Hitler's Third Reich and World War II in the News is a daily edited review of WWII news, providing thought- provoking collection of hand-picked WW2 information.

Category: Naval forces & Battles  -- See latest WWII news here. See also 'U-Boats', 'Battleships', 'Graf Spee', 'PQ17, Arctic Convoys', 'Wrecks'.

The U.S.S. Copahee: the small aircraft carrier which carried Atomic bomb
The U.S.S. Copahee was a small aircraft carrier barely anyone has ever heard of. Mostly the Copahee moved aircrafts and troops. It was important work, but it's what was loaded on board in 1945 that changed the world. It was the atom bomb later detonated over Nagasaki. As ships go, the Copahee had a short life, only 4 years. After WW2 it wasn't needed anymore, and it was sold for scrap to Japan. What used to be a reunion that numbered into the hundreds was down to 9 men, all at least in their mid 80's. But their memories of the Copahee and its crew and its historic mission are indivisible.     [ myfoxstl :: 2008-05-11 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

World War II heritage tug La Lumiere goes down: spills 500 litres of fuel
A World War Two heritage tug has sunk at its dock at Britannia Beach, spilling 500 litres of diesel fuel into Howe Sound. Canadian Coast Guard spokesman Dan Bate said the federal agency sent a helicopter and hovercraft after learning of the sinking of the 50m long vessel. Divers have been hired to probe the condition of the wooden-hull tug La Lumiere, once the Seaspan Chinook and owned by the Maritime Heritage Society of Vancouver. Society president Paul Thomas said the tug was constructed for the American navy in 1944. The society got the vessel 10 years ago to be restored as a heritage ship.     [ vancouversun :: 2008-05-11 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

65th anniversary of a turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic observed
The 65th anniversary of a turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest battle of World War II, will be marked across Canada. It took over 30,000 Allied seamen and over 3,000 Allied ships. Defence Minister Peter MacKay: "During the darkest days of the Second World War, thousands of Canadian men and women in the Royal Canadian Navy, the Merchant Navy, and the Royal Canadian Air Force faced perilous conditions that many of us can't even imagine." 1939-1945 the Allied Forces relied on the Atlantic shipping lanes to assure safe transit of vital supplies from North America to the frontlines.     [ canada.com :: 2008-05-05 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Restored Liberty ship John W. Brown sails from Baltimore, just like 1944
At its berth in Baltimore, the gray SS John W. Brown looks out of place alongside the brightly colored civilian container ships. One of only 2 Liberty ships still operational out of the original fleet of 2,710 quick-build World War II cargo ships that the U.S. produced, the John W. Brown has been entirely restored. It's run by a nonprofit organization. Project Liberty Ship keeps the vessel shipshape, provides cruises out of Baltimore and sails the ship to other ports - to preserve the memory of the men and women who built these ships and the Merchant Seamen and Naval Armed Guard who manned them.     [ dallasnews :: 2008-04-03 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

The secret past of the Coast Guard's cutter Eagle - The Horst Wessel
Seeing the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle - which serves as a seagoing classroom for 175 cadets of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy - under full sail is a sight to take the breath away. Built in 1936 by the Blohm & Voss Shipyard in Hamburg and named the Horst Wessel (a Nazi Party martyr), she was one of 3 training ships to train cadets for the Kriegsmarine. In the years before World War II the Horst Wessel visited the Caribbean. In 1941 she was converted to a cargo ship, transporting supplies all over the Baltic Sea. During WWII she was armed with 2 antiaircraft guns, shooting down 3 aircraft in combat.     [ conntact :: 2008-03-18 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

WWII Nazi sailor served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War
Having sailed in the German navy in World War II, Tido Holtkamp left military service behind him when he moved to America in 1949. Or so he thought. In 1950 he got a draft notice signed by President Truman. "I wasn't too happy about it. I told the recruiter, 'You don't want me... I'm still, at heart, a Nazi.'" The recruiter replied: "Truman doesn't care." So Holtkamp served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. "I didn't know about the Coast Guard then. If I did, I would have asked to join." In 1944 he trained on Horst Wessel, one of two sail-training ships the German navy fitted with guns in 1942.     [ newsday :: 2008-03-17 :: Kriegsmarine & Graf Zeppelin ]

Film about Wilhelm Gustloff: Women, children torpedoed by a Soviet submarine
A film about the sinking of a Nazi ship carrying thousands of German refugees at the end of World War II has lifted the lid on one of Germany's most painful memories. The film, Die Gustloff, tells the story of the Nazi cruise ship "Wilhelm Gustloff", torpedoed by a Soviet submarine on Jan. 30, 1945. 9300 people died, thought to be biggest loss of life on a single ship. Yet the tale of the Gustloff remains unknown outside the country due to the reluctance of postwar generations to probe Germans' WW2 suffering. Launched in 1937, Gustloff was named after the assassinated head of the Swiss Nazi party.     [ reuters :: 2008-03-03 :: WWII Movies & Films ]

Auctioned: Model of ship that did not sink after torpedoed by German U-boat 111
A model of one of the shortest-lived ships in Whitby's marine history may get £7,000 when it is auctioned. The 4 feet 5 inches long model is of the ill-starred steam ship Barnby, launched in 1940 - only to be torpedoed 18 months later by German U-boat 111 on May 22,1942, in one of the most unusual nautical incidents of the World War 2. This was because the Barnby did NOT sink! She was complately filled with flour, which swelled up and kept her afloat, so no one quite knows where she lies. "Builder's models of this period are particularly sought-after... Early models have fine metal fittings, often silver or silver gilt and gunmetal or brass."     [ scarborougheveningnews :: 2008-02-19 :: Military Scale Model: Aircrafts, Vehicles ]

Documentary film about heroic WWII rescue saga of the Lisbon Maru
A documentary recounts the tragic story of brave Chinese fishermen and British soldiers, who perished on board the Japanese freighter Lisbon Maru. Director Alan Lau Kin-lun's interest was sparked when he heard about the plan by the divers of Hong Kong Underwater Archeological Association to search for the freighter. On Sept. 25, 1942, 1,816 British POWs from the Sham Shui Po POW camp were herded on to the Lisbon Maru on their way to provide labor in Japan. A few days later American submarine USS Grouper torpedoed the freighter. While the Japanese troops were evacuated on to their destroyers, the POWs were left behind in 3 locked holds below deck.     [ thestandard :: 2008-02-14 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Silver set from ill-fated USS Indianapolis a gold mine for display
At $1.5 million, this is not typical silver set. The hors d'oeuvre tray, with an inscription of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, is valued at $33,500. The 28 1/2-inch-wide oval centerpiece is inscribed with the words "From the School Children of Indiana." High-priced as the collection is, the 39-piece silver set has a value far beyond estimations. Acquired by the Indiana World War Memorial Museum, the collection will be officially revealed at a private ceremony. The silver is one of those rarest of Hoosier history artifacts: remains of the USS Indianapolis, a ship that's been at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean since it was sunk in 1945.     [ indystar :: 2008-02-13 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

One man's journey to save Napa-made warship USS Bolster
When America mobilized for World War II, so did Napa. With a work force of 3,000 working 3 shifts, Basalt Rock Co. produced 3-dozen salvage-rescue tugs for war duty in the South Pacific. The shipyard is long gone, and the last of the tugs are on death row in Suisun Bay's reserve fleet. Bruce Martens, a man with a passion for Navy history, is attempting to save one of them, the USS Bolster, to become a floating Bay Area museum. Salvage-rescue tugs were never the Navy's glamour ships, but "they saved thousands of lives." 214 feet USS Bolster was launched at Basalt Rock on Dec. 23, 1944, after being made in only 4 months.     [ napavalleyregister :: 2008-02-12 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Liberty Ship Survivor by Joseph Mazzara : Torpedoed by a German U-boat
In spite of being torpedoed by a German U-boat during World War II and losing over 30 of his comrades, Ray Laenen isn't bitter. In fact, the U.S. Army veteran has bonded with one of the German rivals and keeps in touch with him. That story and others are part of "Liberty Ship Survivor" by Joseph Mazzara. 50 years after battle, Laenen journeyed to Germany to meet the man who sunk the Liberty ship. "I had no animosity toward these Germans. They were fighting for their country as I was fighting for mine." Laenen spent 22 days adrift in the Indian Ocean before he was rescued by a British escort carrier - losing 22 pounds, and hallucinating during the ordeal.     [ countypress :: 2008-02-07 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Wreckage of scuttled Nazi ship Ussukuma identified off Argentine coast
Argentina's navy identified a wreck off the coast of Buenos Aires as the Ussukuma, a Nazi supply vessel that sank after a face-off with British warships in the early days of WWII. The Ussukuma, scuttled by its crew in Dec 1939, was carrying explosives for German warships, said historian Carlos De Napoli. "This is the first Nazi wreck to be id'd in Argentine waters in decades. We have at least 6 more Nazi ship and submarine wrecks waiting to be discovered." -- Professor of naval history Eric Grove: "Any German ship at sea after Sept 1939 could only operate as a fugitive. Standard procedure for those ships was to scuttle themselves if detected by enemy forces..."     [ bloomberg :: 2008-01-31 :: Wrecks: WWII ]

Rear Admiral Charles A. Curtze salvaged a major ship in Pearl Harbor
Rear Admiral Charles A. Curtze, who died at 96, had a hand in some major events in American history. He played a key role in salvaging a major ship during the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor. That achievement is highlighted in a tribute to Curtze at the Admiral Charles A. Curtze Maritime Hall at Erie History Museum. Curtze was working as a fleet safety officer on the light cruiser USS St. Louis when the attack began. He helped guide the cruiser out of the harbor. It was the only major ship to escape that day, and it became the stalwart as the Pacific Fleet was reconstructed after the bombing.     [ goerie :: 2007-12-29 ]

Aircraft carrier USS Franklin crew's nightmare during kamikaze attack
Joe Springer already knew a key part of the story when he started work on "Inferno: The Epic Life and Death Struggle of the USS Franklin in World War II." But it's the charges of desertion and other details surrounding the attack by a Japanese bomber and the fire that claimed over 1,200 lives that shape his book. It tells about the life at sea aboard the aircraft carrier with the most decorated crew in naval history. The Franklin fought in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944 and was the first fleet carrier struck by a kamikaze. Repaired, the Franklin sailed to Japan in 1945 as part of Task Force 58, which targeted airfields to nullify the kamikaze threat.     [ whig :: 2007-11-08 ]

Captain Denis Jermain - Coastal forces and anti-submarine warfare
It was while commanding a motor torpedo boat in the 1st MTB Flotilla that Captain Denis Jermain devised a technique for sinking surface ships using depth charges. In October 1940 he was in one of several MTBs which torpedoed 2 German trawlers. Two months later his MTB was the only survivor of a flotilla which ran into a convoy. His torpedo-firing mechanism failed but he made a depth-charge attack while his gunners fired upwards at anyone who put his head over the merchant ship's gunwales. This technique required to cross only a few yards from the enemy's bows; but his depth charges exploded amidships, sinking the 6,000-ton vessel.     [ telegraph :: 2007-11-06 ]

U-boat hunters - MAC ships: flat-top escort carrier
HMS Audacity was the Royal Navy's first merchant aircraft carrier whose role was to protect convoys crossing the Atlantic. She started life as a German passenger ship the Hannover, which was captured early in the war and converted into a flat-top escort carrier, also known as a MAC ship. She could operate 4 light Grumman Martlet aircraft from her short flight deck with no hanger. There is a 1:300 scale model of the camouflaged Audacity in Merseyside Maritime Museum's Battle of the Atlantic gallery. She was sunk by a German U-boat in Dec. 1941 after 4 escort passages. More U-boats were sunk by aircraft than by ships during the last 2 years of World War II.     [ liverpoolecho :: 2007-11-04 ]

It was American sailboats against German U-boats in World War II
Sending sailboats out to fight U-boats: those early days of U.S. involvement in WWII were desperate times. Rufus 'Bud' Smith commanded 25 U-boat-hunting yachts of the Third Naval District. Similar groups operated elsewhere, perhaps 100 yachts were involved along the U.S coast. In 1942, U-boats found lightly defended hunting grounds off the U.S. coasts. The yachts had been volunteered for military service by their owners, crews were temporary U.S. Coast Guard reservists. The yachts, painted Navy grey with white numbers forward, didn't sink any U-boats. They did serve as deterrents. They could approach U-boats and report their positions by radio.     [ galvestondailynews :: 2007-10-27 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Mayday: Tugs of War - Documentary
Robin D. Williams has captured the stories of the crews who helmed deep-sea tugboats during WWII on celluloid. Documentary "Mayday: Tugs of War" focuses on the World War II deep-sea rescue tugmen and their struggles against submarines, ships, aircraft and nature while towing sinking ships 3 times their size. He gathered first-hand accounts of tugmen who fought in the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944, pulling the landing craft off of beaches and repairing them. "This turns out to be one of the more dynamic stories of WWII, but it was never told because there were no cameramen allowed... because they would have filmed the stories that looked like we're being defeated."     [ ocregister :: 2007-10-27 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

World War II Liberty ship the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien
His service as a naval captain in the Revolutionary War earned him the honor of having a World War II Liberty ship carry his name. That vessel, the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien, is permanently berthed at Pier 45 in San Francisco. Stepping on deck, visitors can get a sense of the teamwork and mechanical engineering that went into its operation. Taking a 90-minute self-guided tour allows visitors to view every area of the ship. As one of only 2 operational Liberty ships left from the 2,751 built (the other is the S.S. John W. Brown, in Baltimore), the Jeremiah O'Brien is the sole survivor of the 6,939-ship armada that stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, 1944.     [ modbee :: 2007-09-10 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Captured submarine ace Vice-Admiral Sir Ian McGeoch dies at 93
Vice-Admiral Sir Ian McGeoch was a wartime submarine ace and a serial escaper after being captured by the Germans in 1943. On his first war patrol he was deployed off Naples to ambush any Italian battleship which might threaten the Allied landings in North Africa. He hunted and missed a German U-boat, but when an anti-submarine schooner was sighted McGeoch surfaced and fired a few shots to persuade the crew to abandon ship. He allowed an armed merchant cruiser to pass unmolested, but the next day U-boat proved too tempting to resist, but it was not an easy attack and his torpedoes missed their target.     [ telegraph :: 2007-08-17 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

World War II Liberty Ship coming to Massachusetts Maritime Academy
The World War II Liberty Ship the SS John W. Brown will be docked at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Bourne Monday-Wednesday and will be open to the public for tours. The John W. Brown - listed on the National Register of Historic Places - is operated by Project Liberty Ship, a nonprofit group that seeks to preserve the ship as a living museum. Originally called "Emergency Ships," more than 2,700 were built. They were designed to be constructed quickly and cheaply. A ship's hull was finished in just over 4 days. They became known as Liberty Ships after the launching of the first vessel, christened the SS Patrick Henry.     [ southcoasttoday :: 2007-08-11 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

David Lish seeks backers to restore WWII Coast Guard yacht
Describing the historic wood sailing yacht Zaida as high maintenance is an understatement: "This boat is 9 hours of sanding to 1 hour of sailing," said David Lish. While Zaida has an important pedigree in its designer and builder, the yacht is best-known for its unusual World War II service. Manned primarily by volunteers, the yacht was the smallest of the private vessels in region volunteered for service with the Coast Guard in the famed Coastal Picket Patrol that cruised off the East Coast looking for Nazi U-boats. Zaida's most noteworthy encounter was not with the Germans but with nature. A fierce storm in Dec 1942 damaged the boat, and it was missing for 21 days...     [ historywire :: 2007-07-09 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

World War II Submarine Commander Eugene B. Fluckey dies at 93
Rear Admiral Eugene B. Fluckey, one of America's most daring submarine commanders of World War Two died at 93. The skipper of the submarine Barb in the Pacific from April 1944 to August 1945, he was known for innovative tactics. Commander Fluckey was the only American submarine skipper to fire rockets at Japanese targets on shore. In addition to the Medal of Honor he was awarded 4 Navy Crosses, his service's second-highest decoration. The Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee, which provided official tallies for WWII submarine attacks, credited him with destroying 95,360 tons of shipping, the highest total for an American submarine commander.     [ nytimes :: 2007-07-02 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

4000 poppies in memory of Britain's worst maritime disaster: Lancastria
4,000 poppies were laid at the Scottish Parliament in memory of each of the victims of Britain's worst maritime disaster. The Clyde-built liner the Lancastria came under attack and sank near France during World War II. About 4,000 people died - more than the combined death toll from the Titanic and Lusitania. Survivors and relatives of victims are calling for official recognition. The Lancastria was lending support to the war effort when it was attacked by German bombers on 17 June, 1940, while evacuating British Expeditionary Forces from France.     [ bbc :: 2007-06-19 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

WWII Soldier recalls being tracked by German submarine
Article no longer available from the original source.
Elmer Swartwood will never forget the time a German u-boat tracked his ship for 3 days. "It got underneath our ship one time, and we couldn't get away for him, and he couldn't get away from us." Back in those days, submarines had to come up every 3 days to generate. "When he came out of the water to get generated, that's when we shot him with hedgehogs. We blew him clear out of the water. The military sent ships out to help us, but the captain wouldn't let them get close to us until the submarine came up, and we blew it out of the water."     [ canoncitydailyrecord :: 2007-06-10 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

USS Indianapolis torpedoed - "special cargo was the atomic bomb"
Lindsey Zeb Wilcox was on board the USS Indianapolis on July 29, 1945 when it was hit by two Japanese torpedoes. On July 12, 1945, USS Indianapolis received orders to carry a "special cargo." Their destination was the Tinian Island in the Marinas. Whatever time they saved getting to the island would shorten the war. When they arrived at Tinian on July 26, 1945, breaking the record for speed held by USS Omaha in 1932, they learned the special cargo was the atomic bomb. Arrival time shortened the war 26 days. On July 28 the ship left for Guam, and on July 29 Japanese submarine I-58 under the command of Hashimoto fired 6 torpedoes with 2 hitting the USS Indianapolis.     [ baytownsun :: 2007-05-31 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

1944 Secret at West Loch: "the second attack on Pearl Harbor"
The "second attack on Pearl Harbor," happened when a series of explosions in West Loch destroyed several Navy ships. J. Arthur Rath experienced the disaster from the hillside campus. He later befriended historian Henry W. Schramm, a seaman on a minesweeper inside the harbor that day, who recorded his account for Rath. On May 21, 1944 The harbor was swollen with combat ships, cargo vessels and even old WWI 4-stackers. The fleet loaded its war supplies in Pearl prior to invading the Marianas. While other sailors were on shore leave, Schramm was on the bridge reading. A sailor on watch rushed over. "There's a base fire alert. Can you two-block the fire flag?"     [ starbulletin :: 2007-05-21 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Grant to restore WWII-era naval vessels like submarine USS Cavalla
The Cavalla Historical Foundation has received a Burke Family Trust $1 million grant. It will be used to complete the restoration of the World War II-era submarine USS Cavalla and the destroyer escort USS Stewart, and to move forward with plans for a visitors center at the military complex in Seawolf Park. "These ships represent the only place in the U.S. where both a submarine and a destroyer escort that saw duty during WWII are on display,' he said. 'The Cavalla is the only submarine of that era that sank an aircraft carrier, and the Stewart is one of only two destroyer escorts remaining in the U.S."     [ galvestondailynews :: 2007-04-13 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Excerpt: Miracles on the Water - Survivors of WWII U-Boat Attack
In 1940, the British liner SS City of Benares was attacked by a German submarine in the North Atlantic while heading to Canada to escape the German blitz over England. More than 400 people were onboard, including 90 children, who believed they were fortunate to be heading to Canada. The ship sank in a half hour, and although there was little chance of survival, some made it out alive. Tom Nagorski tells their story, using firsthand accounts from child survivors and other passengers of the Benares. Below is an excerpt from "Miracles on the Water: The Heroic Survivors of a World War II U-Boat Attack."     [ abcnews :: 2007-03-18 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Navy sends in a troop to rescue replica WWII battlewagon
Article no longer available from the original source.
Used in both world wars, the USS Nevada was blasted by torpedoes and bombs, struck by a suicide plane, used as a target during the 1946 atomic bomb tests, and then towed out to sea and sunk by torpedoes. A 40-foot replica of the battleship, built to shoot the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" has likewise been put to the test. The one-fifteenth scale model, has ended up too deteriorated to display. After filming the model ship was used by the Navy as a recruiting tool and in the Armed Forces Day Parade. Recently Garrett Bower has headed a troop working to repair the ship so it can take part in the next Armed Forces Day Parade.     [ dailybreeze :: 2007-01-31 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

WWII Kamikaze Attacks recalled: You don't expect admirals to die
Pete Momcilovich joined the U.S. Navy and was aboard the heavy cruiser USS Louisville, which saw 3 Japanese kamikaze attacks and earned 13 battlestars during World War II. The Louisville was in the middle of the Luzon operation when the first two Japanese kamikaze attacks happened. The first attack occurred Jan. 5, 1945, and hit the signal bridge. "We were expecting to be attacked because the ship was bombarding the gulf, but the first attack shook up a lot of people. One of the reasons the men were shook up was because an admiral was killed. You don't expect admirals or high ranking officials to die, but they do."     [ theintelligencer :: 2007-01-15 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Battle of Midway, Kamikaze attacks aboard the Enterprise
Rage filled the heart of John Long Jr. as he was deployed to clean up the mess created by the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. After hours of picking up dead bodies, his hatred for the Empire of Japan grew even stronger. With memorabilia on his dining room table, Long said that soon after Pearl Harbor, he was stationed in the aircraft carrier Enterprise, which in June 1942 played a vital role in the battle of Midway in which her planes sank or helped sink 3 Japanese aircraft carriers and a cruiser. In Oct 1944, there was nothing the crew could do but watch as a Japanese kamikaze crashed onto the USS Randolph, which within minutes sank.     [ journal-advocate :: 2006-12-29 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Plea to restore only WWII Kriegsmarine's torpedo boat
The Kriegsmarine's Schnellboot, considered to be the best torpedo boat of WWII, is now set for a refurbishment thanks to overwhelming interest by enthusiasts bent on saving the historic Nazi relic. At a top speed of 55 knots, Schnellboot was far better than US Navy's PT boat or the Royal Navy's MTB, and it could be gauged from the fact that surrendered Schnellboots like the S130 was used even after the WW2 for covert military operations. After the fall of the Third Reich, S 130 was surrendered to the British who used it to drop agents on the Baltic coast.     [ zeenews :: 2006-12-12 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

SS Manhattan Goes To World War II
With Adolf Hitler in ascendancy there were rumblings of war, but the luxury liner SS Manhattan continued cruises until Sept 1938, when Nazi Germany recalled all its liners, causing stir of ship schedules. In 1941 the Manhattan was chartered to the government: Its sparkling paint was covered with a coat of gray. It was equipped with anti-aircraft guns and depth charges and a new name: U.S.S. Wakefield. After "war games" and practice in zigzag sailing, the first task was to deliver British troops to Singapore. At that port on Jan. 30, 1942, Japanese bombers attacked, scoring a direct hit, killing 5 and injuring 9.     [ theday :: 2006-11-29 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

WWII aircraft carrier USS Intrepid mired in mud
The USS Intrepid, the aircraft carrier that survived World War II bomb and kamikaze attacks, got stuck in the mud in the Hudson River as a fleet of tugboats tried to pull it from its berth for a $60 million renovation project. The ship - a floating military museum that draws hundreds of thousands of tourists a year - was supposed to be towed across the river to a dry dock. The Intrepid, launched in 1943, helped bring about the naval defeat of Japan. It suffered 7 bomb attacks, 5 kamikaze strikes and one torpedo hit, losing 270 crewmen.     [ denverpost :: 2006-11-07 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Pictures of the sunk british WWII battleship in Scapa Flow
Underneath the massive hull of the HMS Royal Oak, the superstructure of the battleship lies crushed, with gun barrels buried in the sand. These are the clearest images yet of one of the most terrible naval tragedies in British history. The Dreadnought class warship, one of the largest in the British WWII fleet, was sunk by torpedoes during the Second World War in a U-boat attack in Scapa Flow on Oct 14, 1939. The ghostly images created by ADUS are published for the first time and show the wreck in great detail. The wreck, an official War Grave in which more than 833 sailors died when it sank in 10 minutes, is still leaking fuel.     [ scotsman :: 2006-09-25 :: BattleShips of World War Two ]

Royal Navy, not RAF, stopped Hitler and saved Britain
The courage of "the Few", the Battle of Britain fighter pilots who protected the country from the Luftwaffe, and stopped a full-scale invasion by Nazi Germany, remains one of the great stories of the Second World War. However, 3 military historians have claimed that it was not the gallant Spitfire and Hurricane fighter pilots who saved the country, but the Royal Navy. Operation Sealion would have attempted to land 160,000 soldiers using 2,000 barges. "The Navy had ships in sufficient numbers to have overwhelmed any invasion fleet; destroyers' speed alone would have swamped the barges by their wash."     [ timesonline :: 2006-08-24 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

WWII gunner stayed calm - Torpedo Junction of U-Boats
Raymond Bost trained for four weeks as a machine gunner on a 20mm aircraft gun before he was assigned to a cargo ship that took supplies to Allied troops. Supplies such as ammunition, weapons, planes, tanks and foods were kept below deck. When in a war zone, the sailors had to stand watches. Atlantic was very cold, sometimes as low as 40 below. 1942 was rough: Hitler had u-boats to sink cargo ships. Bost's hip and leg were injured because of metal shrapnel during a torpedo hit on his ship. This ship was 180 miles off the coast of Newfoundland in an area referred to as "Torpedo Junction."     [ newszap :: 2006-08-12 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Nazi Germany's first and last aircraft carrier: Graf Zeppelin
Construction on the aircraft carrier "Graf Zeppelin" began in 1936: It was to be a prestige object for the Nazis and the 33,000-ton colossus was capable of 33 knots. The 1,720-man aircraft carrier could only hold about 40 planes, half as many as Allied equivalents, but it was heavily armored. Though the Graf Zeppelin was launched in December 1938, construction was never fully completed. U-boats took priority when WW2 began and it was sidelined and never saw action. As the war came to a close and the Nazi Wehrmacht foresaw their demise, demolition squads sank the carrier on April 25, 1945, just days before Adolf Hitler's suicide.     [ dw-world :: 2006-07-28 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Not all the ships that sunk in World War II were hit by enemy fire
Not all the ships that sunk in Second World War were hit by enemy fire. Mitchell George Siefe, serving about a Landing Ship Tank in Hawaii, recalled three that were sunk by a typhoon. The big wind struck while ships of the 7th fleet were assembling in a huge armada in the South Pacific preparing for the invasion of Japan. "The storm was so severe three destroyers were sunk and most people on my ship were sick afterward." He and two other crewmen were the only ones who were able to go down to breakfast the next morning. Mitchell saw the devastation of war, as well as that of Mother Nature.     [ lompocrecord :: 2006-06-13 :: War & Weather History ]

Erich Raeder: Admiral of the Third Reich's Kriegsmarine
This book focuses on Erich Raeder, the Commander in Chief of the German Navy or Kriegsmarine. Raeder is often shadowed by the Nazi Adm. Karl Donitz, chief of Hitler's submarine forces. Raeder's biography is more revealing than Donitz's, because he served under 3 different German navies: the Imperial Navy, the Reichmarine (Weimar Republic) and under Hitler's Kriegsmarine. He oversaw the expansion of the German Navy in preparation for Hitler's entry into WWII and the design of the panzerschiff, or pocket battleships. He pushed for the Plan Z: A Nazi Navy of 500 ships, which included the Nazi's only incomplete aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin.     [ worldwartwobooks :: 2006-06-02 :: Kriegsmarine & Graf Zeppelin ]

British navy before nazi trial: We had similar tactics
Britain told prosecutors after World War Two not to press charges against Nazis for sinking ships on sight because the British navy had similar tactics. Admiralty voiced the worries in an secret 1945 letter: "We have to bear in mind the fact that ultimately, by way of reprisal, we ourselves adopted a total sink-at-sight policy in prescribed areas. British naval officials were concerned about the trials of German naval commander Erich Raeder and his successor Karl Doenitz: "We have been a little anxious concerning the possibility that the trials of Doenitz and Raeder might involve a controversy concerning legal principles of maritime warfare."     [ reuters :: 2006-06-01 :: Nuremberg Trials: Nazi War Criminals ]

Man sunk twice in WWII - Cruiser and small aircraft carrier
Norbert "Norb" Trainor had two ships shot out from under him in World War II, when he served in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific, and lived to tell the tales. He was a seaman aboard the cruiser USS Chicago when it was torpedoed and sunk off Guadalcanal in 1943. And he was aboard the small aircraft carrier USS Gambier Bay when it was surrounded by Japanese ships and sunk in 1944 during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest sea battle in world history. When the Gambier Bay was sunk, the only U.S. carrier of the war to be sunk by ship-to-ship fire, he spent two days and nights adrift at sea in life rafts, surrounded by sharks, before being rescued.     [ wcfcourier :: 2006-05-30 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

When Latvia was seized by USSR 8 ships stayed independent
Article no longer available from the original source.
Crews of the eight Latvia-flagged vessels refused to obey Soviet orders when Latvia was annexed and incorporated by the Soviet Union in 1940. They kept the Latvian flag flying, legally remaining the sovereign territory of the Republic of Latvia. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, all eight steamers went into the Allied service, sailing both independently and with the Allied convoys and delivering strategic cargo for the Allies. Ironically they found themselves on the same side of the war as the Soviets, who entered the anti-Axis alliance in 1941 after being attacked by Nazi Germany.     [ womacknewspapers :: 2006-05-14 :: Latvia Divided - Nazi Past ]

Veteran recalls attack on USS Frank
Joseph Vaughn became part of the crew on the USS Franklin, a new Essex-class aircraft carrier. It was a late entry into the war, but the ship packed a lot of action into the next 14 months. Before dawn on an overcast March 19, 1945, the Franklin was within 50 miles of the Japanese mainland. Fighter planes had been launched to sweep Honshu. The captain sent half the watch to go below decks to eat breakfast. They all were lined up to the mess hall when a Japanese pilot broke through the clouds and dropped two 500-pound bombs. "All those people in a line," said Vaughn, shaking his head. "That's where they all got killed."     [ staugustine :: 2006-05-02 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Unlike most American soldiers in the WWII, war came to him
On Dec. 7, 1941, he was on his way home from morning Mass when smoke and planes filled the Oahu sky. "Things didn't look right," Miranda said. Both scared and curious, the then-15-year-old climbed a tree to witness the Japanese attack that would bring America into WWII. -- Three years later Paul Miranda stood on the battered deck of the USS Hoel, he expected to die. Four Japanese battleships had attacked just after dawn, lobbing shell after shell at the Hoel until dead men and twisted metal covered her deck. He needed to get off the ship - now. "That is when the fear hit me. I can't swim."     [ uniondemocrat :: 2006-01-20 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

Rear Admiral Desmond Piers at the centre of a wartime naval crisis
The disaster that befell a transatlantic convoy in mid-ocean in November 1942 was unjustly blamed on the senior officer of its Canadian naval escort, the then Lieutenant Commander Desmond Piers, but he was still awarded the DSC for his convoy work just a few months later. The fate of SC (slow convoy) 107 precipitated a crisis for the Royal Canadian Navy and the allied convoy system as the German U-boat campaign reached its destructive peak.     [ Guardian :: 2005-11-22 :: Naval forces & Battles ]

See also

'U-Boats'

'Battleships'

'Graf Spee'

'PQ17, Arctic Convoys'

'Wrecks'.

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