Tag Archives: sbs

Yomping

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From the first shots to the last, the Royal Marines were involved in ground combat in the Falklands in 1982.

To open the conflict, it was the platoon-sized Naval Party 8901 that fired 6,450 rounds of 7.62 (along with five 84mm and seven 66mm rockets) in defense of the initial Argentine landings on 2 April, suffering three casualties. One section of RMs, led by Corporal York was even able to displace and hide out in the sparse countryside for three days.

Providing the muscle for most of 3 Commando Brigade in Operation Corporate, the RMs sent all three Commando battalions at the time (40, 42, and 45) along with most of the crack SBS frogmen and even the Mountain and Arctic Warfare training school cadre down to liberate the islands. The men of NP 8901, repatriated by the Argentines, clocked back in to get some payback, forming J Company of 42 Commando.

Royal Marines lined up for weapons check-in the hanger of HMS Hermes in the South Atlantic on their way to the Falklands in 1982

A Westland “Junglee” conducting fast rope training with RM Commandos on the way to the Falklands. It was an 8,000 mile trip from the UK to the “front”

The first ground combat of the liberation came with the recapture on 26 April of the windswept island of South Georgia in Operation Paraquet, conducted by 42 Commando and assorted SAS/SBS operators. 

Members of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines hoisting the Union Jack and White Ensign over Grytviken, capital of South Georgia, April 1982. Before the Falkland Islands could be recaptured the island of South Georgia had to be taken. On 26 April 1982, after a short naval bombardment, a force of Royal Marines, Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS) went ashore and the Argentine garrison surrendered. NAM. 1988-09-13-22

Then came the landings on East Falkland, kicking off the 25-day land campaign to liberate the island, ending with the Argentine surrender of Port Stanley. 

THE FALKLANDS CONFLICT, APRIL – JUNE 1982 (FKD 178) A Royal Marine of 3 Commando Brigade helps another to apply camouflage face paint in preparation for the San Carlos landings on 21 May 1982. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205124181

40 Commando Royal Marines. Note the L1A1 Sterling sub machine guns .Falklands 1982

Royal Marine Snipers and a GPMG Gunner prior to the Assault on Mount Kent. Falkland’s War, May 1982. Note the L42 sniper rifle and early starlight scope

British Royal Marine armed with a Lee Enfield L42a1 during the 1982 Falklands war. AN PVS starlight scope sniper

Royal Marine RSM Chapman at Teal Inlet, a member of the elite Mountain Arctic Warfare Cadre with an M16, June 1982 Falklands. The MAWC fought it out with Argentine special forces for Top Malo House

Lacking transpo, 45 Commando famously “yomped” 56 miles in three days from their beach landing at San Carlos harbor to engage the Argentines, carrying everything they had on their backs.

“They faced bleak conditions – horrendous boggy terrain, wind, rain, sleet, low temperatures – not to mention a series of battles on hills outside the islands’ capital Stanley before reaching their objective,” notes the RN. “The Plymouth [based] unit then skilfully ousted Argentine defenders from the slopes of Mount Harriet in one of the final set-piece actions of the war before marching down into Stanley after the surrender.”

A column of 45 Royal Marine Commandos yomp towards Port Stanley. Royal Marine Peter Robinson, carrying the Union Jack flag on his backpack as identification, brings up the rear. This photograph, taken in black and white and color, became one of the iconic images of the Falklands Conflict. IWM FKD 2028

Retracing the Yomp in 2012: 

42 Cdo attack Mount Harriet

14 June, Royal Marines raised the Jack at liberated Government House, some 10 weeks after they saw it come down.

June 14 1982 Royal Marines prepare to raise the Falklands flag outside Government House

Royal Marine Commandos hoisting the original Union Jack at Government House, Port Stanley, 14 June 1982 NAM. 1988-09-13-24

The RN recently had three Falklands Royal Marines veterans; Russel Craig (then a 23-year-old RM), Stephen Griffin (also 23 at the time), and Marty Wilkin (then 26) talk to current recruits about their experiences in an incredible series, below:

Besides the initial invasion opposition, an outnumbered separate platoon of RMs famously gave the Argentines a “bloody nose” at South Georgia Island (followed later by Operation Paraquet by 42 Commando), and the men of 3 Cdo fought set-piece battles for the hills outside of Stanley at Mount Kent, Mount Harriet, and Two Sisters.

Of 255 British personnel killed in the conflict, the Royal Marines lost 27; two officers 14 NCOs, and 11 Marines, in addition to about three times that many wounded. While official battle honors fell on the Royal Navy (“Falkland Islands 1982”), RAF (“South Atlantic 1982”), and the British Army (“Falkland Islands 1982” with unit honors earned for “Goose Green,” “Mount Longdon,” “Tumbledown Mountain” and “Wireless Ridge”) for the campaign, as noted by Parliament:

“In accordance with a long-standing tradition which dates back more than 150 years, the Royal Marines do not receive battle honours for any individual operation or campaign in which they have been engaged. Instead, the corps motif of the globe surrounded by laurel is the symbol of their outstanding service throughout the world.”

The beret badge of the Royal Marines. The badge of the Royal Marines is designed to commemorate the history of the Corps. The Lion and Crown denote a Royal regiment. King George III conferred this honor in 1802 “in consideration of the very meritorious services of the Marines in the late war”. The “Great Globe”, itself surrounded by laurels, was chosen by King George IV as a symbol of the Marines’ successes in every quarter of the world. The laurels are believed to honor the gallantry they displayed during the investment and capture of Belle Isle, off Lorient, in April-June 1761.

Operation Tornado ’82

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The naval combat in the Falklands War of 1982 was hugely influential for today’s fleets as it reinforced just how hard modern ASW is, underlined the relevance of light aircraft carriers (England was set to dispose of them before the conflict), pointed out the danger of aluminum superstructures (although this is now falling on deaf ears it seems), and highlighted the nightmare of fighting even laughable quantities of anti-ship missiles.

Another thing it did was point out that naval gunfire support for ground combat troops operating in the littoral was still very relevant.

With the British deploying two light brigades (3 Commando and 5 Guards including three Royal Marine Commando battalions, two Para battalions, and a battalion of the Scots Guards, another of the Welsh Guards, and a Gurkha battalion) to retake the islands from upwards of 10,000 Argentines, the Brits had very little in the way of organic artillery the task force was able to bring with them 8,000 miles south.

While the Argies had access to modern 155mm guns, the Brits were handicapped with only five batteries of 105mm light howitzers (three from 29 Commando and two from 4th Field Artillery) which, with a precious handful of helicopters on hand, were slow to move forward to support the front line.

For instance, in one operation against Goose Green, where the Argentines had 30 guns emplaced and well-supplied, just 12 RN Sea King sorties were allocated to move artillery forward enabling 28 British artillerymen, three guns, and 1,000 shells to stage for the battle.

Likewise, the 40 or so Harriers flying from two carriers offshore had their hands full with attempting to secure local air superiority and could divert precious few sorties to support the Marines, Paras, and Guards ashore.

That’s where the assorted 4.5-inch Mark 8 and QF Mark VI naval guns of the British task force’s eight gun-armed destroyers and nine gun-armed frigates came in.

Chilean Frigate Almirante Condell (PFG-06) working her 4.5″/45 (11.4 cm) QF Mark VI in 1999. Two Leander frigates were built by Yarrows in Scotland for the Chilean Navy during the 1970s. The twin 4.5 is of the same type mounted on two RN frigates— HMS Yarmouth and HMS Plymouth– during the Falklands, each firing about 1K rounds during the short war. U.S. Navy Photograph No. 990705-N-5862D-001.

4.5″/55 (11.4 cm) Mark 8 Mod 0 on HMS St. Albans F83. Royal Navy Photograph. The Mark 8 was fitted to most of the gun-armed British frigates and destroyers in the Falklands.

Capable of delivering a 55-pound HE shell to targets up to 18,000 yards away (24,000 for the longer Mark 8), they also had a very high rate of fire, with even the older guns capable of 12-14 rounds per minute. With these small warships (most of the frigates hit 2,500-3,250 tons while the destroyers only went about 5,000) often still able to carry 800 to 1,000 shells in their magazines and able to operate in as little as five fathoms of seawater, they were called inshore to deliver the goods.

At Goose Green, HMS Arrow (F173) fired 22 pre-dawn Mk 8 star shells and 135 rounds of 4.5-inch HE in the course of a 90-minute bombardment. She would have fired more had her gun not jammed and put her out of action.

Dubbed Operation Tornado by the Royal Navy, individual frigates and destroyers were soon dispatched on nightly gun runs to plaster Argentine positions with harassment and interdiction fire (H&I) then fall back to the relative safety of deep water during the day. In their mission, they received shot correction from buried and heavily camouflaged commando patrols from SAS and SBS as well as ANGLICO teams from 148 Battery. Slated for disbandment just before the Falklands, the 30 or so gunners and observers of 148 (Meiktila) Battery Royal Artillery proved invaluable, calling very accurate fire down on Argentine bunkers, trenches, and guns.

At first, the “strafe” would only send less than 200 rounds downrange but this would soon double and even triple, with as many as 750 shells being the norm three weeks into the campaign.

One Argentine remembered after the war:

We were very demoralized at that time because we felt so helpless. We couldn’t do anything. The English were firing at us from their frigates and we couldn’t respond.

HMS Yarmouth (F101), an older modified Type 12 frigate laid down in 1957, fired over 1,000 shells from her main guns (twin 4.5s), mostly during shore bombardment that included supporting the Scots Guards during the Battle of Mount Tumbledown.

The Royal Navy Rothesay-class frigate HMS Yarmouth (F101) underway during the Falklands War on 5 June 1982. Yarmouth´s unofficial nickname was “The Crazy Y”. CC via Wikipedia

Her sister ship, the circa-1958 HMS Plymouth (F126) fired 909 4.5 inch shells and was the first British warship to enter liberated Port Stanley harbor.

In one harassment mission of Port Stanley’s airport, the destroyer HMS Cardiff (D108) fired 277 shells.

Besides shore bombardment runs, the frigate HMS Alacrity (F174) used her 4.5-inch gun to engage and sink the 3,000-ton Argentine supply ship ARA Isla de los Estados, which blew up after a hit ignited her cargo of jet fuel and ammunition. Likewise, Yarmouth intercepted and engaged the Argentine coaster ARA Monsunen with her twin 4.5 guns west of Lively Island, driving her aground.

These offshore bombardment missions also enabled the RN to set up Mirage/Skyhawk traps by taking a Type 42 destroyer delivering NGFS ashore and adding a Type 22 frigate to it which stood a further 10-20 miles out to sea. The idea was that the Type 42’s 4.5-incher would bring out an Argentine airstrike the next morning, which would be downed by the combined Sea Dart/Sea Wolf missiles of the two warships. This was known as a Type 64 group and was credited with bagging at least two Argentine Sky Hawks.

The missions, close to shore, proved dangerous. On 12 June 1982, the destroyer HMS Glamorgan (D19) was attacked with an MM38 Exocet missile, fired from an improvised shore-based launcher just after she supported the Royal Marines’ capture of the Two Sisters hill outside of Stanley. The Exocet claimed 14 of Glamorgan’s crew.

Nonetheless, the mission continued.

The frigate HMS Ambuscade (F172), according to her war diary, fired 58 rounds in the area of Port Stanley airfield on 30 May, went back for a second run on the night of 7/8 June during which she fired 104 shells. On the night of 13 June, the frigate fired 228 4.5-inch shells in support of 2 Para’s assault of Wireless Ridge in company with fellow tin cans HMS Active (220 rounds fired) and HMS Avenger (100 rounds fired). Not bad considering Ambuscade suffered from a cracked hull and broken stabilizers throughout the war.

Sadly, the only British civilian casualties of the Falklands War came from naval bombardment, with the frigate HMS Avenger (F185) landing shells on a residence just outside Argentine-occupied Port Stanley, killing three locals and wounding several others. The forward observer had not been aware of their presence in the area and, in post-war analysis, it was found that the ships’ gun beacon MIP radar malfunctioned and was set on the wrong datum.

4.5″/55 (11.4 cm) Mark 8 Mod 0 on HMS Avenger F185 in January 1992. U.S. Navy Photograph No. DN-SC-92-04971.

In all, some 8,000 4.5-inch shells were fired by Royal Navy escorts during the two-month Falklands Islands conflict, compared to some 17,000 105mm shells lit off by the Army’s gunners. In many cases, the larger naval shells, fitted with proximity fuses that detonated them 10 yards off the deck rather than after they were buried in the soggy sub-polar moss of the Falklands landscape, were considered more effective. 

Still, the lesson was learned and the Batch 3 Type 22 frigates, constructed after the Falklands, were designed to carry 4.5-inch guns whereas their preceding classmates were missile-only. Further, instead of disbanding, the elite forward observers of 148 Battery are still very much active as part of the Commando Gunners of 29 Commando.

Importantly, the Royal Navy today still mounts 4.5s on all of their frigates and destroyers– a factor the U.S. Navy, with its preference for a 57mm main gun on everything smaller than an Aegis destroyer, could probably learn from.

For more information on artillery used in the Falklands, see the relevant section in Firepower in Limited War by Robert Scales and the 27-page scholarly paper Under Fire: The Falklands War and the Revival of Naval Gunfire Support by Steven Paget.

Codename Snake Eyes and Jungle Green

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Royal Marines exercise “Codename Snake Eyes” circa 1960 documentary– in Color!— by the Central Office of Information for the Admiralty. A great way to spend a half-hour. 

The exercise involves a combined-arms amphibious attack on a fictitious Mediterranean island nation that looks suspiciously like Cyprus, complete with an airfield and radar station.

It is jolly good stuff, complete with pipe smoking, beards, Denison smocks, a wet predawn paradrop from an RAF Boxcar by SBS frogmen, Fleet Air Arm Vampires launched from an RN carrier conducting rocket attacks to soften things up, dory-landed (and Enfield/Sterling-armed!) Royal Marines from 45 Commando leaping ashore from LCVPs to complete a rock face free climb, then reinforced by Wessex helicopter-delivered 40 Commando (“choppers may be useful but they have no natural dignity”), finished off by LCM-landed 42 Commando (who finally have some FN FALs/L1A1s) on the third wave after NGFS from gun-armed cruisers.

And that’s just in the first 10 minutes!

Enjoy.

For a less varnished but no less fascinating look at Royal Marines at the sharp end, check out “Jungle Green,” a 1964 BBC documentary following an isolated 25-man long-range patrol/listening post of 40 Commando and their two Iban trackers some 50 miles deep in the bush in Borneo during the very Vietnam-ish Konfrontasi, the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation.

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021: Full Fathom Five

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021: Full Fathom Five

Here we see a painting by noted British maritime artist Charles David Cobb of HM Submarine Shakespeare (P221) acting as a beacon marker for the Allied invasion fleet at Salerno, 9 September 1943. If she looks at ease in the task, it was the vessel’s third set of landings in just 10 months– and she had a lot of war left to go.

As her name would suggest, our boat is a member of the Royal Navy’s expansive S-class or Swordfish-class of smallish diesel submarines completed across a 16-year run from 1929 to 1945. In all, some 62 of these 200-foot/900-ton (ish) subs were completed in three generations. Small enough for operations in constrained seas, they were ideal for work in the Mediterranean, a place where, sadly, many of the class are still on eternal patrol.

Our vessel is the second of the Royal Navy’s vessels to be named for the bard, English playwright William Shakespeare, with the first a Thornycroft-type destroyer leader of the Great War era that had been scrapped in 1936. While Old Bill stuck primarily to events on land, one of his more memorable lines has always stuck with me when concerning a battered ship on rough seas.

*Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell
Hark! Now I hear them � Ding-dong, bell.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I, Sc. II

*Incidentally, the title Full Fathom Five was also used for an installment of the WWII serial docuseries Victory at Sea on the U.S. Navy’s submarine campaign in the Pacific. 

Initial Service

Ordered in a 27-hull block of the 1940 shipbuilding Programme, Shakespeare was built at Vickers Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness, originally as P71. Her subclass could carry extra fuel in their main ballast tanks, giving them a longer range than previous classmates. Further, they had air conditioning, a vital bonus for vessels working in hot and tropical climes.

Leaving her builders on 8 July 1942, she worked up at Holy Loch and by 15 August 1942– a span of just five weeks– she left on her first war patrol from Lerwick, a short and uneventful stalk in the Norwegian Sea.

HMSM P 221, Stationary, undated. IWM FL 23028

British S class submarine HMSM SHAKESPEARE underway passing a quayside. 6 August 1942. IWM FL 6117

Her second patrol, from 7-23 September, was likewise quiet, helping to screen Northbound convoys PQ 18 and QP 14 headed to Russia.

Upon return, she was off to the Med, where her services were much in demand.

North Africa

Arriving at Gibraltar in late October, Shakespeare began her 3rd war patrol from there on All Saints Day 1942, on the eve of the Torch landings in North Africa. As part of that operation, she conducted periscope reconnaissance of the landing beaches off Algiers over a four-night period, launching a collapsible folbot kayak/canoe with two lieutenants to get a closer look– only to have them promptly captured by the Vichy French! On the night of 7/8 November, she surfaced and marked her two designated landing zones, Apple White Beach and Apple Green Beach, flashing her beacon seaward and transmitting a low-powered radio pulse to guide in the approaching landing craft.

After the landings started, she was immediately dispatched to run interference against responding Axis ships, staking out a patrol zone to the West of Sicily. In this, she came across a small convoy and fired four torpedoes at a big German freighter, no doubt taking supplies to Rommel. However, instead of chalking up a kill, all Shakespeare logged that night was a depth charge run from an escorting Italian subchaser.

Her new engines increasingly cranky, our sub made for Portsmouth by way of Gibraltar, arriving there 18 December.

“Refitting of H.M. Submarine Shakespeare.” 1941 watercolor by Sir Muirhead Bone N.E.A.C., H.R.W.S., H.R.S.A, via National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. PAJ2875

Back at it

By March 1943, with two new motors, Shakespeare was on the prowl in her 4th war patrol along the edges of the Bay of Biscay on the lookout for German blockade runners. After a brief stay at Gibraltar and from there Algiers, she was back in the Med.

Starting her 5th war patrol on 9 April, she made for Sardinia and survived a near-miss from Axis patrol planes.

British Submarine Shakespeare on the Warpath. 14 and 16 April 1943, Algiers. HM SUBMARINE SHAKESPEARE setting out on patrol. IWM A 16328

Her 6th patrol, leaving Algiers on 8 May for Corsica, was her first successful surface action, bagging a pair of old Italian schooners near the Strait of Bonifacio five days later, peppering the vessels with 52 shells from her deck gun. Releasing her battery again on the afternoon of 20 May, she loosed 20 rounds at the Italian-held airfield at Calvi.

Her 7th patrol left Algiers on 5 June and soon tangled with a German U-boat (unsuccessfully) that was spoiled by a blue-on-blue air attack.

Husky

Meanwhile, her 8th patrol, in early July, saw Shakespeare once again act as a submersible beacon during the Allied operations at off Sicily, as part of the Husky Landings. There were seven beacon submarines used in Husky: Safari, Shakespeare, and Seraph from Algiers lighting the way for the three American amphibious forces of the Western Naval Task Force, and Unrivalled, Unison, Unseen and Unruffled from Malta shepherding the four British amphibious forces of the Eastern Naval Task Force. Specifically, Shakespeare walked in Dime Force (TF81), landing the 1st “Big Red One” Infantry Division at Gela.

On our submarine’s 9th war patrol, leaving from Malta on 25 July, she carried four canoeing covert beach surveyors of No 5 COPP (Combined Operations Pilotage Party) who reccied off the Gulf of Gioia over a four-night period.

Robin Harbud (to the rear) and Sgt Ernest COOKE, Cookie to his friends, as they manhandle their canoe, used for Combined Operations Pilotage Parties (COPP), through the forward hatch of a submarine. IWM MH 22715 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205087979

It was during the patrol that Shakespeare brushed up against the two Italian light cruisers Eugenio di Savoia and Raimondo Montecuccoli, firing three torpedoes at long range (6,000 yards) with no success. There would be other occasions.

Avalanche

Her 10th war patrol, leaving Algiers on 24 August, included a mixed group of five No. 5 COPP and SBS cockleshell commandos, as well as a special Mine Detection Unit (MDU) for her Type 138 ASDIC set, bound for Salerno as part of the Avalanche Landings. Over the next two weeks, she undertook numerous periscope and folbot-borne beach reconnaissance missions while keeping a weather eye (and ear) peeled for mines. And boy did she find them.

As detailed by the NHHC:

Minefields in the Gulf of Salerno were first detected by HMS Shakespeare (P221), a British beacon submarine active in the area since August 29, 1943. Using magnetic detection devices, the submarine located a plethora of German “V” and Italian “I”, “J”, and “K” mines in the gulf, thus setting the stage for an extensive mine countermeasures operation.

The recon moved the planned release positions for the transports further offshore into safe water while arrangements for sweeps could be made. In all, special teams of sweepers would clear 275 sea mines from the waters around Salerno by the conclusion of the operation there and Shakespeare’s warning likely saved hundreds of lives.

But back to our sub and the Salerno landings.

Just before the balloon went up, Shakespeare was resting off Licosa Point on 7 September and sighted two large southbound Italian cruising submarines operating on the surface at sunset. The boats, the Argo-class Velella and Brin-class leader Benedetto Brin, had been dispatched as part of Piano Zeta (Zeta Plan) to interrupt the landings. However, it was our sub that did the interruption in the form of six torpedoes fired rapidly at a range of 800 yards, hitting Velella with at least four of those, sending the boat to the bottom with all hands.

Italian submarine Velella, Atlantic ocean, 9 March 1941 when she was operating from occupied France as one of the Regina Marina’s BETASOM boats. She was torpedoed by HMS Shakespeare on 7 September 1943

Velella was to be the last Italian submarine lost in combat, and her wreck was found in 2003, 8.9 miles from Licosa Point, in 450 feet of water.

The next day, she surfaced at 2135, lit her beacon seaward, and was soon met by the incoming Wickes-class destroyer USS Cole (DD-155), then two hours later transferred her COPP and SBS beach pilots to USS PC-624 for the run in to shore in individual LCMs acting as lead vessels headed to Green Beach with men of the 142nd Infantry Regiment from the Coast Guard-manned transport Dickman— the first landing by U. S. forces in Europe.

Her epic 10th war patrol ended four days later with arrival back at Algiers.

Shakespeare’s 11th patrol was uneventful and, switching to Beirut, she left on her 12th patrol, a sweep of the Aegean, on 21 October. She would sink the Greek two-masted caique Aghios Konstantinos with gunfire, a feat repeated with the caique Eleftheria on her 13th patrol in December.

Her work in the Med done, she sailed for Britain, arriving at Devonshire on 4 January 1944 for a six-month refit.

HMS/M SHAKESPEARE returning to Devonport after 19 months of operational activity in the Mediterranean. On the bridge of the SHAKESPEARE are, left to right: Lieutenant N D Campbell, RN, of Sevenoaks (Gunnery Officer); Lieutenant W E I Little-John, DSC, RANVR, of Melbourne, Australia (First Lieutenant); Lieutenant M F R Ainlie, DSO, DSC, RN, of Ash Vale, Surrey (Commanding Officer); Sub Lieutenant R G Pearson, RNVR, of Hitchin, Herts (Torpedo Officer); Lieutenant L H Richardson, RN, of Jersey, Channel Islands (Navigating Officer). Naval Radar: The conning tower of the submarine is showing a 291W Air Warning Set and 20mm DP Oerlikon over the stern. IWM A 21261

Officers of the SHAKESPEARE. Left to right: Sub Lieut R G Pearson, RNVR, of Hitchin, Herts (Torpedo Officer); Lieut W E Little-John, DSC, RANVR, of Melbourne, Australia (First Lieutenant); Lieut N D Campbell, RN,, of Sevenoaks (Gunnery Officer); Lieut L H Richardson, RN, of Jersey, Channel Islands (Navigating Officer); and Lieut M F R Ainslie, DSO, DSC, RN, of Ash Vale, Surrey (Commanding Officer). Note the QF 3-inch 20 cwt and the wavy stripes of the RNVR officers. IWM A 21262 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205153611

HMS SUBMARINE SHAKESPEARE, OF SICILY LANDING FAME, BACK HOME. 5 JANUARY 1944, DEVONPORT. THE SUBMARINE RETURNS AFTER 19 MONTHS OPERATIONAL ACTIVITY IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. (A 21263) The ship’s company of the SHAKESPEARE. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205153612

Her 14th patrol, a sortie off Scotland in the fall of 1944, was uneventful and served as more of a post-refit shakedown. By October, with the naval war in Europe rapidly sunsetting, Shakespeare was reassigned to the Far East.

On to the Orient

Crossing the Line, the age-old naval tradition. Via WWII Submarines’ page on Shakespeare 

Sailing via Gibraltar, Malta and Port Said to reach Aden in November, Shakespeare arrived at Trincomalee from where she sortied on her 15th war patrol on 20 December.

Shakespeare in the Far East. Note the camouflage and her jacks’ tropical uniform. Via WWII Submarines’ page on Shakespeare 

Assigned to sweep through the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, she drew her first Japanese kill on New Year’s Eve, sending the freighter Unryu Maru to the bottom after she fired a six-torpedo spread into a passing convoy in the Nankauri Strait, surviving the resulting depth charging.

Then, on 3 January 1945, our lucky British sub became the subject of a 50-hour running battle when she attempted to tangle on the surface with a Japanese supply ship in the Nicobar Islands. The action soon went wrong, and reinforcements in the form of the IJN minesweeper W-1 and land-based aircraft were called in. Before it was over, Shakespeare would fight off 25 air attacks, dodge 50 assorted bombs, shoot down a Japanese seaplane, and gunfight an armed freighter until it was dead in the water. For this, our submarine would see two of her crew killed and 14 wounded.

From VADM Sir Arthur Hezlet’s work on HM Submarines in WWII:

On 3rd January, she attacked a small, unescorted merchant ship, firing four torpedoes from a range of 3500 yards and missed. She then surfaced and opened fire with her gun, but almost at once sighted a patrol vessel approaching and prepared to dive. At this moment, the return fire from the merchant ship scored a hit on Shakespeare penetrating the pressure hull just abaft the bridge and causing very serious damage. Her wireless office was destroyed and an auxiliary machinery space flooded and a great deal of water was taken in to the engine and control rooms. She was unable to dive and furthermore her steering gear was damaged, one main engine was out of action as well as both electric motors.

Nevertheless, she struggled away on the surface and fought off both the merchant ship and the patrol vessel. She was unable to call for assistance but made for Trincomalee several days away across the Bay of Bengal. During the rest of the day, she repulsed no less than twenty-five air attacks with her guns, shooting one of them down but suffering fifteen casualties. She withdrew at her best speed all night and next day

For a detailed description of this fight, which could probably fill its own book, check out the WWII Submarines page which includes an amazing wartime photo album of Stoker James Patterson, one of her crew.

Some of the damage after she made it back to Trincomalee. Via WWII Submarines’ page on Shakespeare

You aren’t going to dive with that! Note the sandals and whites of the officers. Via WWII Submarines’ page on Shakespeare

Her salty crew, a much different image than in Devonshire the year before. Note the shell hole in her conning tower. Via WWII Submarines’ page on Shakespeare

A detail of the Roger, slightly different from the above, with three torches showing her role as an invasion beach beacon ship. Via WWII Submarines’ page on Shakespeare

A detail of some of the common symbols used on HMSMs during WWII

With all the damage to her pressure hull, it was decided that she could only be corrected back in the UK and as such she sailed, slowly and on the surface, back to Portsmouth, arriving 30 June. There, she was ultimately deemed unfit for repair post-war and was written off, the last Shakespeare in the Royal Navy.

She was scrapped at Briton Ferry in July 1946.

Specs, S-class, Group 3:

Displacement: 842 tons surfaced, 990 submerged
Length overall: 217 feet
Beam: 23.5 feet
Depth 11 feet
Diving depth: 350 feet
Machinery: 2 x 950hp diesels, 2 x 485 kW electric motors, 2 shafts
Speed Surface 15 knots, Submerged 10 knots (design)
Surface 14.75 knots, Submerged 9 knots (service)
Range: Surface: 6700 miles at 8 knots (design) on 92 tons fuel oil
Complement: 49
Radar: Type 291W Air Warning Set
Sonar: Type 129/138 ASDIC, augmented in 1943 with Mine Detection Unit (Type 148 40kHz?)
Armament :
6 x 21-inch bow tubes
1 x 21-inch stern tube
(13 Mark VIII torpedoes carried, max)
1 x QF 3-inch deck gun, forward
1 x 20mm Oerlikon AAA cannon, abaft the tower
3 x .303 Vickers guns on the tower

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Just frogmen doing frogmen stuff

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140121-N-KB563-148 CORONADO, Calif. (Jan. 21, 2014) Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUDs) students participate in Surf Passage at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. Surf Passage is one of many physically demanding evolutions that are a part of the first phase of SEAL training. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Michael Russell/Released)

In two separate incidents within the same week, quiet groups of maritime commandos were out getting it done.

From the U.S. Department of Defense:

Statement by Jonathan Hoffman, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs:

“U.S. forces conducted a hostage rescue operation during the early hours of 31 October in Northern Nigeria to recover an American citizen held hostage by a group of armed men. This American citizen is safe and is now in the care of the U.S. Department of State. No U.S military personnel were injured during the operation.

We appreciate the support of our international partners in conducting this operation.

The United States will continue to protect our people and our interests anywhere in the world.”

Word is the SEAL unit parachuted in from CV-22s, supported by a circling P-8A for comms and surveillance and an AC-130 gunship on standby if things went pear-shaped, then scratched six of seven kidnappers in short order.

One counterterrorism source told ABC News, “They were all dead before they knew what happened.”

Meanwhile, in the UK…

The SBS, the seagoing and much more low-profile nautical companion to the SAS, stormed the Greek-owned Liberian-flagged crude oil tanker Nave Andromeda off the Isle of Wight after seven Nigerian stowaways popped up and started threatening the merchant vessel’s 22-man crew, who retreated to a fortified compartment.

Ending a 10-hour standoff, 16 SBS operators boarded the ship, with some fast-roping from two Royal Navy Merlin helicopters and the others rappelling up the side from a rigid inflatable boat under the watchful eye of snipers in a Wildcat helicopter and the Royal Navy Type 23 frigate HMS Richmond. Clearance divers were also on hand if there were EOD needs. 

The entire ship was secured in just seven minutes and all stowaways were accounted for. 

It was not the first time in recent memory that SBS had to get to work in home waters, having boarded an Italian cargo ship, Grande Tema, in the Thames Estuary in 2018 after it had been hijacked by four Nigerian nationals.

‘You are two men in a £15 Folbot…’

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Commando officer Capt. Roger ‘Jumbo’ Courtney formed the now famous Special Boat Section (SBS) in 1940. Forerunner of today’s Special Boat Service, the unit used folding kayaks called folboats for small-scale raids.

These things:

Courtney wrote ‘The Compleat Folbotist’ [sic] in 1941, outlining the character of the kind of man suitable for this specialist task. Courtesy of the National Army Museum:

 


Onyx on the rocks, err ‘impact hydrography’

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While the RN committed a number of sexy modern nuclear-powered attack submarines to the Falkland Islands conflict in 1982– and they proved effective in making the Argentine Navy return to port after HMS Conqueror sank the WWII-era cruiser ARA General Belgrano with 323 lost at sea (among the bulk of that service’s losses in terms of humans on the butcher’s bill)– there was one creepy little diesel boat poking around close to shore.

El Snorkel has a great article from Lt Cdr Andy Johnson Submarine, Commander HMS ONYX (S21) during the conflict. An Oberon-class submarine, she was but 241-feet long and weighed only 2,400-tons, smaller than a WWII U.S. Navy fleet boat.

Commissioned in 1967, she had a cramped crew of 6 officers and 62 men and made the slow transit from the UK some 8,000nm south to the Falklands MEZ with a special 5 man diving chamber 10 MK 24, 2 Mk 20 and 11 Mk 8 torpedoes aboard.

She stopped halfway at windswept Ascension and picked up a team of British frogmen, flown ahead to await their ride south.

At Ascension Island, 12 May 1982, ONYX boarded SAS and SBS special forces personnel and supported them during a series of operations. IWM photo

Her shallow operating depth allowed her to creep in close to shore for commando and surveillance work in relatively uncharted areas where a nuke boat would be hard pressed. Officially, “her ability to operate silently close inshore enabled her to play an important role. In addition to providing a submarine deterrent and enforcing the exclusion zone surrounding the Islands, ONYX undertook reconnaissance, taking periscope photographs of enemy installations and likely landing areas for Special Forces operations.”

And it was sometimes very hairy.

From Johnson:

An effort to complete a reconnaissance mission at short notice nearly ended the patrol. Many of the charts used to navigate in those waters had not changed significantly since James Cook had first drawn them. The occasional soundings he made at that time were undoubtedly adequate for his small sailing vessel. They scarcely matched the requirements of a 2,500 ton submarine two centuries later. In consequence, ONYX discovered an uncharted pinnacle of rock in a most dramatic fashion – by running in to it whilst dived. Although everyone reacted admirably and control was quickly regained, it is probably safe to say the only people on board who appeared really calm were our ‘guests’ from special forces. Not entirely due to their steel nerves – no-one had time to explain to them what had happened! This piece of ‘impact hydrography’ put two out of the six forward torpedo tubes out of action. This was serious enough in itself, but was made worse since the two affected tubes were those used exclusively for wire guided torpedoes. As a result, the fore-ends’ crew had to reorganise our full torpedo load. This was akin to playing solitaire. However, they first had to make a free ‘hole’ by moving tons of additional equipment out into the rest of the submarine. Even then there were still weapons weighing tons suspended in mid-air as the reshuffle continued.

The rest here.

Shockwave-style shotguns, err, I mean ‘firearms’ now Texas-legal

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While pistol grip only shotguns have been around for years, the newest idea is the 14-inch barrel “firearm” in 12 gauge that gets the job done without a tax stamp required. Traditionally, shotguns crossed over into National Firearms Act territory when they were under 26-inches overall and/or had a barrel less than 16.

Now, with guns such as the Mossberg Shockwave, introduced at SHOT Show earlier this year, and Remington’s Tac-14, debuted in April at the National Rifle Association annual meeting, manufacturers are taking shotgun-based systems still just over 26-inches long and mounting a 14-inch barrel and, as the receiver used was born a “firearm” and not a shotgun, it’s all good when it comes to the NFA– though some state and local restrictions on short-barreled or “sawn-off” shotguns still apply.

One state that has tweaked their law is Texas, which, is ironically where the Shockwave is produced. You can buy one effective today.

More in my column at Guns.com

 

There are now over 5 million NFA items on the books, including 1.3 million suppressors

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The number of National Firearm Act items saw a huge jump in the past year — including a 50 percent increase in suppressor registration and 39 percent bump in short-barreled rifles registered — according to new data released by federal regulators.

The report provides an overview of the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, which is the federal list of all items, such as suppressors, SBRs, short-barreled shotguns, destructive devices and any other weapons logged under the NFA as of April, and updates figures released in February 2016.

In the 14-month period between reports, the total number of NFA items of all kinds has climbed to 5,203,489 — an overall increase of more than 800,000 items.

While the numbers of AOW’s, machine guns and SBSs all saw negligible increases, the biggest jumps in the 14-month interlude came in the numbers of registered SBRs and suppressors.

More in my column at Guns.com

Got to bump into some groovy hardware last week

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So I hung out at NRA Show for a few days last week. Got to see some cool new stuff and write about it.

Including Springfield Armory’s new XD-E hammer fired compact 9mm single stack


Which complemented FN’s new 509.

So now FN is making striker-fired guns while Springfield XD is making hammer fired. What the what?

Then there was Colt’s new 70 series Gold Cup Trophy and Competition models (yup, no firing pin block).

Those G10 scales, tho

And Savage’s Fox A Grade SXS double shotgun series, which are really sweet and feature bone and charcoal case color-finished receivers over black walnut furniture (though original Foxes are cheaper).

And nope, this one is not made in Turkey

But the coolest thing (that I am soon going to be T&E’ing, squeeeee) is Remington’s Tac-14 870 that I was able to get the first media peek at while touring Big Green’s Huntsville Factory prior to the show.

At 26.25 inches overall and with a Raptor Shockwave pistol grip, the 12-gauge’s 14-inch cylinder bore barrel is not a National Firearms Act regulated item as it is a “firearm” and not an SBS or AOW, thus no tax stamp is required under federal law, though state and local laws may apply.

I will for sure keep you posted on that one…

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