Raw Intel

Allow me a little self indulgence (again) this Friday. USNI triggered me this AM: #OTD in 1918, British Grand Fleet flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth celebrated Armistice Day by signaling to "Splice the mainbrace. Negative 6th B.S." The order meant that all sailors could have a drink except the Americans of the 6th Battle Squadron because U.S Navy ships were dry. pic.twitter.com/CglUoGvD6Y — U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) November 11, 2021It made me grin a bit because my paternal grandfather was a Sailor on the USS ARKANSAS (BB-33) with the 6th Battle Squadron that day. The Germans never made their last thunder run in 1918 as that horrible and useless war ground to a h…

Does this guy look badass enough for you? You have no idea. In the summer of 1897 tribesmen of the North-western frontier of India (now a part of Pakistan) began attacking and intimidating British forces in the area. The Indian Government decided that the unprovoked attacks by the Afridis and the Orakzais tribesmen could not go unpunished and decided that a show of force in Tirah, the tribe’s summer home, was appropriate. Accordingly, Sir William Lockhart was ordered out from Britain and appointed to command a force of 32,882 officers and soldiers. The intention was to advance into the Chagru valley on 20 October but the Alikhel tribesmen had seen the preparation of …

I am, generally, not all that taken in by large memorials to the fallen. Perhaps it is just me, but I find them cold, a bit off-putting, and many - but not all by any measure - seem to be more about something else than the memory of fathers, mothers, daughter, sons, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and friends who answered the call of their nation and never came back. Like the little neighborhood memorial back when I lived in Norfolk I've written about before, I find the smaller ones speak to me more - they have an intangible quality to them. For this Memorial Day weekend I'm reaching out of the USA and in to a lost world that is still remembered. Well off the beaten p…

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4014/4367154917_8641d731c4.jpg Via Sid's suggestion and tin-can.org, the fuzzy-face Navy at its best. Rowan was a Gearing class destroyer commissioned too late in World War II to see any combat. That changed just a few years later when she was bloodied for the first time during the "Forgotten War" when she took a medium caliber shell hit in her starboard quarter, damaging the after steering compartment and causing a number of casualties. She had been providing counter-battery fire against North Korean shore batteries when she was hit. And counter-battery would prove to be her specialty in another twenty year. ... 27 August 1972 ... the …

So, how tough will you be in your 50s? Jeff Schogol over at T&P has a benchmark for you; At 50 years old, (Paul) Douglas arrived at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in 1942 to begin boot camp. The economics professor was more than twice as old as the average Marine recruit and Douglas remains the oldest recruit to pass through Parris Island. ... Initially, Douglas was assigned to the personnel classification section of Parris Island after becoming a Marine, but he was not content with the idea of writing training manuals for the rest of the war, so with the help of his good friend Fred Knox, who was serving as Navy Secretary, Douglas became an infantry offic…

So, who is great in the pantheon of retired Navy Commanders? Well, we lost one, if not the, ranking member last month - Commander Dean S. “Diz” Laird, USN (Ret.). Another legend next door. Over the course of his 29-year legendary military career, he shot down the first German planes of World War II off the coast of Norway for the Navy and was the only Navy Flying Ace who scored victories against German and Japanese planes in both the European and Pacific Theatres. Diz flew 99 different military aircraft before retirement and then flew his 100th at the age of 95, flying a T-34C in Coronado in July 2016. He flew 175 combat missions and served on 12 aircraft carriers, was a…

War is funny sometimes ... many times (the present war does not count) - the person who you are trying to kill, or is trying to kill you can, in the blink of an eye - can become a good friend. You will put your life in his hands. Among civilized armed forces - that is the rule not the exception and has been for a long time. To prove that often forgotten fact - I give you Constantin Cantacuzino and James Gunn III. As reported by John L. Frisbee in Air Force Magazine; On Aug. 23, 1944, King Michael of Romania, whose country had joined Germany in 1940, surrendered to Soviet forces that had advanced into the country. In the next few days, one of the most unusual adventures o…

Indulge me a bit to bring back one of my first FbF from 2006 about one of my favorite ships....and it is German. The Graf Spee. She had a short but glorious history, an epic wartime cruise, and fought a classic battle against an enemy as honorable as she was, and to this day she calls people to her grave. She still calls to some; well at least me. Look again at her stats. Range: 8,900 nautical miles at 20 knots (16,500 km at 37 km/h), or 19,000 nautical miles at 10 knots (35,000 km at 18.5 km/h). Plant: Eight 9-cylinder double-acting two-stroke MAN diesels two screws, 52,050 hp (40 MW). Guns: Six 11 inch (280 mm) guns in two triple turrets, eight 5.9 inch (150 mm) …

Do you always fight to win at all costs? When do you retreat? If you find yourself in Maryland, you are surrounded by the War of 1812, and you may not even know it. A few years ago, this got my attention, Aboard a pontoon boat chugging past the marshland of Maryland’s upper Patuxent River on a recent Saturday, Ralph Eshelman pointed to the spot where the muddy brown water hides a shipwreck nearly two centuries old, part of the American flotilla that defended the Chesapeake Bay when the British burned Washington during the War of 1812. That only hints at the story. Before we get to the war story, let’s look at the man - and the questions his story asks. When do you sto…

As we see our nation start to emerge from COVID-19 isolation, I have read a bit about "young" people feeling they have lost a year, they can't catch up ... etc. If you are, like my kids, in the young adult category - ignore that crap. Everyone has a headwind right now, but you in other ways don't have time to wallow. You don't have all the time in the world; now is your time. You can do more today than people twice your age. Ignore anyone who says otherwise because of your "limited" experience. Perhaps it was a bit much to move the age to have a beer to 21 from the legal adult age of 18. Perhaps it was a bit off to allow young adults to stay on their parent's i…

This is such a great video, and we have thousands of new followers and subscribers now than we did seven years ago…time to bring this FbF back. As I have often mentioned, I have a soft spot for the name "Shangri-La" for aircraft carriers. It has a great story to it, and just sounds cool as hell. Bill Schultz reminded me that there is a simply awesome video available of a unique and under-appreciated time in naval aviation; the early 1960s. What an incredible time of change and advancement ... and a time yet warped by the war that would dominate the rest of the decade. So, let's take a moment to give tribute to those Sailors of the early-60s ... in glorious technicolor,…

When people think of the freed slaves and freemen who fought for the Union in the formations then known as United States Colored Troops (USCT), they often think of July 18, 1863, when the 54th Massachusetts stormed Fort Wagner. Sadly, that more well known event - a Union defeat - overshadows an event six weeks earlier - a Union victory - that, at the time, probably had a greater impact on the growing support in the very racist by modern standards Northern Army to arming large formations of African-Americans than anything else. The attack on Ft. Wagner and the 54th Massachusetts were both in the Eastern theater of operations. As such, they naturally get more attention. T…

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v8lmDX5bgFc/UuHSen27fhI/AAAAAAAAH04/WUIUmhEfNQw/s1600/McGinty_JJ.jpg Paul Vitello has a nicely done obit in NYT of a quiet hero from the Vietnam War. Mr. McGinty, who joined the service in 1958 directly after high school, was a drill instructor at the Marine boot camp in Parris Island, S.C., and a brig officer at the Norfolk, Va., naval base before volunteering for duty in Vietnam in 1966. “I didn’t want to be earning my pay guarding a bunch of AWOL sailors,” he told Edwin F. Murphy, author of the 1987 book “Vietnam Medal of Honor Heroes.” Mr. McGinty led one of four platoons in Company K of the Third Battalion, Third Marine Division, during a…

Lessons - yep there are lessons. When you go to war - you step in to a dark room. You hopefully have prepared yourself with the best equipment, training, operational concepts possible. The wise commander steps in to that dark room knowing that he will not know what will happen when he enters. At first, he won't see what works and does not - but he looks for it. He adjusts, he modifies - he tries to find advantage. Remember the FbF the other day about the Australian Light Horse and the assault on Beersheba? The Germans then did not think that mounted infantry would fight as cavalry - though the Commonwealth leadership saw the need to improvise, adapt, and overcome. Victo…

"Lost at sea." Sailors always get a little bit of the feels when they hear that phrase. The oceans are a large, beautiful, and terrifying place. People and ships can, and do, just disappear without a trace, especially at war. In time, some are found - and there is peace in that discovery. They found the USS Albacore (SS-218). NHHC’s Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB) used information and imagery provided by Dr. Tamaki Ura, from the University of Tokyo, to confirm the identity of Albacore, which was lost at sea Nov. 7, 1944. “As the final resting place for Sailors who gave their life in defense of our nation, we sincerely thank and congratulate Dr. Ura and his team for …

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BRmsJF5OaUI/U8iUfbR92HI/AAAAAAAAIXI/VoI93S9dJF0/s200/220px-Yi_Sun-sin_1.jpg Have you ever heard of Admiral Yi of the Royal Korean Navy? Shame ... he was a complete stud ... and completely Fullbore. This is also instructive for those who think the whole Korea vs Japan thingy just has to do with WWII. No ... a lot deeper than that. It is hard to find good articles online about him outside Wikipedia - so I at least have to use their description of him for the uninitiated - it really is good; Yi Sun-shin (Hangul: 이순신; hanja: 李舜臣; April 28, 1545 – December 16, 1598) was a Korean naval commander, famed for his victories against the Japanese navy du…

As a kid, I grew up hearing about he exploits of the Wild Weasels from the Vietnam War. If you’re not familiar with their origin story, “First in, Last Out” is superb. From F-100s to F-105s to F-4s and now F-16s, they are still making the magic happen, giving the USA a capability unmatched by other nations. They’re still leading the way. In case you missed it, a great story from the strikes in Yemen. Parks, while commanding the 480th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, was serving as the mission commander for a force package consisting of 21 strike aircraft while simultaneously leading four F-16 Fighting Falcons conducting Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses. Parks intentionall…

Still, almost nine years later, the disasters of the summer of 2017 involving the USS Fitzgerald and USS McCain come up in conversation with others, and out of nowhere pops into my mind. As I last did back in 2021, let’s look back to AUG 2017 when I first wrote this. There can be only one FbF today, nothing else comes close. The supplemental preliminary inquiry into the collision involving the USS FITZGERALD (DDG 62) and the ACX CRYSTAL from 17 JUN of this year is out. The report is dated 11 AUG 17. You can get it from the SECNAV’s site here, or read the whole thing posted below. I wanted to pull one extended quote from it for your review. It really got hold of me, as i…

There is no FbF today. This is no time for such things. This is a weekend to think of other things. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=0okd9FN63u8:dNaj1DChDSM:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=0okd9FN63u8:dNaj1DChDSM:-BTjWOF_DHI http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=0okd9FN63u8:dNaj1DChDSM:V_sGLiPBpWU http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?i=0okd9FN63u8:dNaj1DChDSM:F7zBnMyn0Lo http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/FAFV/~4/0okd9FN63u8View the full article

I just finished with Xenophon's Anabasis on audio. Wow ... just wow. Almost 2,400 years old and its lessons on leadership are timeless. There is really nothing new under the sun. This book is a perfect example of the critical importance of a classical education. We wouldn't have to learn the hard way if we realized the truth that has been there from the dawn of history ... not to mention the lessons of 20 years ago ... move the decimal place two spots over. Here is just one bit. Rely upon this then, all you who are here assembled, now is your great opportunity. The soldiers outside have their eyes fixed upon you; if they think that you are faint-hearted, they will turn …