While I often focus on the battleship as a machine, it would be a mistake to neglect the men who ran them. I've previously talked about life aboard Iowa, but one interesting aspect I did not discuss was the art created by the crew.
There are many pieces of art scattered around the ship. Some of them were in the most public areas, such as the mess decks and wardroom. Read more...
0930, 45 miles off the coast of Scotland. The men of the Grand Fleet peer into the haze hanging over the North Sea, looking for the High Seas Fleet. For the first time since the start of the war, essentially the entire British Fleet is assembled. Not just the Grand Fleet, from Scapa and Rosyth, but also the ships from Dover and Harwich, who had guarded the Channel and fought the vicious inshore war against the German light units based in Belgium. Joining them are a French armored cruiser and two destroyers, and the 6th Battle Squadron from the United States. Every ship is flying as many ensigns as possible, for today is the day the High Seas Fleet comes to be interned.3
When the Armistice had been signed ten days previously, the plan was to intern the bulk of the German surface fleet in a neutral country.4 Norway and Spain both demurred, so it was decided that 10 battleships, 5 battlecruisers, 8 light cruisers and 50 destroyers would steam to Britain and be placed under caretaker crews until they could be disposed of under the final peace treaty.5 One battleship and one light cruiser are in yard hands, but the other ships sailed on schedule. One destroyer fell victim to a mine on the journey, but the other 70 ships arrived safely at the rendezvous. Waiting for them are 370 ships and 90,000 men, arranged in two lines to guard the approaching warships. Read more...
It's time for our regular open thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.
The Naval Institute Press Holiday Sale is here! This is an excellent chance to stock up on naval books for the coming year, as they give 50% off a bunch of books, and free shipping. I've only included items that are specifically on sale, either for Christmas (which runs through 12/14, but was extended a couple times last year) or in their normal "Clear the Decks" clearance. Members get 40% off more books, and the $40 web membership can be well worth it. Shipping is $5.50 for the first book and $3.50 for more books the rest of the year. In the process of making my own list, I also selected a few works that I think would be of interest to readers here. Yes, I do own every single one of these, and there's only a few I haven't read cover to cover.
First, they're selling the History of US Naval Operations in WWII bundle again. This is an excellent series, going into surprising detail on everything the USN did in WWII. I gave a couple sets as presents last year.
Second, a bunch of Norman Friedman stuff is on sale. His seminal US Battleships: An Illustrated Design History, the new British Battleships of the Victorian Era and its sequel British Battleships 1904-1945 are all 50% off. Other works available cheaply include US Submarines Since 1945, Revised Edition, US Aircraft Carriers, Fighters Over the Fleet, and the excellent Network-Centric Warfare. Also, the incredible Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems can be had for only $40.
From other authors we have Nicholas Jellicoe's Jutland: The Unfinished Battle (which formed the basis for my series), Kaigun, on the Japanese Navy, R A Burt's British Battleships 1919-1945, British Aircraft Carriers by David Hobbs, and the superb Nelson's Navy.
Overhauled posts include Iowa parts three, four, and five, Ballistics, US Battleships in World War II, all three parts of The Battleships of Pearl Harbor, and The Battle of Lissa.
When the Korean War broke out, the USS Missouri was the only battleship still in active service with the US Navy. She was President Truman's favorite ship, because she'd been sponsored by his daughter and named after his home state, and he'd kept her active against the advice of the military establishment. Even her grounding on Thimble Shoal was not enough to persuade him to retire her6 and this proved fortuitous when the Korean War broke out in June of 1950, the North Korean assault sending the South Koreans reeling back to a small corner of the country near Pusan.
When the invasion began, Missouri was on a training cruise. Initially the training schedule continued despite the war, but in August, she was ordered to drop the midshipmen off and hurry to Korea, to support the upcoming invasion of Inchon. On the way, she encountered a hurricane which did enough damage to require a week in Pearl Harbor for repair and swept several helicopters over the side. On a training shoot in Hawaii, a mistake with the fire control system resulted in a constant range going to the guns, which missed the island they were shooting at entirely. Read more...
A little over a year ago, while I was moving from LA to Oklahoma, I wrote a short series on commercial air travel at SSC. I've decided to repost it here in the Friday block. I don't plan to write any more on the topic, but I thought you guys would enjoy it. Hopefully, it at least helps make your next interaction with the airline industry make more sense.
First, I’m going to discuss how and why airlines sell seats the way they do. The basic principle is that they want to get paid as much as possible to move people between A and B, and do so as cheaply as possible. But there are lots of combinations of A and B, and lots of different kinds of people who want to go between them, so the airlines have very complicated rules in place to maximize their revenue. Read more...
There have been a couple of interesting naval news stories recently, and I figured I'd offer my take.
First, the recent sinking of the floating drydock that was carrying Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia's only aircraft carrier. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, the drydock sank, and it was only fast work from the crew onboard Kuznetsov that kept her from following. The most common story is that the pumps keeping the drydock afloat lost shore power, and the diesel generators that were supposed to take over had no fuel. Read more...
In early April, 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a few desolate rocks in the South Atlantic. The British mobilized their fleet, sending it south by way of Ascension Island. On the 25th, a force retook South Georgia, a even smaller and more desolate island that Argentina had also captured, while the main task force closed in on the Falklands. May 1st saw the British launch their attack, first via bombers from Ascension and then from the carriers.7
May 1st had passed with little interference from the Argentinian Navy, but on the 2nd, Admiral Juan Lombardo, in charge of the naval defense of the islands, sent his forces into action. He had divided his available assets into four task groups, and sent three to the north of the islands, and one to the south. The most obviously dangerous group, TG 79.1, was composed of the carrier Veinticinco de Mayo, which had begun her career as the British Venerable, and two Type 42 destroyers, sisters of the ships that formed the core of the British fleet's air defense capability. This group was accompanied in the north by TG 79.2, two ex-US destroyers armed with Exocet anti-ship missiles.8 The last northern force was composed of three French-built Drummond class corvettes, also armed with Exocets. The southern force was built around the light cruiser General Belgrano, formerly USS Phoenix. She was escorted by another pair of Exocet-armed American destroyers. While it's easy to dismiss her 6" guns as obsolete in the age of supersonic fighters and guided missiles, the Belgrano was a serious concern for Admiral Woodward. His force was not set up to deal with a serious surface threat. The largest guns available were 4.5" weapons that were seriously outclassed by the Belgrano's guns, and their Exocets were not designed to kill armored ships. If the cruiser had managed to close within gun range of the carriers, probably at night or in bad weather, the results would likely have been disastrous. Read more...
A century ago, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the most destructive war history had ever seen came to an end.
For four years, Europe had torn itself apart. While popular memory is overwhelmingly dominated by the trenches and mud of the Western Front, the war was much wider than that. At sea, Britain and Germany battled to strangle each other, with Britain finally emerging victorious. Italy and Austria shed staggering quantities of blood in the Alps, in a war even more static than that in France, before Italy finally prevailed. In the east, Russia had collapsed a year earlier, after fighting a war in spaces too vast to allow the stalemate that had occurred in the west. In the Middle East, the British and French had finally defeated the Ottomans after a long and difficult campaign. They had taken the war to German colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, setting the stage for much of the Pacific War 30 years later.
1918 had been a tumultuous year. It had begun with great German victories, barely contained by the French and British, with the aid of the Americans now pouring into Europe. The three nations then went on the offensive, swiftly reclaiming the German gains and destroying their army. The writing was on the wall, and the Germans requested an armistice while the negotiations for a final peace took place.
The day a century ago when the war was brought to an end is commemorated as Armistice Day, Remembrance Day or Veterans Day. Approximately 10 million soldiers and 8 million civilians were killed between August of 1914 and November 1918, and millions more wounded. Remember them today.
And remember those who died later. The Allies never reached German soil, and many Germans believed that they had been betrayed instead of being defeated on the battlefield. Their desire for revenge would plunge Europe into another war 21 years later.
I've previously posted lists of museum ships in the US and Europe. This post completes the list of museum ships worldwide. As with the European one, it's sorted by country, then city, and comes from this list. I'd encourage you to go support the nearest one. If you'd like to review it for Naval Gazing, that's even better. Read more...
The 45th Infantry Division is an old and respected unit. Its subordinate regiments fought in WWI, and the division as a whole served with distinction across Sicily, Italy, France and Germany during WWII. It went to Korea, and its successor unit, the 45th Infantry Brigade, was deployed during Desert Storm and later to both Afghanistan and Iraq. The history of this unit, part of the Oklahoma National Guard, is chronicled in the excellent 45th Infantry Division Museum, located northeast of downtown Oklahoma City.
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