Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
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In the new year of 1918, Wolfe was selected to be converted to take an 18-inch (457 mm) gun along with Lord Clive and Prince Eugene.[10] The mounting for the gun, the largest in service with any navy, was named the "15-inch B C.D.". "15-inch B" was the code name for the 18-inch gun itself, and C.D., for "Coast Defence" reflected the possible usage of the mount on land. The mounting was designed and produced by the Elswick Ordnance Company and due to labour troubles, although ordered in October 1917, it was not completed until May, and finally arrived in Portsmouth for installation on Wolfe on 20 June 1918.[11] Wolfe had been taken in hand by Portsmouth Dockyard on 5 April for the structural modifications required to take the weight of the 18-inch gun and mounting on her quarterdeck.[10] The total weight of the mounting was 384 tons, not including the weight of sixty shells and seventy-two full charges of cordite.[11] The gun itself, which was fixed to starboard, had been intended for "A" turret of the large light cruiser HMS Furious and was fitted on 9 July.[12] Wolfe was ready for gun trials on 7 August, which took place off the Isle of Wight and were successful. The mounting, with its large box-shaped shield, so disfigured the stern of the ship that it earned Wolfe the nickname of "Elephant and Castle".[12] On 15 August the monitor returned to the Dover Patrol, the first of the 18-inch monitors to re-enter service. She had a new commanding officer, Commander S.B. Boyd-Richardson. The rest of August and most of September she saw no action.
In cooperation with Allied forces attacking on the coast of Belgium, the monitors were used on a protracted shore bombardment. In the night of 27/28 September, the seven monitors available to the Patrol bombarded targets near Ostend and Zeebruge, using their sub-calibre (smaller) guns, to trick the Germans into thinking that a night landing by Allied forces might be made there (following the earlier Ostend and Zeebrugge Raids in April).
By dawn the monitors had arranged themselves in three divisions off the West Deep, where they could harass German lines of communication far inland. Wolfe was in Division III with the new-completed coast defence ship HMS Gorgon.[13] Wolfe was anchored parallel to the coastline, and at 0732 opened fire on the railway bridge at Snaeskerke (four miles south of Ostend) at a range of 36,000-yard (32,918 m) away. She therefore fired the heaviest shell from the largest gun at the longest range up to that time, and at the longest range any Royal Navy ship has fired in action. During the rest of the day Wolfe fired fifty-two 18-inch shells out of her supply of sixty at Snaeskerke, all landing close to the target.[14]
For the next two weeks, Wolfe and the other monitors of the patrol kept up an intermittent bombardment of the Belgian coast, interrupted by bad weather or lack of air support for spotting the fall of shot. In mid-October the Germans evacuated the Belgian coast and the monitors returned to Sheerness when the Armistice was signed. Wolfe paid off on 19 November 1918.[15]
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Dark Alley Dan
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And if one had a "scorched earth" mindset, one could have tried them with the other war criminals at Nuremburg and sent them either to the gallows or Spandau. But that'd be the waste of a perfectly good scientist, and one must keep the long game in mind when playing global politics.
And so the Allies forgave people who weren't worthy of it. Crazy ol' Rudy Hess spent his life in prison, Fat Hermann cheated the gallows...
...and Good Old Werner got to ride with the President before they figured out convertibles and Presidents aren't a great combo.
Dirty fvcking business, this.
30,000 98ks after surrender of German forces in Norway.
Reminds me a little of going in the the back warehouse of Lever Arms that Allen Lever had given Dianne and I open access in the late 1990's. Of course there there was not a similar number of guns but we estimated over a thousand M1 Garands stacked in a similar way. I didn't know much about grading these guns so I chose mostly on outward appearance. If memory serves me well I remember the wholesale on these were in low $200's. I miss Allen and those visits. Phil.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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It's an old joke. The title of his biographical movie was "I Aim at the Stars". Some wags subtitled it "...But Sometimes I Hit London."
Peenemunde, 1944 or so:
Werner und some lads from der office:
And a few years later, at White Sands:
Werner and some of the fellows from the shop...
Peenemunde, 1944 or so:
Werner und some lads from der office:
And a few years later, at White Sands:
Werner and some of the fellows from the shop...
It would be a good one to see, there are lots of good docs showing up lately.
Rod Serling hosted a doc or teleplay about the end of WW2/Berlin and the Rocket Program.
I can't remember the time frame but he said something like "Before the Treaty was sighed the US took every car, truck, train available into the East and confiscated everything they could get their hands on and transport it back to the West.
The US got the better ones, the ones that went East mostly went under duress. A lot of post war aircraft work on both sides was done by Germans. The Mig 15 proved an unwelcome surprise in Korea, the Brits sold them the engines though.
Grizz
