HMS Hermes

HMS Hermes (95) of the Royal Navy of United Kingdom was the first ship in any navy to be designed and built as an aircraft carrier, although the Imperial Japanese Navy's Hōshō was the first to be commissioned. The design of Hermes preceded and influenced that of the Hōshō, and she was launched before Hōshō was laid down, but was commissioned more than six months later than Hōshō.

Hermes was laid down by Sir W. G. Armstrong-Whitworth and Company at High Walker on the River Tyne in January 1918 and was launched on 11 September 1919. She was not commissioned until 1923.

Despite her size, Hermes was only able to carry 20 aircraft. Like other carriers of the time, Hermes, as built, was fitted with longitudinal wires, but these were changed to transverse arrester wires in the early 1930s.

During World War II she served briefly with the Home Fleet before being assigned to the southern Atlantic from October 1939. She worked with the French navy based at Dakar until the Vichy government came to power, following that her aircraft took part in a strike against the French vessels at Dakar. In July 1940 she collided with a merchant vessel and was repaired at Simonstown, South Africa. Following repairs she continued patrols but this time in the Indian Ocean as part of the Eastern Fleet.

During the Indian Ocean raid, Hermes was in harbour at Trincomalee, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), undergoing repairs. Advance warning of a Japanese air raid allowed her to leave port, but as she returned following the raid on 9 April 1942, she was spotted off Batticaloa by a Japanese reconnaissance plane. Lacking planes of her own, she was defenceless when she was attacked by 70 Japanese bombers. Hit 40 times, Hermes sank with the loss of 307 men. Her escorts – the destroyer HMAS Vampire and the corvette Hollyhock – and two tankers were also sunk. 590 survivors of the attack were picked up by the hospital ship Vita and taken to Colombo. Some survivors were taken to Kandy where they spent 10 days recuperating at the Queens Hotel.

(Wikipedia)

Squadrons and Aircraft

In mid-1930s she was reduced to operating 15 aircraft and by 1939 this had dropped to only 12.

FAA squadrons embarked	Dates	Aircraft type
814	Sept 1939-Feb 1942	Swordfish II
710 dt	May 1940	Walrus I

Carrier name	HMS Hermes
Class	Hermes Class
Type	Fleet Aircraft Carrier
Ships in Class	Hermes
Launched	Built by Armstrong Whitworth. Laid down 15 January 1918. Launched 11 September 1919. Commissioned July 1923.
Tonnage	Displacement: 11,085 tons standard ; 13,208 tons full load
Engines	Propulsion: Two Parsons Steam Turbines (6 Yarrow small-tube boilers, 2 shafts, Parsons geared turbines), 40,000 shp.
Speed in Knots	Speed: 25 knots
Armament	Guns: 6 x 5.5 inch ; 3 x 4 inch AA; 2 quad 0.5 inch AA (added 1934). 6 x 1 x 20mm AA
Crew Complement	700 Officers & Ratings including Air Group
Range	6000 miles @ 18 knots
Length (ft/inches)	Dimensions: 548 pp, 600 oa x 70.25 x 21.5 feet
Beam (ft/inches)
Draught (ft/inches)
Flight Deck length (ft/inches)	570
Flight Deck width (ft/inches)	90
Armour	3" side (belt) 11"-2" side (ends) 1" upper deck 1" main deck
Number of aircraft carried	Aircraft: Up to 20 planes including Martlet (F4F) Fighters Swordfish T.B's
Fate of carrier	Sunk 9 April 1942 by Japanese aircraft from the carriers Soryu, Hiryu and Akagi.
Notes	The first purpose built aircraft carrier in the world.

Glider Pilot Regiment

Glider Pilot Regiment
Active	21 December 1941- 1 September 1957
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Type	Army Aviation
Role	Air transport and airborne infantry
Part of	Army Air Corps 1942-1949 Glider Pilot and Parachute Corps (1949-1957)
Motto	Nihil est Impossibilis "Nothing is Impossible"
Colors	None issued
Engagements	invasion of Normandy Operation Market Garden Invasion of Sicily, Crossing of the Rhine
Battle honours	Normandy Landing, Pegasus Bridge, Merville Battery, Arnhem 1944, Rhine, Southern France, North-West Europe 1944-45, Landing in Sicily, Sicily 1943[1] Rhine
Commanders
Colonel Commandant	The Rt Hon Alan Francis (Brooke), 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, KG (1942-)
Insignia
Beret colour	Maroon

The Glider Pilot Regiment was a specialist British unit of the Second World War which was responsible for crewing the British Army's Military gliders and saw action in the European Theatre of World War II in support of Allied airborne operations. Established in 1942, the regiment was disbanded in 1957 becoming part of the Parachute Corps.

Contents [hide] 1 Formation 2 Europe 2.1 Operation Husky 2.2 Operation Tonga 2.3 Operation Market-Garden 2.4 Operation Varsity 3 Far East 4 Post-war 5 See also 6 References 6.1 Notes 6.2 Bibliography 7 External links

[edit] Formation

The German military was one of the pioneers of the use of airborne formations, conducting several successful airborne operations during the Battle of France in 1940, including the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael.^[2] Impressed by the success of German airborne operations, the Allied governments decided to form their own airborne formations.^[3] This decision would eventually lead to the creation of two British airborne divisions, as well as a number of smaller units.^[4] The British airborne establishment began development on 22 June 1940, when the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, directed the War Office in a memorandum to investigate the possibility of creating a corps of 5,000 parachute troops.^[5] On 21 June, 1941, the Central Landing Establishment was formed at Ringway airfield near Manchester; although tasked primarily with training parachute troops, it was also directed to investigate the possibilities of using gliders to transport troops into battle.^[6][7] It had been decided that the Royal Air Force and the Army would cooperate in forming the airborne establishment, and as such Squadron Leader L.A. Strange and Major J.F. Rock were tasked with gathering together potential glider pilots and forming a glider unit; this was achieved by searching for members of the armed forces who had pre-war experience of flying gliders, or were interested in learning to do so.^[7] The two officers and their newly-formed unit were provided with four obsolecent Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bombers and a small number of Tiger Moth and Avro 504 biplanes for towing purposes. Around this time the War Office and Air Ministry began to draw up specifications for several types of military gliders to be used by the unit, which would eventually take the form of the General Aircraft Hotspur, General Aircraft Hamilcar, Airspeed Horsa and the Slingsby Hengist. These designs would take some time to be designed and produced, however, and for the time being the fledgling unit was forced to improvise.^[8]

A Glider Training Squadron was formed, and the first test-flights were conducted using British Aircraft Swallow light aircraft which had their propellors removed to simulate the flight characteristics of a glider; they were towed by the Whitley bombers using tow-ropes of varying number and length for experimentation purposes.^[9] Appeals were made throughout the United Kingdom for civilian gliders to be donated to the squadron, and the first four arrived in August; three of them had been manufactured in pre-war Germany. Within a short period of time several more were donated, and these were put to use training instructors, glider pilots and newly-formed ground crews. Accidents were quite frequent in these early months, primarily due to the hemp tow-ropes breaking during flight; these problems were only solved with the introduction of nylon two-ropes imported from the United States of America.^[9] The first demonstration of the squadron's abilities took place on 26 September, when Prince George, Duke of Kent witnessed a demonstration of the fledgling airborne establishment's capabilities; four parachute-drops were conducted, and then two gliders were towed by civilian aircraft.^[10] This was followed on 26 October by a night exercise being conducted by the squadron, with two Avro 504s towing four gliders, and on 13 December five gliders were towed to Tatton Park, where they landed alongside sixteen parachutists dropped from two Whitley bombers.^[11][12]

There was a certain carefree atmosphere present in the squadron in the first few months of its existence; new recruits were not obliged to pass a medical test to join the squadron, and it attracted a number of adventurous-minded men with a passion for flying, including a sergeant who had flown a Messerschmitt during the Spanish Civil War.^[13] These first pilots had been volunteers recruited from all of the branches of the armed forces, primarily the Army, but as the squadron began to conduct training exercises, arguments broke out between the RAF and the Army over the pilots.^[14] In the view of the RAF, gliders were aircraft and were therefore in their jurisdiction and should be controlled by them; the Army argued that as the glider pilots would subsequently be fighting alongside the troops they were transporting after the gliders had landed, they should therefore come under Army control.^[13] After much debate, a compromise was brokered between the two services: the pilots would be recruited from the Army, but they would be trained by the RAF.^[13]

The RAF was dismissive of soldiers flying aircraft, but it was agreed that the pilots would be drawn from the army and trained by the RAF. Volunteers were sought from the Army and these had to be passed by RAF selection procedures before entering training. Once qualified as light aircraft pilots after a 12 week course, they were given further training on gliders; another 12 week course to qualify on the General Aircraft Hotspur glider. After a period they would then go to a Heavy Glider Conversion Unit for a six week course so they were qualified for the Airspeed Horsa.^[15]

In 1942 the Glider Pilot Regiment came under a newly formed administrative corps, the Army Air Corps, alongside the Parachute Regiment, and the Air Observation Post squadrons of the Royal Artillery.

(Wikipedia)

LONG TOM, 155mm GUN FROM USA

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M1 155 mm Long Tom
Long Tom in travelling position, US Army Ordnance Museum.
Type	Towed field artillery
Place of origin	United States
Service history
Used by	United States, Austria, South Korea, Republic of China, Turkey, Pakistan, Croatia
Wars	World War II
Production history
Designed	1930s
Specifications
Weight	13,880 kg (30,600 lbs) (travelling)
Barrel length	45 calibre: 6.97m (22.86 ft)
Crew	14
Caliber	155 mm (6.1 inch)
Breech	Asbury breech
Carriage	M1 Carriage
Elevation	−2°/+65°
Traverse	60°
Rate of fire	40 rounds per hour
Muzzle velocity	853 m/s (2,800 ft/s)
Maximum range	23,221 m (25,395 yds)

See also: 155 mm Creusot Long Tom

The 155 mm Gun M1 and M2 (later M59), widely known as Long Tom, were 155 millimeter calibre field guns used by the United States armed forces during World War II. The Long Tom replaced the Canon de 155 mm GPF in United States service.

Contents [hide] 1 Development 2 Service 3 Variants 4 Ammunition 5 Existing examples 6 Notes 7 References

[edit] Development

Before entering World War I, the United States was poorly equipped with heavy artillery. To address this problem a number of foreign heavy artillery guns were adopted, including the Canon de 155 mm GPF. After the end of the war development work began in the United States on a design to improve upon the existing models of heavy gun and carriage. A number of prototypes were produced in the 1920s and 1930s, but the projects were put on hold due to lack of funds. In 1938 the 155 mm Gun T4 on Carriage T2 was finally adopted as 155 mm gun M1 on Carriage M1.

The new design used a barrel broadly similar to the earlier 155 mm GPF, but with an Asbury breech. The new split-trail carriage featured four roadwheels, each mounting two tires. The wheels could be lifted, allowing the gun to rest on a firing platform. This made the gun very stable and thus accurate.

The gun was developed into M1A1 and M2 variants. After the war, the United States Army re-organized, and the gun was redesignated as the M59.

[edit] Service

Long Tom at crew training in England.

The Long Tom saw combat for the first time in North African Campaign in 1943, with 34th Field Artillery Battalion. Eventually it equipped about 49 battalions, including 40 in the European Theater and 7 in the Pacific. The preferrable prime mover was initially the Mack NO 6x6 7 1/2 ton truck; from 1943 on it was replaced by the tracked M4 High Speed Tractor.^[1]

A small number of Long Tom guns were supplied via lend lease channels, to the United Kingdom (184) and France (25).

[edit] Variants

M2 on Battle of Okinawa.

M40 in the US Army Ordnance Museum.

Gun variants:

• M1920 - prototype.
• T4 - prototype.
• M1 (1938) - first production variant, 20 built.
• M1A1 (1941) - modified breech ring.
  • M1A1E1 - prototype with chromium plated bore.
  • M1A1E3 - prototype with liquid cooling.
• M2 (1945) - modified breech ring.

Carriage variants:

• T2 - prototype.
• M1 (1938).
• M1A1 - refurbished T2 carriages.

The gun was also mounted on a modified M4 medium tank chassis, in mount M13. The resulting vehicle was initially designated 155 mm Gun Motor Carriage T83 and eventually standardized as 155 mm Gun Motor Carriage M40.

155 mm Gun Motor Carriage T79, based on T23 Medium Tank chassis, never advanced past proposal stage.

(Wikipedia)

The Rape of Nanking Begins, December 13, 1937

Today in 1937, the city of Nanking in China fell to the Japanese Imperial Army. The next six weeks were marked by incredible brutality against the civilian population of the area. This period of time has come to be known as the Rape of Nanking. It has few equals in the annals of human history.

Japan first invaded Manchuria, China in 1931. At that time, the Chinese Civil War was underway. The Communists and Nationalists showed little interest in putting up a united front against the foreign invaders until 1937, when the two sides agreed to fight the Japanese. The Chinese Army, though possibly the largest in the world at that time, was no match for the well-equipped and trained Imperial Army. The Japanese quickly captured most of the major Chinese cities in the northeastern part of the country.

In August of 1937, the Japanese Army took heavy casualties during the fight for Shanghai. Before this battle, it was thought that China could be conquered in three months. But it was not until mid-November that the city was securely in Japanese hands. On December 1st, the Japanese Central China Area Army and their 10th Army were ordered to capture Nanking.

Much of what we know about the six weeks following the capture of Nanking has come to us from the few Westerners who remained in the city in hopes of protecting the civilian population. Some of them created what they called the Nanking Safety Zone, an area near the American embassy that was to remain demilitarized. The Zone was about the size of Central Park in New York City and, at first, the Japanese agreed to leave the area alone as long no weapons were found there. They soon broke that promise, however, in their zeal to find Chinese soldiers hiding among the civilian population of the city.

The hunt for soldiers dressed in civilian clothes was used as an excuse by the Japanese to commit all kinds of inhumane acts. Women were publicly raped while their families were forced to watch; thousands of young men were shot along the banks of the Yangtze River where their bodies would flow downstream to Shanghai. Dozens of books have been written about other horrendous things that went on in the city and surrounding area. I will not recount them here.
(http://mattstodayinhistory.blogspot.com)

Liberty ship

SS John W. Brown, one of two surviving operational Liberty ships
Class overview
Name:	Liberty ship
Builders:	18 shipyards in the USA
Planned:	2,751
Completed:	2,710
Preserved:	2
General characteristics
Class and type:	Cargo ship
Displacement:	14,245 tons[1]
Length:	135 m (441 ft 6 in)
Beam:	17.3 m (56 ft 10.75 in)
Draft:	8.5 m (27 ft 9.25 in)
Propulsion:	Two oil-fired boilers, triple-expansion steam engine, single screw, 2,500 horsepower (1,864 kW)
Speed:	11 to 11.5 knots (20 to 21 km/h)
Range:	23,000 miles (37,000 km)
Capacity:	10,856 metric tons deadweight (DWT)[1]
Complement:	41 men
Armament:	Stern-mounted 4-in (102 mm) deck gun for use against surfaced submarines, variety of anti-aircraft guns

Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by German U-boats, they were purchased for the U.S. fleet and for lend-lease provision to Britain. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,751 Liberties between 1941 and 1945, easily the largest number of ships produced to a single design.

The production of these vessels mirrored, on a much larger scale, the manufacture of the Hog Islander ship and similar standardized types during World War I. The immense effort to build Liberty ships, the sheer number of ships built, and the fact that some of the ships survived far longer than the original design life of five years, make them the subject of much study.

History

In 1936, the American Merchant Marine Act was passed to subsidize the annual construction of 50 commercial merchant vessels to be used in wartime by the United States Navy as naval auxiliaries. The number was doubled in 1939 and again in 1940 to 200 ships a year. Ship types included a tanker and three types of merchant vessel, all to be powered by steam turbines. Limited industrial capacity, especially for turbine construction, meant that relatively few of these ships were built.

In 1940, the British government ordered 60 tramp steamships from American yards to replace war losses and boost the merchant fleet. These Ocean class ships were simple but fairly large (for the time) with a single steam, 2,500 horsepower (1,864 kW) reciprocating engine of obsolete but reliable design. Britain specified coal fired plants because it had plenty of coal mines but no indigenous oil fields. The predecessor designs, including the Northeast Coast, Open Shelter Deck Steamer, were based on a simple ship originally produced in Sunderland by J.L. Thompson & Sons (see Silver Line) from 1879, and widely manufactured up to the SS Dorrington Court, which was built in 1938. The order specified an 18-inch (457 mm) increase in draught to boost displacement by 800 tons to 10,100 tons. The accommodation, bridge and main engine of these vessels were located amidships, with a long tunnel to connect the main engine shaft to its aft extension to the propeller. The first Ocean-class ship, Ocean Vanguard, was launched on 16 August 1941.

The design was modified by the United States Maritime Commission to conform to American construction practices and to make it even quicker and cheaper to build. The U.S. version was designated 'EC2-S-C1': 'EC' for Emergency Cargo, '2' for a ship between 400 and 450 feet (140 m) long (Load Waterline Length), 'S' for steam engines, and 'C1' for design C1. The new design replaced much riveting, which accounted for one-third of the labor costs, with welding, and featured oil-fired boilers. The order was given to a conglomerate of West Coast engineering and construction companies known as the Six Companies, headed by Henry J. Kaiser, and was also adopted as the Merchant Marine Act design.

On 27 March 1941, the number of lend-lease ships was increased to 200 by the Defense Aid Supplemental Appropriations Act, and increased again in April to 306, of which 117 would be Liberty ships.

The ships were constructed of sections that were welded together. This is similar to the technique used by Palmer's at Jarrow but substitutes welding for riveting. Riveted ships took several months to construct. The work force was newly trained—no one previously built welded ships. As America entered the war, the shipbuilding yards employed women to replace men who were enlisting in the armed forces.

Any group which raised war bonds worth $2 million could propose a name. Most were named for deceased people. The only living namesake was Francis J. O'Gara, the purser of the SS Jean Nicolet, who was thought to have been killed in a submarine attack but in fact survived the war in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Other exceptions to the naming rule were the SS Stage Door Canteen, named for the USO club in New York, and the SS U.S.O., named after the organization itself.^[2]

Another notable Liberty ship was SS Stephen Hopkins, which sank the German commerce raider Stier in a ship-to-ship gun battle in 1942 and became the first American ship to sink a German surface combatant.

SS Richard Montgomery is also notable, though in a less positive way; the wreck of the ship lies off the coast of Kent with 1,500 tons of explosives still on board, enough to match a small nuclear weapon should they ever go off. One Liberty ship that did explode was the SS E. A. Bryan which detonated with the power of 2,000 tons of TNT in July 1944 as it was being loaded, killing 320 sailors and civilians in what was called the Port Chicago disaster.

Six Liberty ships were converted at Point Clear, Alabama, by the United States Army Air Forces into floating aircraft repair depots, operated by the Army Transport Service, starting in April 1944. The secret project, dubbed "Project Ivory Soap", provided mobile depot support for B-29 Superfortress and P-51 Mustangs based on Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa beginning in December 1944. The six ARU(F)s (Aircraft Repair Unit, Floating), however, were also fitted with landing platforms to accommodate four R-4 helicopters, creating the first seagoing helicopter-equipped ships, and provided medical evacuation of combat casualties in both the Philippines and Okinawa.^[3]

The last Liberty ship constructed was the SS Albert M. Boe, launched on 26 September 1945 and delivered on 30 October 1945. She was named after the chief engineer of a United States Army freighter who had stayed below decks to shut down his engines after a 13 April 1945 explosion, an act that won him a posthumous Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal.^[4]

TRIBUTE VIDEOS FOR "THE FEW"

This reel talks about some "Battle of Britain" pilots 20 years ago

Polish Pilot Aces of WW2

Polish aces

Name	Victories
Stanislaw Skalski	22
Witold Urbanowicz	18
Eugeniusz Horbaczewski+	16
Boleslaw Gladych	14
Jan Zumbach	12
Marian Pisarek+	11