commo, sonar, and radar suites.
Officers mess
Remember the comment about a galley for a typical 4 BR house?
Holy 2600, batman
The enlisted mess
Japanese samurai sword picked up in 1945
GMs locker.Dig the M2 giant size training tool and the 20mm OK
Barber
Captain’s cabin
Captain’s cabin. This would be the berth of the Admiral when she was an AGC in WWII
Commo anyone?
Looking forward, note her 5″/38, and saluting gun. Malloy Square and Duval Street are a few blocks up.
CIC
Her bridge is off limits, but note all the brightwork and 1930s-style porthole row
Her sistership Taney has been preserved in Baltimore harbor since her decommissioning while sisters, Duane and Bibb, are only about a half hour away from Ingham‘s current location, both sunk as an artificial reef off Key Largo, on 27 November 1987.
As a nod to her many years of service to the USCGA, Inghamis often graced with visits from cadets who spend vacation time sleeping in the onboard berths, scraping paint, and repairing heads.
When in Key West, she is well worth a stop.
Specs:
Via shipbucket
Via shipbucket
Via shipbucket
Displacement 2,350 t. (lt)
Length 327′ 0″
Beam 41′ 0″
Draft 12′ 6″ (max.)
Propulsion
two Westinghouse double-reduction geared turbines
two Babcock & Wilcox sectional express, air-encased, 400 psi, 200° superheat
two 9′ three-bladed propellers, 6,200shp (1966)
Fuel Capacity NSFO 135,180 gallons (547 tons)
Speed 20.5 kts (max)
Electronics:
HF/DF: (1942) DAR (converted British FH3) ?
Radar: (1945) SC-2, SGa; (1966) AN/SPS-29D, AN/SPA-52.
Fire Control Radar: (1945) Mk-26; (1966) Mk-26 MOD 4
Sonar: (1945) QC series; (1966) AN/SQS-11
Complement 1937
12 officers
4 warrant officers
107 enlisted 1941
16 officers
4 warrant officers
202 enlisted 1966
10 officers
3 warrant officers
134 enlisted
Armament: 1936
2 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
2 6-pdrs
1 1-pdr 1941
3 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
3 single 3″/50 cal dual purpose gun mounts
4 .50 caliber Browning Machine Guns
2 depth charge racks
“Y” gun depth charge projector 1943
2 single 5″/51 cal gun mounts
4 single 3″/50 cal dual gun mounts
2 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts
Hedgehog device
6 “K” gun depth charge projectors
2 depth charge racks 1945
2 single 5″/38 cal dual purpose gun mounts
3 twin 40mm/60 AA gun mounts
4 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts 1946
2 single 5″/38 cal dual gun mount
1 twin 40mm;/60 AA gun mount
8 single 20mm/80 AA gun mounts
1 Hedgehog 1966
1 single 5″/38 MK30 Mod75 cal dual-purpose gun mount w/ MK 52 MOD 3 director
1 MK 10-1 Hedgehog (removed)
2 (P&S) x Mk 32 MOD 5 TT
4 MK 44 MOD 1 torpedoes
2 .50 cal. MK-2 Browning Machine Guns
2 MK-13 high altitude parachute flare mortars
Aircraft (discontinued after WWII)
1936, Grumman JF-2, V148
1938, Curtiss SOC-4
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International
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.
Nearing its 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.
