Raw Intel

We’re going to stick with the theme we started yesterday…the fight now. Today, something unique and special is taking place. I am hoping video will be uploaded later. If so, I will update the post. Via Mike Schuler at gCaptain: Two Military Sealift Command ships have earned the Presidential Unit Citation (PUC) for the first time in the command’s 77-year history, recognizing the civilian-crewed vessels for their role supporting the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group during Operation Epic Fury. Military Sealift Command announced Tuesday that fleet replenishment oiler USNS Kanawha (T-AO 196) and dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS William McLean (T-AKE 12) received the prest…

I’m not sure another nation has the same underlying concern for prisoners of war (POWs) that Americans do. I don’t think anyone else has a POW/MIA flag flying all over the place, even if we don’t have any POWs. As everyone was reminded this spring, we will go to incredible ends to stop our people from being taken prisoner if we have to. We will try to rescue them if we can. Perhaps it is the legacy of the British prison ships of the Revolutionary War, the nightmares of the American Civil War camps, or the memory of how our POWs were treated in Vietnam and Korea. In WWII’s European Theater, conditions were rough, but they were not so bad that we couldn’t make a comedy seri…

More than a few times the last month I have found myself referring to the Sailors of the FITZGERALD and McCain. I've dug in to the archives from the summer of 2017 to look again at some of the things I wrote while things were fresh. This week, 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. I…

It can take awhile sometimes, but at last Master Chief Slabinski is recognized appropriately. During the early morning on March 4, 2002, then-Senior Chief Slabinski led a SEAL reconnaissance team to the top of the 10,000-foot, snow-covered Takur Ghar mountain in Afghanistan. The team’s insertion helicopter was attacked by an enemy rocket-propelled grenade attack, causing Petty Officer Neil Roberts to fall out of the aircraft and onto the enemy-infested mountaintop, and the helicopter to crash-land in the valley below, according to the Navy. “Fully aware of the risks, a numerically superior and well-entrenched enemy force, and approaching daylight, without hesitation Seni…

I’m not sure there is more to be said than what is in the man’s obituary from a small town in Tennessee. Thomas Edward Gwynn, Tullahoma’s oldest resident, passed this life on Monday, April 6th, 2026 at Life Care Center at the age of 106, just two months shy of his 107th birthday. Mr. Gwynn was born June, 2nd, 1919 in Moscow, Tennessee to the late Garland Ray Gwynn and Lula Mae Tacker Gwynn. He joined the United States Army in 1941 and served in World War II, fighting in numerous historic battles, including D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, Battle of Normandy, and witnessed Victory in Europe Day on May 8, 1945, which marked the end of World War II. Five years later, he returned…

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lo0Cr35ltBM/VbIvaIF-7_I/AAAAAAAAKDk/Mc_0Q7hSJYA/s320/1p1.jpg Most of your people slaughtered. In front of you is the land of your ancestors, a land you do not know, mostly desert and waste. You are surrounded by large numbers of a well armed enemy on the march. You have the option of going home, or to ride off to war in a cheap copy of an outdated weapon. Of course, you gather around you fast friends, and head to the sound of rolling tanks. WWhen Lou Lenart was growing up in a Pennsylvania mining town, he endured beating after beating because he was Jewish. After he took a Charles Atlas bodybuilding course, he joined the Marines and fought in t…

This FbF I'd like to take a moment to recognize someone who is, in my mind at least, fullbore. He did not do anything exceptional in war or other usual benchmarks to make FbF ... but he did something more. He brought to life to a huge audience the great deeds of others in the naval service. He did it in a way that made people think about the example set and the lessons that could be useful for today and the future. Brain cancer took him this week, too soon, but he left behind a legacy generations will benefit from. Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, Neptune's Inferno, Ship of Ghosts, A Fleet at Flood Tide and more. Regulars here know these books and their author, Ja…

So, you think you've had some memorable cruises, eh? What do you think about this record?DATEVESSEL SUNKAPR 26, 1944T29 Torpedo BoatAPR 29, 1944T27 Torpedo BoatJUN 9, 1944ZH1 DestroyerJUN 9, 1944Z32 DestroyerJUN 24, 1944U971 U-BoatJUN 15, 1944UJ1420/UJ1421 TrawlerJUN 6, 1944M486 MinesweeperAUG 6, 1944SG-3CSEPT 6, 1944VEDETTE Patrol BoatI give to you MHCS Haida, a Tribal Class destroyer who sank all those ships within 13-months of her commissioning. As Jerry Proc so simply put;HAIDA distinguished herself as Canada's most active warship by sinking no less than nine German ships in the period from April to September 1944. She was also involved in numerous other actions resul…

What can just a few Marines do? In March 1982, Thomsen was days from returning home from the small Royal Marine Falklands garrison when he was ordered to take eight men to South Georgia to monitor a group of Argentinian scrap dealers who had landed illegally and raised the Argentine flag, the incident which was to lead to full-blown war in the Falklands. Along with 12 other Marines under Lieutenant Keith Mills they arrived on the desolate island in mid-March. Two weeks later the crisis erupted when the Argentines invaded the Falklands. Section commander Thomsen and his comrades knew a large enemy force would descend on them within hours. With no hope of reinforcements, …

If you look around in certain corners of the world, you can find little things that make you give a double-take. For instance, why is there a statue of an American General in a WWI uniform in the same park as a monument to the Soviet Red Army? Have you ever heard of Major General Harry Hill Bandholtz, USA? Probably not. What did he do that would warrant such a statue in such a location? On August 11, 1919, General Bandholtz arrived in Budapest as one of four generals (English, French, Italian, American) to become the Inter-Allied Control Commission for Hungary, primarily to supervise the disengagement of Romanian troops from Hungary. He became famous when, on the night…

First published in AUG09.Just another old man walking around in his garage, eh? These days he’s long retired, living with his wife, Shirley, in a trim split-level below a wall of rimrocks near the college where he used to teach. Every day he tramps out to the studio behind his house to paint and draw. You ever wonder what they have seen? Maybe, just maybe --- you don't want to know. He is 91 years old now, among the handful of last men surviving from America’s worst military defeat, the fall of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines during that desperate winter and early spring of 1942. American Heritage magazine has a must read article that personalizes what is often f…

One thing I’ve heard my whole life, from my father, my coaches, to my professional mentors, and now from me to my children: Always finish strong. She was commissioned on May 3rd, 1975, less than a week after the fall of Saigon. Nine more ships of her class would follow. If you’re looking for a ship that defined an era for her nation and Navy, I think the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) would be a perfect example. 1975-2025. This week, more than 50 years after her service began, she finished her last deployment. Nimitz departed Bremerton as the flagship of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (NIMCSG), Mar. 21, 2025. The nine months underway included three months in the U.S. Indo-Pacific C…

When it comes to the A-1H Skyraider vs. MiG-17s, some are familiar with the story from 1966, but have you heard it first person right after it took place? This story, which I first covered back in 2009, is a classic and brings us back to a man we honored in another FbF last month: Lieutenant Pete Russell, USN. That’s him on the right in the picture above, with LTJg. Tom Patton, USN as they discuss the story below. LCDR Leo Cook and his wingman LTJG Wiley were the lead section of Skyraiders working to locate and hopefully rescue a downed US pilot in North Vietnam. While maneuvering at low altitude between ridges and cloud layers, they were jumped by what turned out to be t…

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NLg2ZXHl-t0/VgW9PDfSLPI/AAAAAAAAKVw/nnjeWpJd_pI/s320/0541430.jpgWe should always have a USS SIMS. History shows that every warship must be able to defend itself. It must be able to fight hurt. It must be able to have sufficient people for damage control. There is no "safe area" at sea. You can make a mistake - and so can the enemy. There is not time out. There is no do over. Your nation has been at war for only a few months. You are part of a hobbled together, but powerful battlegroup set to blunt the spear of the enemy who has been marching forward without rest. You have prepared yourself and your ship for this from day one. There is a pro…

Warfare History Network has a great article outlining allied merchant marine sacrifice in WWII to support the Soviet Red Army. The whole thing is worth a read, but let me just pull the story of convoy PQ-17; In late June 1942, the 37-ship convoy PQ-17, the largest and most valuable convoy to date, formed at Hvalfjord, Iceland, and began to make its run to Murmansk and Archangel. Crammed into the holds of the cargomen were tanks, trucks, aircraft, boxes of ammunition, and other vital supplies destined for the hard-pressed Red Army. The Germans were determined that PQ-17 would not pass and instituted Operation Rösselsprung that would add surface ships—the Tirpitz, Scheer, …

Our Navy needs a 4th USS Aaron Ward. Read all of this and tell me this isn't a name that needs to be active in our fleet. We also need a ship named after her CO, Adam Sanders. I'll just stick with the citations: The Presidential Unit Citation for Aaron Ward reads as follows: For extraordinary heroism in action as a Picket Ship on Radar Picket Station during a coordinated attack by approximately 25 Japanese aircraft near Okinawa on 3 May 1945. Shooting down two kamikazes which approached in determined suicide dives, the USS AARON WARD was struck by a bomb from a third plane as she fought to destroy this attacker before it crashed into the superstructure and spra…

There is a moment when even a prisoner sees an opportunity to contribute to the war. Considering the nightmarish conditions experienced by prisoners of Imperial Japan faced in WWII ... the quiet bravery here is gobsmacking; A shipyard is a massive and highly complex industrial system. In 1943, before the age of computer automation, the basic production process could be roughly summarized as follows. A marine engineer would design, in blueprint form, drawings of a ship’s components. These parts would then be rendered into wooden moulds or templates that could be used to trace out the shape of each part on thick steel plate, which would guide the acetylene torches used t…

Whenever you walk around base, you may not be aware that—should fate call them—you are passing holders of Medal of Honor, Navy Cross and other heroes. Sure, they don’t have it now, but should circumstances allow—their true character will be revealed. When you join the service, you have no idea what will find you in the course of your service, or when just another boring duty day turns into something immortal. In the horrible tragedy over the weekend in Texas, we saw an example of this in the person of USCG rescue swimmer, Petty Officer Third Class Scott Ruskan. Via USA Today’s Lori Comstock Ruskan, a U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmer from Oxford, New Jersey, is being credi…

Great men cannot do great things without a great staff. Educated people know who Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton is, but who knows who Frank Worsley is? Anyone who has been responsible for navigation should; When the wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance was found nearly 10,000 feet below the surface of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea in March 2022, it was located just 4 miles from its last known position, as recorded by the Endurance’s captain and navigator, Frank Worsley, in November 1915. At the bottom of the world. No GPS, just math, the stars, and a bit of instinct ... and any hope of survival was riding on you. When the Endurance was crushed, the crew had to get themse…

Right before I first posted this six years ago, after I once again lamented that we no longer have a ship with the name USS Shangri-La, 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, on the USS Shangri-La (CV 38), circa 1962, somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea. Crusaders, Skyrays, Skyhawks, Skyraiders, Marines doing PT on deck ... just glorious…