The Coast Guard Cutter Stratton (WMSL 752) transits Glacier Bay, Alaska, on Aug. 1, 2024, while patrolling the region. U.S. Coast Guard courtesy photo.
She also logged 334 deck landing qualifications with CG Air Station Kodiak’s MH-60 helicopter aircrews, responded to the 738-foot cargo tanker SS Pan Viva which was beset by a storm north of Dutch Harbor, conducted 20 boardings, did a GUNEX off Dutch Harbor, steamed with the Flight IIA Arleigh Burke USS Kidd (DDG 100), called at CFB Esquimalt (where she picked up three RCN ship riders) and pulled off the “first at-sea refueling evolutions for a national security cutter in the high latitudes.”
It would seem that the crew of Stratton has earned the holidays off.
The Northern Lights illuminate the night sky above the Coast Guard Cutter Stratton (WMSL 752) while operating in the Arctic, Aug. 28, 2024. Stratton’s crew returned to its homeport in Alameda, Calif., on Nov. 4, after completing a 110-day patrol in the Arctic Ocean, Chukchi Sea, and Bering Sea. U.S. Coast Guard courtesy photo.
Some 85 years ago this week, one of the largest– and simultaneously least supported by the Allies– underground resistance armies in WWII took its first key organizational steps.
The Polish military gave its all against the German blitzkrieg in September 1939 and gave a better account of themselves than historians have often alleged (read Poland 1939 by Roger Moorhouse for a more nuanced report). However, once the Red Army swept over the country’s eastern border in force two weeks into the conflict, the struggle was a moot point.
Nonetheless, even in the final days of the campaign, the groundwork was being established to continue the fight. As detailed by Moorhouse, General Juliusz Rómmel, commander of the bulk of the Polish forces enduring the siege of Warsaw, on 26 September received a courier sent from Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły, who had escaped to Bucharest.
The courier, Major Edmund Galinat, had braved a one-way flight, while lying flat in the fuselage as there was no seat, by Polish test pilot Stanislaw Riess in an experimental PZL.46/II Sum light bomber across German-held airspace. The message deemed so important? The well-known assent to Rómmel from Rydz-Śmigły to surrender Warsaw as well as a secret set of orders.
Written in the lining of Galinat’s uniform jacket, to be burned after reading, was an order for military authorities to establish an underground organization, in the tradition of Poland’s Konspiracja efforts in the 19th Century, to continue the fight.
As described by Moorhouse, “Warsaw might capitulate, but Poland would not surrender.”
This task would be passed from Rómmel’s hands to Brig. Gen. Michał Tadeusz Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, who commanded an isolated operational group in the east composed of the remnants of the Pomeranian Army’s 15th and 27th Infantry Divisions. A 46-year-old officer who had fought with the old Polish Legions formed by Józef Piłsudski under the Austro-Hungarian flag in the Great War, Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz took on a codename (“Torwid”) and formed what he termed Service for Poland’s Victory (Służba Zwycięstwu Polski), to carry on the fight.
It turns out there were several other figures outside of the SZP’s scope at work around the same time, with something like 300 smaller groups with such exotic names as the Peasant Battalions (Bataliony Chłopskie), the People’s Guard (Gwardia Ludowa) of the WRN, the National Military Organization (Narodowa Organizacja Wojskowa), the Military Organization of the Lizard Union (Organizacja Wojskowa Związek Jaszczurczy), the Armed Confederation (Konfederacja Zbrojna), the Musketeers (Muszkieterowie), the Military Organization “Wolves” (Organizacja Wojskowa Wilki), the Sword and the Plough (Miecz i Pług), the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska), the Secret Military Organization “Gryf Pomorski,” the Shock Cadre Battalions (Uderzeniowe Bataliony Kadrowe), the Jewish Combat Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa) et. al.
Polish Army Red Cross Nurse after surrendering to German Army September 1939 LIFE Hugo Jaeger
While some 200,000 Poles were killed or severely wounded during the September 1939 campaign, and 140,000 Poles were captured by the Germans, most of the rank and file were simply disarmed and furloughed, to be used for labor, with only senior and staff officers kept as POWs for the duration– a mistake the Germans would no doubt rue. The Soviets, on the other hand, preferred to imprison almost all the 240,000 Poles that fell in their hands, eventually liquidating most of the officers.
Captured Polish troops under German eye “go to work” circa late 1939
By November 1939, General Władysław Sikorski– another former Austrian Army Polish Legion vet– had escaped to the west and been installed as the head of the Polish government in exile. He sent word back to occupied Poland that a more well-established underground shadow army would be needed.
Formed on 17 November 1939, the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej) would be country-wide whereas the SZP was largely just in the east. As such it soon absorbed most, but not all, of the other military-based resistance units.
Soon, the country would be split into West (under German occupation) and East (Soviet) zones with Brig. Gen. Stefan Rowecki (codename Grot), another Polish Legion vet and former head of the Warsaw Armored Brigade (WBPM), in Warsaw, was given command of the former and Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz kept as commander of the latter. The overall command would be the job of Lt. Gen. Kazimierz Sosnkowski– from Paris and later London.
Rowecki, who had access to more officers who had gone underground, was to establish a seven-section command staff covering intelligence, logistics, training, operations, communications, finance, and propaganda, all typically led by majors and colonels.
Each region would also be divided into 17 geographical districts, all typically commanded by field-grade officers, usually captains and majors.
The territorial structure of the ZWZ-AK in the territory of the Second Polish Republic
Three overseas stations in neighboring neutral countries (“Romek” in Hungary, “Bolek” in Romania, and “Anna” in Lithuania) were also established to help ratline supplies, correspondence, and personnel in and out of the country. Once these outlets were closed later in the war, they were replaced by the Wanda network inside Poland itself which, backed by the SOE, would eventually number 54 clandestine radio stations established by 316 British-trained Free Polish paratroopers dropped by No. 1586 (Polish Special Duties) Flight, RAF. These airborne agents are better remembered in Poland as the Cichociemnych (Silent and Unseen.)
The crew and ground staff of the 1586 Polish Special Duties Flight in front of their B-24 Liberator aircraft GR-U (BZ 860). The Flight’s CO, Squadron Leader Stanisław Król, is standing in the middle of the group, under the white and red chessboard – the Polish Air Force emblem. Note all the para drops, agents, and canisters, on the aircraft’s side. IWM (MH 1214)
By early 1940, Rowecki calculated the number of ZWW troops in the underground army at 40,000 soldiers and officers, at roughly a 3:1 ratio, with most being prior service. While many furloughed soldiers were easily recruited, thousands of Grey Ranks (Szare Szeregi), drawn from the Polish Boy Scouts and Girl’s Duides, organizations long considered a military auxiliary, also quietly joined up.
Boys of the Broom Battalion (Chłopcy z Batalionu) in the area of the sewer manhole on Warecka Street – from the left: Tadeusz Rajszczak “Maszynka”, Kazimierz Gabara “Łuk”, Mieczysław Lach “Pestka”, Warsaw uprising, 1944. It was estimated that at least 8,000 Polish Boy Scouts, aged 15 to 17, served in assault groups with the Home Army while tens of thousands of younger boys and girls served as couriers carrying dispatches and supplies.
While direct action squads were being formed, the group at this stage was primarily an intelligence-gathering organization. They ultimately sent 22,047 intel reports to London during the war, some 48 percent of the reports from all of occupied Europe! Besides troop movements (including the full battle order for Kursk) and cipher work, this would include the construction and location of the V-1 and V-2 weapon research centers, plans of the prototypes of the Panther tanks, midget submarines, data on new anti-aircraft guns, and new war gases.
The ZWW would continue to operate through liberation in late 1944-early 1945, changing its name to the simpler Home Army (Armia Krajowa) in 1942.
At its peak in late 1944, the AK numbered some 390,000 soldiers in 8,920 platoons in the field while its largest rival, the unrecognized National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne, NSZ) numbered some 80,000. This didn’t count other organizations disavowed by London such as the communist People’s Army (Armia Ludowa, AL).
The amount of weapons dropped by SOE to the Home Army– 670 tons between 1941 and 1944, of which only 443 tons were received– paled against what was dropped into France (10,485 tons), Yugoslavia (76,171 tons) and Greece (5,796 tons). As such, even by 1944, it was estimated that the force only had enough small arms to equip 12 percent of its fighters.
Curiously, the main source of weapons for many Home Army units outside of Warsaw was to dig around old September 1939 battlefields to salvage lost Mausers, both Polish Kb wz.98s and German K98s, and their common 7.92mm ammo; or areas where the Soviets displaced during Barbarossa in 1941 and abandoned Mosins and SVTs in their wake.
The Home Army’s Clandestine Production Unit (Oddział Produkcji Konspiracyjnej) tried to compensate for the deficiency by crafting their own weapons. However, garage-built insurgent-made guns, including several variants of the “Polski Sten,” cottage-made VIS pistols made with parts smuggled out of the factory at Radom, and the famous Błyskawica(Lightning) sub gun, provided only a trickle of additional firearms for use on “The Day.” This habit of having guns and components go missing from the factory led the Germans to convert production at Radom from complete VIS pistols to parts kits– with no barrels– that would be shipped to Steyr for final assembly.
Błyskawica sub-machine gun in Polish Home Army use 1944. Although well known today, most sources acknowledge that only 750-1,000 were ever produced. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Witold Gokieli’s improvised flame thrower in Polish Home Army use, 1944
It’s pretty clear that London looked at the Polish underground as best used for intelligence gathering rather than direct action– although post-war analysis points to some 6,243 partisan incidents recorded by the Germans in the country during the war. Polish estimates are much higher, albeit mostly in the destruction of military stores and railway disruptions/derailments.
The Home Army thrived in the country’s thick forests and swamps, where the Germans never really controlled, and often took part in the liberation of larger cities once the Allies– in their case the Soviet Red Army– were just over the hill. Their uniform and arms, Polish whenever possible, were mixed with civilian items as well as those captured from the Germans or Russians.
Every effort was made to try and be a legitimate army in the field in the unrealized hope that, if captured, they would be afforded POW protection under the Geneva Convention rather than be executed outright as Francs-tireurs. This included listing organizations as named companies, battalions, and even divisions and issuing ranks and titles to members.
AK soldiers during the Burza action in Lublin, in July 1944. Note the German web gear, flashlights, potato masher grenades, and Mausers. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
4th battalion of the 1st PSP AK on Przysłop nad Ochotnica, AK. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
AK Partisan horse patrol September 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
1st Podhale Rifle Regiment on Skałka nad Ochotnica, AK. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Soldiers of the Stołpecko-Nalibocki AK group. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
1st Platoon of the 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, 1st PSP AK at a meeting on 11 November 1944, AK. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Father Władysław Gurgacz with AK unit note mix of Russian and German arms to include an StG 44. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Review of 1st Battalion of the 16th Infantry Regiment of the Home Army summer 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Polish Home Army partisans. Note the German MP40 and Russian SMGs Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
AK partisans from the Suszarnia Battalion, summer 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Soldiers of the 27th Volhynian Infantry Division of the Home Army 1944. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Polish partisans Surowiec battalion of the OR 23rd DP AK 1944. Note the Ręczny karabin maszynowy wz. 28, the long-barreled FN variant of the M1918 BAR/Colt Monitor. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Jan Piwnik Ponury, commander of a Home Guard partisan group operating in the forests of the Kielce region, armed with a “Polski Sten.” Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Only about 11,000 STENs made it from Britain to the Home Army.
Home Army soldiers on the streets of Vilnius in July 1944– mingling with Soviet troops. The comradery was short-lived
The Home Army is of course best known for the fiery 63-day Warsaw Uprising, which, spearheaded by 45,000 members of the AK, is described as the “single largest military effort undertaken by resistance forces to oppose German occupation during World War II.”
The soldiers of the Home Army during the Warsaw Uprising, led by Maj. Gen. Thaddeus “Bor” Komorowski, was perhaps the most motely equipped of AK units.
The Home Army in Warsaw was especially poor in terms of Polish uniforms and equipment due to frequent German police searches. This meant they had to capture weapons to fight with
Prof Witold Kieżun caught on documentary footage during the Warsaw uprising, on 23 August 1944. Note the red and white recognition stripe on his captured German helmet. He had been a 17-year-old private in 1939 and, escaping a POW detail, went underground with the Home Army for the duration. The renowned economist survived the war and recently passed, aged 99.
Polish Home Army using German uniforms and arms: Soldiers of the Zośka battalion during the Uprising. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Krawiec company of the Ryś battalion of the 7th AK District made it to Warsaw to fight Aug 1944. AK Museum. Collections of the Home Army Museum in Kraków
Colt New Service in the holster of Wiesław Chrzanowski, officer Polish Home Army, Wilcza Street, Warsaw Uprising September 5, 1944. Chrzanowski later helped draft the framework of the Solidarity trade union in the 1970s.
A mix of captured German MP38s and MP-40s with Polish Home Army Members, Warsaw Uprising, August-September 1944
Polish Home Army soldier in the Warsaw uprising, using a captured German Stalhelm helmet, and dual-wielding a Radom VIS 35 and Walther P-38
Unknown member of Armia Krajowa during the early days of the Warsaw Uprising in August of 1944. His weapons include a ZB Czech Brno Bren 26 and a Luger, both likely liberated from the Germans
Soldiers from the “Parasol” battalion (note the homemade cap badge) after leaving the canal on Warecka Street (Śródmieście-Północ) during the Warsaw Uprising. In the middle stands Maria Stypułkowska-Chojecka “Kama”. On the right Krzysztof Palester “Krzych.” A force made up largely of teenage scouts, the unit had pulled off several actions such as the targeted assassinations of SS-Hauptscharführer August Kretschmann and Sipo commander Franz Bürkl in September 1943 before the Uprising. Its members included poet Józef Szczepański, who was killed in action in September 1944, aged 21.
Happy Polish Home Army troops with some parachuted British PIAT anti-tank projectors during the Warsaw uprising. Note the captured Waffen SS Splittermuster camo smocks and a French MAS-38 sub-gun.
With the Red Army finally “liberating” Poland by February 1945, the Home Army was ordered disbanded.
It was estimated that the force lost between 60,000 and 100,000 between 1939 and 1945 (records vary widely) while another 50,000 were “disappeared” by the Soviets soon after.
The final commander of the Home Army was Brig. Gen. Leopold “Niedźwiadek” Okulicki, who had fought in Warsaw in 1939 and 1944, with a stint in the Gulag in between. He was arrested by the NKVD a second time in March 1945 along with 15 other leaders of the Polish underground in recently “liberated” Poland and put on a show trial in which the verdict was predetermined. He died on December 24, 1946, in the Butyrki prison hospital.
Okulicki, the last commander of the Home Army, seen in his NKVD mugshot in 1940 as well as in Polish service and, bottom right, at his 1945 show trial in Moscow.
Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, arrested in Poland by the Soviet NKVD in March 1940, would eventually be freed from the gulag post-Barbarossa and manage to join the Free Polish forces in the West, eventually serving as commander of the III Polish Corps in the Middle East. His Poland privileges were revoked once the Cold War started, and he died in exile in Casablanca in 1944.
Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, seen as arrested by the NKVD in 1940 to the left, and in Polish service to the right
As for Rowecki, captured by the Gestapo in August 1944, he was murdered in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Rowecki, seen in Polish service, left, and in his circa 1943 “mufti” look
Komorowski, who surrendered to the Germans in October 1944, ended the war in Stalag XVIIIC, and, liberated by the U.S. 103rd Infantry Division, was soon cleaned up and sent to London to join the Polish exile government. Earning a living as an upholsterer in Britain post-war, he died in 1966.
“Bor” Komorowski, seen before, during and after the war.
As for the Home Army, their resistance marks, and the fighting Polish PW anchor, akin to the “V” in Western Allied countries, endured for years across Poland.
Official period caption: “U.S. Aeroplane Carrier Langley in Gaillard Cut, Panama Canal, Nov 16, 1924.”
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) photo. NARA Identifier: 100996474; Local Identifier: 185-G-947; Agency-Assigned Identifier: 80-C139; Container ID: Box 5, Volume 10. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/100996474
Seen passing through the Culebra (Gaillard) Cut, the 14,000-ton USS Langley (CV-1) was on her way to join the Pacific Fleet after two years as an experimental ship on the East Coast. The nation’s only operational aircraft carrier, she has Vought VE-7 Bluebirds of Fighter Plane Squadron One (VF-1) forward. The VF-1 Bluebirds had made the first-ever take-off from a U.S. carrier just two years before this photo when LT Virgil Childers Griffin (Naval Aviator # 41) lifted off from Langley in his VE-7-SF on 17 October 1922.
Further aft, with their wings folded, are at least two large Liberty-powered Douglas DT-2 torpedo bombers, aircraft that struggled to take off from Langley’s 534-foot deck– until a catapult arrangement was worked out.
Langley arrived at San Diego on 29 November to join the Pacific Battle Fleet and for the next 12 years operated off the California coast and Hawaii, engaged in training fleet units, experimentation, pilot training, and tactical fleet problems.
USS Langley (CV-1). Docked at the carrier pier at Naval Air Station, North Island, San Diego, California, with a Douglas DT-2 airplane taking off from her flight deck. This photo may have been taken during catapult tests in 1925. NH 47024
Langley. A group of officers on the flight deck during the Hawaii cruise of 1925. The aircraft immediately behind them appears to be a Vought VE-7. NH 72940
Langley. Night flying exercises at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, in July 1925. Courtesy of Lieutenant Gustave Freret, USN (Ret), 1972. NH 78325
By August 1926 she was carrying the Navy’s first full-fledged carrier airwing, consisting of two squadrons of F6C-1 Goshawks of VF-1 and VF-2B, Curtiss SC-2 torpedo bombers of VT-2, and assorted support planes of Utility Squadron 1 (VJ-1): Martin MO-1 three-seat observation monoplanes, Boeing NB-1 trainers, and PN-7 seaplanes.
Langley was converted to a more humble seaplane tender in 1937, by which time the Navy had the mammoth 36,000-ton large deck carriers USS Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3); the first keel-up designed fleet carrier, the 17,000-ton USS Ranger (CV-4); and the three new 22,000-ton Yorktown class carriers well under construction.
No war is a “clean” war, but in many ways, I think the Great War really earned the nickname at the time of a “War to End All Wars” via sheer up-close brutality.
Original Caption, circa 1918: “The way by fire has proved to be a boomerang to the Germans. The Allies are beginning to pay back the Germans in their own coin on the Western Front, by means of certain devices to which, earlier in the war, the Germans trusted as a means of paralyzing resistance in battle. The use of gas both from projectors and in bombs were of German origin. They are now being turned against their originators. French soldiers advancing under cover of a flame and smoke attack.”
Photo 165-WW-100B-1, National Archives Identifier 26425078
While visiting Walther’s state-of-the-art factory in Ulm, Germany earlier this year, I came across my favorite pistol that carries the company’s iconic banner.
Walther has been around in one form or another, and one location or another, to the 1880s. Whenever you say the company’s name in a conversation, the immediate Pavlovian response is typically PPK, PDP, P99, or P-38.
However, my favorite Walther is the seldom-seen, and almost unheard-of, P4 (also seen as “P38 IV”).
A factory cutaway of the P-4 in Walther’s Museum in Ulm, Germany. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
A shortened version of the P1– which itself was an updated P-38– the P4 was adopted by the West German Border Protection (Bundesgrenzschutz) and Customs (Zoll) agencies during the chilliest days of the Cold War.
With a big boxing match in the news today, how about the biggest Boxer we care about here on the blog, recently seen at play in the historically significant Tsushima Strait. We’re talking about the 29-year-old Ingalls-built Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4), seen conducting flight ops on 18 September 2024 while on her, um, abbreviated Westpac deployment.
All are U.S. Navy photos by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James Finney.
It looks like “America’s Golden Gator” has a good mix of 15th MEU aviation assets aboard including five F-35B Lightning IIs of VMFA-225, and nine MV-22 Ospreys of VMM-165 along with a mix of eight AH-1Z Vipers and UH-1Y Venoms of HMLA-369. Sadly, no CH-53s are embarked it would seem.
How about this great shot of Boxer’s stern, showing a good mix of her self-defense suite to include an MK 38 Mod 2 25mm gun mount (one of four installed) centerline above her dock door, with an eight-cell Sea Sparrow launcher (one of two) above it. There is a 21-cell RAM launcher (1 of 2) to port and a CIWS (1 of 3) to starboard. Note the unmanned M2 .50 cal mounts as well.
The great bow-on flightline shot also shows off Boxer’s 2nd RAM and CIWS installation, just ahead of the island, as well as her SLQ-32 EW suite and commo array on the roof, with the big AN/SPS-48 air search radar on top. Also, it gives some appreciation of the size of the Osprey, which sports a 45-foot wingspan and 30-ton max TO weight. For reference, the big A-5 Vigilante of the Cold War only had a 53-foot span with roughly the same TO weight.
Official wartime caption: “Lining up for their first target practice. Revolver practice. 1940, naval ratings receiving revolver instruction. They are under the guidance of commissioned gunner, F.E. Bisson, RN, who has been a gunner for over 30 years.”
All photos by the prolific shutterbug, LT Sidney James Beadell, Royal Naval Voluntary Reserve (Sp), one of the official naval photographers.
“This Leading Seaman was a builder before the war and is receiving his first lesson in the handling of a revolver.” Observe the notebook and pencil in Gunner Bisson’s jacket pocket. IWM (A 1196)
IWM (A 1197)
The positions are textbook– right out of the Royal Navy Field Training Handbook, H.M.S.O., 1926:
Plate 43, for reference. Note the Tar in the manual has a larger MK VI Webley and canvas holster.
IWM (A 1198)
The wheelguns are early (likely Mk Vs) bird’s head gripped 3-inch Webley .455s, weapons Gunner Bisson was no doubt well acquainted with as they were first adopted in 1913 and used in the Great War. The leather holsters, for the most part, seem to be for the bigger MK VI.
As most revolver training seems to have been done aboard a ship, the fact that Gunner Bisson is conducting the evolution at a shore establishment may point to the trainees being selected for dockside or armory security duty.
Capping a selection process that had been started in 1974 for a new Short-Range Recovery (SRR) Aircraft to replace the aging HH-52 Sea Guard, the Coast Guard accepted the first of 96 HH-65 Dolpins for service on 14 November 1984.
They entered service in the branch’s then-standard red-white and blue full-color livery, complete with racing stripe.
Official caption: November 1984. HH-65 “successor” replacing the venerable HH-52A, a USCG workhorse for decades. USCG Historian’s Office Photo.
The first Dolphin det was CGAS New Orleans, which stood up in 1985. USCG Historian’s Office Photo.
In this work from the U.S. Coast Guard Art Program 2014 Collection, “Search Light” ID# 201414, An Air Station Miami MH-65 Dolphin flies low over a small boat station crew in turbulent waters of Biscayne Bay to conduct search and rescue training exercises. In order to be prepared for emergencies occurring at any time, crew members routinely complicate training exercises by performing them at night. (U.S. Coast Guard Art Program work by Karen Loew)
In those past 40 years, the Dolphin has flown 1,828,835 hours combined in USCG service, saving 13,828 lives, assisting another 13,974 in danger, and conducted 445,304 hoists.
Not too shabby.
Still “flying yesterday’s helicopter tomorrow,” the Reagan-era HH-65s were given a service life extension and became the Multi-Mission Cutter Helicopter (MCH), now in its MH-65E Echo upgrade variant which is anticipated to be in operation well through 2027.
Although they have been in hundreds of engagements and campaigns since 1775, only a handful of fights are noteworthy enough to have shaped the Marine Corps for generations and echo throughout history, becoming as much bywords among those who have earned the Eagle Globe & Anchor as “Valhalla” was to Norse warriors.
The storming of Chapultepec Castle in 1847 (“From the Halls of Montezuma”), Presley O’Bannon’s Marines at Derne in 1805 (“To the Shores of Tripoli”), Belleau Wood in 1918 (“Teufel Hunden“), Guadalcanal in 1942 (The Southern Cross constellation), Iwo Jima in 1945 (raising the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi), the “Frozen Chosin” in 1950, Hue City in 1968 (the Dong Ba Tower and the later personification of “Animal Mother” and the gang) will endure with the Marines much as the Royal Scots will always mark Waterloo, the Rifles (Gloucestershires) will remember the Imjin River, the Legion will celebrate Camerone Day, and the 101st/82nd Airborne will “own” Overlord.
Operation Phantom Fury, the six-week so-called Second Battle of Fallujah fell broadly on the shoulders of four Marine rifle battalions (3rd Bn/1st Marines, 3rd Bn/5th Marines, 1st Bn/8th Marines, and 1st Bn/3rd Marines) and a LAV company (Charlie Company “Warpigs,” 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion) in November-December 2004, will surely join that pantheon.
With that in mind, check out the most current 88-page USMCU history on the subject, and these deep dive videos (some over an hour in length and very well done) that were recently dropped in the past week.
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Warship Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024: One Busy Bug
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-684905
Above we see the Balao-class fleet submarine USS Bugara (SS-331), in her gun-less Fleet Snorkel configuration, off Oahu on the 14th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Commissioned some 80 years ago this week on 15 November 1944, you wouldn’t think she’d even have a chance to get in the Big Show before the war ended.
You’d be very wrong about that.
The Balaos
A member of the 180+-ship Balao class, she was one of the most mature U.S. Navy diesel designs of the World War Two era, constructed with knowledge gained from the earlier Gato class. U.S. subs, unlike those of many navies of the day, were “fleet” boats, capable of unsupported operations in deep water far from home. The Balao class was deeper diving (400 ft. test depth) than the Gato class (300 feet) due to the use of high-yield strength steel in the pressure hull.
Able to range 11,000 nautical miles on their reliable diesel engines, they could undertake 75-day patrols that could span the immensity of the Pacific. Carrying 24 (often unreliable) Mk14 Torpedoes, these subs often sank anything short of a 5,000-ton Maru or warship by surfacing and using their deck guns. They also served as the firetrucks of the fleet, rescuing downed naval aviators from right under the noses of Japanese warships.
Some 311 feet long overall, they were all-welded construction to facilitate rapid building. Best yet, they could be made for the bargain price of about $7 million in 1944 dollars (just $100 million when adjusted for today’s inflation) and completed from keel laying to commissioning in about nine months.
An amazing 121 Balaos were completed through five yards at the same time, with the following pennant numbers completed by each:
Cramp: SS-292, 293, 295-303, 425, 426 (12 boats)
Electric Boat: 308-313, 315, 317-331, 332-352 (42)
Manitowoc on the Great Lakes: 362-368, 370, 372-378 (15)
Mare Island on the West Coast: 304, 305, 307, 411-416 (9)
Portsmouth Navy Yard: 285-288, 291, 381-410, 417-424 (43)
Our subject was the first (and only) U.S. warship named for the common label for the Rainbow surfperch (Hypsurus caryi), a multicolored little guy found along the coast of California. Laid down on 21 October 1943 at Groton, Connecticut by the Electric Boat Co, she was launched on 2 July 1944, and sponsored by Mrs. Anna A. Perry, the wife of Annapolis All-American football legend Capt. Lyman Spencer “Pop” Perry (USNA ’19), who at the time was serving as a Commodore of training operations on the West Coast.
80-G-448203
Commissioned at the U.S. Submarine Base, New London, on 15 November 1944, Bugara’s plankowner skipper was T/CDR Arnold Frederic Schade (USNA ’33). He was the youngest submarine commander in the Navy for a time and started the war on the training boat USS R-12 (SS 89), then was XO on the famed USS Growler (SS 215) when his commander in February 1943, CDR Howard Walter Gilmore, earned the MOH the hardest way.
In all, the 32-year-old Schade was the veteran of eight previous war patrols, including the last two as Growler’s skipper. He already had a Navy Cross and Silver Star on his jacket for sinking a trio of Japanese destroyer leaders on the 4th of July 1942 and for five other ships on the second patrol.
Bugara’s crew was one of veterans, no surprise as the Navy had been at war for three hard years when it was formed. Of the sub’s nine officers that made up her wardroom and seven chiefs in her goat locker, they counted no less than 73 war patrols among them, including one LT (j.g) with the unintentionally ironic last name of “Sinks” who had nine patrols on his own.
After abbreviated shakedowns and post-delivery maintenance, Bugara left New London for the Pacific via Panama on Christmas Day 1944. After all, there was a war on.
First Patrol
This overhead view of the Bugara (SS-331) was taken during torpedo practice firings off Panama Bay in January 1945 while heading to the Pacific. The torpedo retrieving davits are rigged, which are used for hauling the practice torpedo out of the water. Note at this point she only has one 5″/25, forward, as well as a twin 40mm Bofors aft. USN Archive photo # 19-N-76588.
Bugara cleared Pearl Harbor on 21 February 1945 on her 1st War Patrol and steamed directly to recently secured Saipan, ordered to patrol north of Luzon, Philippines in support of the Iwo Jima campaign.
A snooze fest with Japanese shipping already largely sanitized from the area, she fought off a typhoon and had to crash dive for several enemy aircraft while on the surface. In fact, she encountered far more fellow Allied submarines on patrol– American (USS Perch, Besugo, Blueback, Tuna, Tigrone, Puffer, Spot, Sea Fox, Hake, and Pargo), British (HMS P-248) and Dutch (Hr.Ms. K-14)– than she did anything else.
Disappointingly, the only Japanese vessels she spotted that were large enough to warrant a torpedo were marked as hospital ships. The only “action” her crew saw was in destroying a floating mine via gunfire.
It was essentially a qualifying cruise, with 29 of the 36 crewmembers who lacked their “Dolphins” earning them while underway.
On 21 April 1945, Bugara ended her inaugural patrol at the big Allied sub base at Fremantle, Australia after steaming 13,724 miles in 59 days.
Award of a Combat Insignia was not authorized for the patrol by COMSUBPAC.
Schade noted, “Morale of all hands is high despite the lack of combat opportunity.”
Second Patrol
After a three-week turnaround that included installing a second 5″/25 on her aft deck– the so-called gunboat submarine configuration— and director antennae for her APR, on 16 May 1945 Bugara sailed out of Fremantle for her 2nd War Patrol, ordered to hunt in the South China Sea off Hainan and serve as a floating “Log Joint” lifeguard station for aircrews downed at sea during the Okinawa campaign.
As on her first patrol, Bugara met or operated with other Allied subs on just about every day she was underway, and only a few local native craft– Chinese junks from which she would barter cigarettes for fresh fish– were spotted. Likewise, while on her first patrol, she often had to cope with Japanese aircraft, they too were scarce and instead, she typically logged voice contacts with passing four-engine Navy PB4Y Privateers.
On 20 June 1945, Bugara ended her monotonous 36-day patrol at recently liberated Subic Bay, where, in a twist of fate, she tied up next to the new Fulton-class sub tender USS Howard W. Gilmore (AS-16), named after Schade’s old boss on Growler.
Bugara logged zero enemy contacts despite the fact she steamed 10,118 miles across the Western Pacific, waters that the Empire had owned just a year prior.
Award of a Combat Insignia was not authorized for the patrol by COMSUBPAC.
Such boring late-war patrols often drove eager submarine skippers to think out of the box to find a fight.
For instance, in April 1945, USS Bluegill under LCDR Eric Barr landed some Australian Commandos followed by a short party of his own on the deserted low-lying reef of Pratas, some 160 miles southeast of Hong Kong, and “captured it.”
57 Sunk!
Shifting operations further south where the Japanese may still have some naval and merchant assets and with the new Loran navigation system installed, on 14 July 1945 Bugara departed Subic Bay to begin her 3rd War Patrol, ordered to the relative backwater of the Gulf of Siam where the Japanese had been unabated since early 1942.
The 29-day patrol report makes absolutely great reading and I cannot recommend it strongly enough.
On the night of 23 July, she put a “Commando Party ashore north of Lem Chong Pra– armed to the teeth with demolition equipment,” but had to take them back off the next morning just before dawn “highly embarrassed as the jungle had been so thick they couldn’t get off the beach.”
While a six torpedo spread against a small Japanese convoy on the early morning of 20 July yielded no hits– all of the fish running deeper than their settings– she had much better luck with her guns. In fact, while a normal load of “fish” was 24 torpedoes, Bugara had instead left Subic with just 12 (apparently worthless) torpedoes but with a full 240 rounds for her 5-inchers including 60 rounds of VT, stowing four racks full of ammo in her torpedo room instead.
In all, she made contact with 62 small surface vessels and, after finding them to be under Japanese control, sent at least 57 to the bottom in a series of one-sided gun actions over the fortnight between 24 July and 7 August, many in the dark.
From her War Patrol report:
She even ran into a batch of canoe-borne Malay pirates while in mid-attack on a Chinese schooner and performed actions worthy of the days of Stephen Decatur and Edward Preble.
In all, she fired 201 rounds of 5-inch, 291 of 40mm, and 400 of 20mm, finding in fact that the VT fuzed shells were not ideal as they were fired typically too close (within 600 yards on average) to arm.
Realizing that many of the crews on these wooden coasters and schooners were natives working under threat of death, Bugara’s crew went to great lengths to save them, even though on one occasion she had to submerge when a strange aircraft approached and left her rescues bobbing in the Gulf of Siam for a few minutes until she surfaced again after it had passed. Keep in mind that during this period she was working in typically just 10 fathoms (60 feet) of water, almost bottoming when completely submerged.
This also allowed her to glean some good old-fashioned HUMINT, with one particularly friendly Chinese who spoke pidgin English kept aboard for a couple of weeks as a translator. Schade included it with a wish list of items should he be sent back to the area:
On 17 August 1945, Bugara ended her final patrol of WWII at Fremantle, two days after Japan announced its unconditional surrender. Bugara and her crew were finally awarded the Submarine Combat Insignia for a patrol.
Few late-war subs could beat her record of “bunny bashing” in gun actions. The only one I can think of was Bill Hazzard in USS Blenny (SS-324) which bagged 62 mischievous Japanese vessels.
Bugara’s 3rd Patrol was the subject of at least one patch by her crew, emblazoned with a “57” on a hapless skull.
Bugara’s WWII patches. NHHC 2017.001.020 and NHHC 2017.001.021.
Sent with SubRon 5 to Subic Bay in September, she patrolled local waters there into mid-November when her squadron was ordered to clear Japanese-held islands in the South China Sea. This included Bugara sending large and heavily armed landing forces ashore at Tizard Bank and Itu Aba, where all they found were destroyed weather and radio stations.
Arriving back at San Diego in February 1946, three months later, she was back in Pearl Harbor, SubRon 5’s next home port.
There, as part of Operation Road’s End, on 28 May 1946, Bugara successfully sank her only Japanese ship via torpedo– the captured Type AM (I-13-class) submarine I-14in a test of the new Mark 10-3 exploder– which worked.
A huge aircraft-carrying submarine (the largest submarines ever built until U.S. Poseidon SSBNs of the 1960s), I-14 was sent to the bottom in deep water off Barber’s Point at deliberately unrecorded locations along with four other captured enemy boats (I-400, I-401, I-201, and I-203) to keep their technology out of Soviet hands.
I-14 and I-400 alongside USS Proteus (AS-19), in Japanese home waters, after WWII. Note: the crew of deck and another sub (unidentified) along in the background. NH 50387
These boats, had the war gone on long enough, were part of a Japanese plan to wage biological warfare against cities in Southern California, in retaliation for the U.S. firebombing of Japanese cities, or alternatively an attack on the Panama Canal– keep that in mind the next time someone says the A-Bombs didn’t have to be dropped.
To prove to Stalin that these went to Davy Jones, the Navy filmed the sinking of all these big I boats– in beautiful color.
Bugara received three battle stars for her service in World War II, one for taking part in the Iwo Jima campaign (12-16 March 1945), one for Okinawa (17 March to 4 April 1945, and one for her third patrol (14 July 45 – 17 Aug 45) as well as an Occupation Service clasp for July- August 1948 when she returned to the area on a West Pac patrol.
Korea
Stationed at Pearl Harbor when the Norks crossed the 38th Parallel into South Korea in June 1950, she was soon sent forward on a series of war patrols off the embattled peninsula that was broken up by a five-month Fleet Snorkel conversion at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in late 1951 that saw her guns landed, a snorkel fitted along with better sensors, and a new, streamlined fairwater that covered her scopes installed.
Compare these two silhouttes.
Bugara received two Korean War battle stars during the conflict, logging four periods in theatre (5 Oct-28 Nov 50, 20 Jan-18 Jun 51, 20 Apr-4 Jun 54, and 14-27 Jul 54).
She also survived a crack-up during the conflict with the escort USS Whitehurst (DE-634) that left both vessels damaged but gratefully without any casualties, and each soon returned to work.
That’s not going to buff out
By August 1955, she was transferred to San Diego as part of SubRon 3.
USS Bugara (SS-331), May 1956. Shown while operating off San Diego. 80-G-696504
Same as above. 80-G-696503
USS Bugara (SS-331) off Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, December 7, 1955. 80-G-684904
She would fall into a decade of drills training evolutions, shipyard availabilities, and regular WestPac deployments and SEATO exercises where she would typically interact with the growing Japanese, Filipino, Australian, and Taiwanese fleets.
USS Bugara with an S-2 Tracker overhead, likely in an ASW exercise. Submarine Forces Museum
She also got a bit of payback against tin cans for her Whitehurst damage.
In April 1958 while using a practice torpedo against USS Yarnall (DD-541), which was set to run at 30 or 40 feet, it actually ran at 10 and smacked the Fletcher class destroyer on the port bow.
Yarnall’s skipper radioed, “We’ve been hit and are taking on water.”
Bugara’s skipper offered assistance.
Yarnall’s captain replied, “You can go to hell!”
Then came…
Vietnam
During the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, no less than 60 different submarines were operational off Vietnam at some time between 1964 and 1975, many staying long enough to earn campaign stars. Most, 42, were old “smoke boats,” such as Bugara, including many of her sisters. Eighteen others were modern SSNs which were utilized more sparingly.
Vietnam War. June 1969. Sailors aboard the guided missile frigate USS Brooke (DEG 1) watch as the Gato-class submarine USS Bluegill (AGSS 242) travels on the surface. Official U.S. Navy photo (K-74080)
In 1968, at the request of COMNAVFORV RADM Kenneth L. Veth, the Seventh Fleet deployed a submarine just off the coast of Sihanoukville (Kampong Saom) Cambodia to monitor shipping traffic. COMNAVFORV and 7th Fleet later pioneered tracking inbound gun-carrying trawlers passing through the strait between the Chinese mainland and Hainan with submarines working with over-the-horizon P-3s. The result was the ability to track a trawler’s passage, sight unseen, with the final act being an interception by surface assets and destruction. Sculpin in one known 1972 incident, tracked a Chinese trawler from its homeport across some 2,500 miles to the Southern coasts of South Vietnam, where it was sent to the bottom by the RVN Navy.
Communications intelligence personnel on board the submarine intercepted a message from the trawler that made clear the enemy was unaware of the submarine trailing her until the last hours of the mission. During the passage from Hainan, the submarine’s sonarmen became intimately familiar with the trawler’s distinctive shaft and propeller sounds. Periscope photographs of the white-colored trawler confirmed their analysis.
They also performed submerged lifeguard duty for downed aviators between Hanoi and Haiphong and the carriers on Yankee Station.
A U.S. Navy Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 2 (HS-2) “Golden Falcons” sits on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CVS-12) for a deployment to the Western Pacific and Vietnam from 12 August 1965 to 23 March 1966. In the background is the Fleet Snorkel Balao-class submarine USS Segundo (SS-398).
Others, such as Perch and Tunny, would carry out commando raids near shore. Submarines carried UDT 11 and UDT 12 frogmen to their dangerous missions in Operations Starlite, Jackstay, Dagger Thrust, Blue Marlin, and scores of other amphibious operations during the war.
Some, such as USS Salmon (SSR-573), would lay mines off North Vietnamese harbors.
They also served as an OPFOR “tame wolf” for the carriers’ escorts, embarked SH-2/3s, and land-based P-3 Orions to keep their ASW skills sharp should a Russki boat come poking too close.
A U.S. Navy Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 8 (HS-8) “Eightballers” from USS Bennington (CVS-20) is seen flying over an unidentified Fleet Snorkel conversion submarine during the carrier’s deployment to the Western Pacific and Vietnam from 30 April to 9 November 1968.
Many of these submarines still have the exact details of their Vietnam service classified. They don’t call it the “Silent Service” for nothing.
Those who tallied up multiple Vietnam campaign stars included USS Grayback (8 stars), Razorback (5), Tunny (5), Barbel (4), Bluegill (4), Bonefish (4), Sea Fox (4), Swordfish (4), Tang (4), Salmon (3), Scamp (3), Tiru (3), Wahoo (3), Barb (2), Blueback (2), Bonefish (2), Carbonero (2), Pomfret (2), and Rasher (2).
Our girl Bugara beat out all but Grayback and received an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal and seven campaign stars for her service during the Vietnam War.
Bugara was, by most accounts, the first submarine ordered into Vietnamese waters with a war face on since WWII, assigned to Task Force 77 for operations in the South China Sea as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964.
In 1965, Bugara passed her 6,000th dive on her 21st birthday.
Steaming cross-Pacific in 1966 allowed her the rare treat of “Tying the Knot” by doing surfaced and submerged 360-degree turns at both the Equator and the 180th meridian.
She appeared in several films and broadcasts highlighting the American Navy in Vietnam as she was one of the few subs to make port calls in Thailand (Bangkok, Ko Sumui, and Satahib) and Vietnam (DaNang) in addition to her regular WestPac calls at Subic Bay, Australia (Perth and Geraldton), Yokosuka, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (Kaohsiung and Keelung).
On 7 July 1967, she loaded and fired four exercise torpedoes. She also carried one war shot torpedo, serial #63813 which she would use on the 11th to send the stricken Buckley-class destroyer escort ex-USS Currier (DE-700) to the bottom in deep water off California.
ex-USS Currier (DE-700) SINKEX by USS Bugara, 1967. (Photo: Bugara Veterans’ Group)
Close up. (Photo: Bugara Veterans’ Group)
Currier, who had received two battle stars for WWII service and one for Korea, had been with the Fleet Sonar School since 1954 and was sent to mothballs for seven years before her SINKEX.
Part of Bugara’s 1968 enlisted crew with non-reg black berets of the type commonly available in Vietnamese markets, complete with embroidered Dolphin insignias. (Photo: Bugara Veteran’s Site)
With the ASW vendetta between The Bug and the 7th Fleet’s escorts continuing, in 1969 she was hit by a practice MK 44 torpedo shot by an American destroyer. The torpedo failed to shut down as it was expected to, causing a big hole in Bugara’s aft superstructure. While the exercise torp was never recovered, months later its transducer and nose of the torpedo were found in a space outside of the pressure hull below the aft torpedo tubes.
Her 12th and final post-Korea WestPac cruise was capped in August 1969 when she arrived home in San Diego. She logged her 7,000th dive later that year.
Despite a year-end yard period and battery renewal that would have bought Bugara another half-decade of service, the first week of January 1970 instead brought a flash from the CNO that the five remaining Fleet Snorkel boats (our girl plus USS Medregal, Segundo, Carbonero, and Sabalo), considered too obsolete to transfer overseas much less to keep in service, were to be prepped for use as mobile targets for Mk. 48 torpedo service weapon tests.
Bugara (SS-331) possibly off San Diego, 11 June 1970. Note the four-man MK 7 Mod 6 swimmer delivery vehicle (SDV) on her pressure hull. Photo courtesy of Cole Smith and atlanticfleetsales.smugmug.com. Via Navsource
Bugara in the end cheated to torpedo its meal and made her final dive on her own terms.
Decommissioned and Stuck from the Naval Register on 1 October 1970, ex-Bugara was slated to be expended in a SINKEX off the Washington coast.
However, in the tow from Mare Island to her death ground, our girl sank in a towing accident in the Strait of Juan de Fuca about 4 miles NW of Cape Flattery on 1 June 1971, with no injuries or lives lost. The next day, the Navy sent an NRF reserve ship out from Tacoma, USS Uhlmann (DD-687), to find the sunken hulk with sonar, and later DevGroupOne sent out an early deep-diving robot to film Bugara upright on the ocean floor.
In all, she stacked up a full dozen battle/campaign stars– three for WWII, two for Korea, and seven in Vietnam. In addition to the 57 “little boys” she sent to the bottom in 1945 in gun actions, she also deep-sixed a big Japanese I boat postwar and a tin can that was past its prime. All in all, not a bad run in 26 years.
Epilogue
Little remains of Bugara on dry land. Her WWII Jolly Roger-style battle flag has faded into history and I believe her bell was still aboard when she sank.
She rests 800 feet below the surface of what is now the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.
In September 2008 ex-USS Bugara was surveyed by NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer as part of that oceanographic vessel’s shakedown cruise in a test of her state-of-the-art multibeam sonar system (Survey ID EX0801).
In 2017, she was surveyed as part of a larger expedition by NautilusLive.
She had a fairly active veteran’s group that, from what I can tell, had their last reunion in 2017 and has been offline for the past several years (archived here). They still maintain a group of images on Flickr, heavy on those released by NautilusLive.
She had 16 skippers between 1944 and 1970, the most noteworthy of which was Arnold Schade. Once he left Bugara in February 1946 he went on to other submarine commands, including SUBCOMLANT, a role in which he advised President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Commander Middle East Force in 1963-64, he earned the Legion of Merit and later pinned a Gold Star to his Distinguished Service Medal. VADM Schade retired in 1971 after 38 years of service– ironically the same year as Bugara.
Schade passed at the age of 91 in San Diego and is buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, Section CBEE, Row 2, Site 121.
She also had the deepest-dived Navy man in history as part of her wardroom during the Cold War. Bugara’s XO in 1962-63 was LCDR Don Walsh. Two years before being piped aboard the sub, he and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard, while aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste (DSV-1), made the record maximum descent in the Challenger Deep, dropping into the darkness to 35,813 feet.
The world’s record descent, man’s deepest dive, had taken nine hours.
Krupp Sphere to Bathyscaph Trieste, 1960. Jacques Piccard center left and Lieutenant Don Walsh stand next to the sphere alongside an unidentified naval officer and civilian. National Museum of the U.S. Navy Photograph. NMUSN-4764
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.
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