Fullbore Friday

Speaking of oil in the water off Louisiana. U-Boats in the Gulf you ask? Oh, yea.

Now and then, I have to tip my hat to the men of the German U-boat fleet. They didn't have the great submarines like we did - no, not even close. But what they did with them ... it is still amazing.

In the summer of 1942, U-166 patrolled the Gulf of Mexico in searches for a new victim. Steamer Robert E. Lee appeared 70 kilometers from the Mississippi mouth on July 30. The passenger carrier of 5184 tons displacement was going from Trinidad escorted with a PC-566 cruiser. There were over 400 passengers on board the vessel, mostly technical specialists and seamen rescued from sunk ships. The cruiser contacted with the coast station over the air and reported its coordinate position; it was a fatal mistake as the negotiations were intercepted by the German submarine.

The U-166 captain Kullmann ordered to immediately open fire against the ship. People on board the passenger carrier saw a white foamy trace on the sea surface and then a torpedo explosion followed. Marshal Charlton, who was a sailor on Robert E. Lee steamer tells: ?We felt a quick bump, as if the ship ran against a stone wall. The torpedo got into the engine-room and smashed it to pieces.¦ The steamer got a serious breach and sank very quickly; passengers on Robert E. Lee were rather lucky v only 25 people sank.

German submariners were eager to find out whether the hunting was a success. They got so used to remain unpunished for their doings in the Gulf of Mexico that U-166 surfaced without any cautiousness. PC-566 seamen rescued passengers from the steamer, then they noticed the hostile submarine and showered it with depth-bombs. One of them hit the fore body. A catastrophe was inevitable, and the submarine broke into two pieces just in few minutes and sank. The debris went down at a depth of about 1.500 meters in Mississippi-s underwater canyon. Not far from the dilapidated submarine hull, was lying an awkward carcass of the steamer that it torpedoed.

Germany waited for any information from U-166 in vain. No information about the submarine appeared after July 30, 1942, that is why U-166 and its crew of 52 seamen were considered missing.

In almost 60 years, at the beginning of 2001, researches were held at the sea bottom for further laying of oil pipelines there. By that time, the place where Robert E. Lee steamer sank was known, as its framework was found in 1986 already. However, when measurement was done, underwater robots detected strange anomalies of the sea bottom near the place where the steamer was lying. Maritime archeologists joined the researches and determined that wreckage of a submarine of the IX-C class were quite close to the steamer.

But what was the submarine that American pilots bombed not fat from the Mississippi delta? On July 24-25, 1942, U-166 executed a secret mission in the Gulf of Mexico near the Mississippi mouth and laid mined there. In that very place U-166 came across U-171, a giant submarine of the same class. In several days, an American plane noticed U-171.

The pilots decided to attack the submarine. Submarine specialist Krist says that the pilots had one depth-bomb weighing 120 kilograms. ?It would have been an exceptional case if the pilots had managed to sink a submarine of the IX-C class. But no miracle happened.¦

The American pilots remained above the place where they dropped the bomb for an hour. They even saw an oil spot spreading on the sea surface, that is the reason why they were sure that they managed to sank a submarine. But out of the whole number of German submarines that furrowed the Gulf of Mexico, only U-166 didn-t get back home from there. But it is unlikely that U-171 submarine seriously suffered from the dropped bomb, as the submarine moved away from the American shores. But the days of U-171 were also numbered: it was blown up when it approached the base in Lorient, near the French shores. Some members of the U-171 crew were saved, but 22 men were killed.

U-166 suffered the same fate that majority of the Nazi Germany-s submarines did. Within ten years, 1935-1945, over a half of submarines out of the whole number of 1167 didn-t get back from their combat missions. German historians sum up losses of the enemy: 2900 vessels and 33 thousand seamen at the cost of the life of 30 thousand German submariners.

Underwater pictures of the U-166 framework and wreckage of the steamer that it sank lying side by side produce a painful impression: the hunter and the pray, the killer and the victim are lying together in one underwater grave, covered with sand and silt, almost forgotten. This is just another reminder of the war horrors.

The U-boat fleet suffered extremely heavy casualties, losing 743 U-boats.

From one of my favorite books of all time, Gaylord Kelshall's The U-Boat War in the Caribbean, the story is told in much greater detail.

U-166 was a Type IXC U-boat commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Günther Kuhlmann, 28 years old.

He made three patrols - but his third, 44 days, is the one he is remembered for.

U-166:
Displacement: (tons) 1,120 (sf); 1,232 (sm); 1,540 (total)
Length: (m) 76,76 oa; 58,75 ph
Beam: (m) 6,76 oa; 4,40 ph
Draught: (draft) 4,70 m
Height: 9,40 m
Power: (hp) 4400 (sf); 1000 (sm)
Speed: (knots) 18,3; (sf) 7,3 (sm)
Range:(miles/knots) 13450/10 (sf); 63/4 (sm)
Torpedoes: 22; 4/2 (bow/stern tubes)
Mines: 44 TMA
Deck gun: 105/45, 110 rounds
Crew: 48-56 men
Max depth: ca. 230m (755 feet)

USCG practices lawfare

Facepalm. Just facepalm.

Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state’s oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor’s wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.

“It’s the most frustrating thing,” the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. “Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges.”…

[T]he Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges…

“They promised us they were going to get it done as quickly as possible,” [Jindal] said. But “every time you talk to someone different at the Coast Guard, you get a different answer.”

Yep - I want the federal government have more control over my healthcare. More.

Free from the union nomenklatura ..

Hey; Mass. lawmakers do the right thing. Nice.

Language added to a supplemental budget bill that passed the House and Senate yesterday would exempt high school ROTC instructors from having to pay “agency fees” to local teacher unions.

The exemption was filed on behalf of U.S. Marine Maj. Stephen L. Godin, a junior ROTC instructor at North High School in Worcester, who has objected to requirements that he pay an agency fee to the teachers union. The fee is charged to teachers who are not in the union and therefore do not pay union dues.

Senate minority leader Richard R. Tisei, R-Wakefield, who is a candidate for lieutenant governor, tried unsuccessfully last week to add the language to a bill protecting health care workers. He resurrected the exemption yesterday, however, and tacked it onto a supplemental budget bill enacted during informal House and Senate sessions and sent to the governor for his signature.

Hat tip Maggie.

If you need more Claude ...

Midrats regular Claude Berube is now spending some time over at The Heritage Foundation ... and is keeping a blog over there.

Well worth your time. Head on over and help him stir the pot.

Midrats Episode 26: Command

Command at Sea. What does it mean, how do you do it, what does it takes to succeed - and more importantly - what are the responsibilities of Command at Sea?

Join EagleOne of "EagleSpeak" and me on Sunday 20 JUN at 5pm EST for a wide ranging discussion with three present of former Navy and Coast Guard Commanding Officers on the nature of Command.

Our guests will be; CDR E. A. Westfall, CDR, USCG, Commanding Officer of the USCGC ESCANABA (WMEC 907). CDR James H. Ware, Commanding Officer, VAQ-135. CDR Michael Junge, USN, former Commanding Officer of the USS WHIDBEY ISLAND (LSD 41).

Join us live if you can and pile in with the usual suspects in the chat room during the show where you can offer your own questions and observations to our guests. If you miss the show or want to catch up on the shows you missed - you can always reach the archives at blogtalkradio - or set yourself to get the podcast on iTunes.

Listen to Midrats on Blog Talk Radio

Diversity Thursday

When is it OK to make a personal attack on a blog? I don't like doing it - though I think I do it more often than I should.

I think though it is fair game when your target fired first. In that context - then I think I am OK with this. CNO, if you don't believe this stuff and feel forced to do it - then I just pity you. I don't think that is the case. If you actually believe this stuff and mean what you say? Well, you are fair game. Sorry, but you started it. I respect you enough to give you the benefit of the doubt; you are a true believer. Now that I think about it - when I heard you say similar things to this in 3D face to face (with your all white entourage, natch) - you looked sincere. Therefor .... fair game.

The mindless sectarian narcissism that has taken root in the mind of the CNO leaves me gobsmacked. I don’t quite know what is more distressing; the fact that he is so seeped in self-loathing and a masochistic guilt of his own self-identified “ethnicity,” the fact that he has so little faith in the inherent goodness and fairness of his Navy - or the utter paternalistic contempt he demonstrates for today’s young generation of officers and enlisted personnel.

Yes, I said it. Yes, I mean it. Yes, it is personal; the CNO makes it personal. Words mean things. Words of a CNO translate into action.

First the context.

The Navy’s top … received the Asian American Government Executives Network’s Outstanding Public Service Award.

Roughead received the honor for “exemplary leadership in promoting diversity in the most senior ranks of the U.S. Navy,” according to an AAGEN news release.
At the June 2009 AAGEN conference, Roughead signed a memorandum of understanding with the Naval Officers Mentorship Program to develop, implement and improve strategies for mentoring diverse generations of future officers. (Sal‘s translation: race based SeaDaddyism)
…
The CNO said diversity has been an important part of his life. His father worked in the oil industry, so Roughead didn’t grow up in this country.

“I benefited from the different perspectives, beliefs and cultures that I was able to see,” he said. “I was able to appreciate the richness and value that can be derived from the many different viewpoints, ideas and thoughts that can come together and make any organization stronger, better and more effective.”
…
“For me to be included as an honoree on the same list as Sen. Daniel Inouye is the highest honor anyone who wears the uniform could hope to have,” he said.

… and the inevitable paternalistic “White Man‘s Burden” insult to the character, motivation, intellect, and motivation of our young Sailors.

“The thing we must do is to have our young people be able to look up to their leadership and see themselves. Only then will they believe that there is opportunity.”

Is that really what he thinks about today’s Sailors? They are that shallow and racist? Really? That isn't the Navy I know. That isn't the one I served in. Disgusting.

I guess mixed race children will just never believe that they have opportunity. The fried-air logic of the cult of Diversity is pathetic.

I don’t know who - well actually I do - is advising the CNO on these issues or if these are concepts he fully takes onboard - but they exude all that is vile and destructive in the human condition starting with sectarianism, tribalism, and racism.

The fact that in the second decade of the 21st Century we continue to have leaders sinking back in to a retrograde view of race is a shame on our Navy and our Nation. We are better than this. We deserve better than this.

Yeoman in the 'Stan: Chapter IV

Our fourth report from out Battle Yeoman in Afghanistan. A new business idea, perhaps - Kevlar on a Rope?

In all seriousness though, this does remind us of one thing. There is no rear area - and we have Sailors of all ratings putting themselves on the front lines so the rest of us can raise our families in peace.

The rest of the post is his.

---

In boot camp, our RDCs always kept us from taking "Hollywood Showers." We'd get, at most, five minutes; in and out. Last night, I took my sweet time in the shower.

What must have been 10 minutes into my shower, the rocket alarm went off. There is nothing more perplexing than being in your birthday suit when you're supposed to lay flat on the deck and cover your head. As soon as I heard it, I crouched in the shower covering my ears and looking down. Not even 15 seconds later all I heard was a incredibly loud popping sound, like a paper bag makes. Then water spraying before I got to the cut off valve feeding the water heater, I could see this because the shower curtain blew in. I knew the rocket landed damn close.

My old DCC would be proud: My first instinct was to secure the flooding. But, I did not have my plugging kit and the break was before the valve. I stayed down in the shower until I heard someone else come into the head. All that was running through my head was that this actually happened. In the KAF lottery I got 4 out of 5 numbers right. Once I knew someone else had come into the head, I stepped out of the shower, grabbed my towel, cloths, shower kit and walked out of the head, bewildered looks on all the faces as I walked by a towel to my berthing.

There was a quarter inch of water on the deck and rising. We had a rupture on the 2 inch potable water main before the valve. We still had power. All personnel were evacuated from the affected space at this time. No casualties reported. In relation to my position: Hit alfa, starboard side forward. I was ~15 feet from impact.

High dusting in an environment that has sand analogous to moon dust is basically a moot point. The over pressure created from the rocket kicked up all the dust and set off fire alarms. With that amount of dust kicked up, it has a palpable smell to it: Kind of like chalk. I walked through the p-way to my room and got dressed. Nothing yet had really settled in. It turns out that there, even here the morning after, is nothing to settle in.

Perhaps there hasn't been enough time yet, I don't know. I feel kind of strange, though. I am not shaken, distraught or the like. I just wish I got to shoot back. The one thing that did occur to me last night is that I am Schrödinger's cat. Almost all of us out here in Afghanistan are.

The box is the strategy chosen by our leaders. The radiation is the efforts of our enemy. Once this war is over is when we open the box and find out if the cat is alive or dead. I've read a lot online concerning the critiques of the strategy we have chosen out here. I can see and understand the efficacy of our strategy. But, I don't like the analogy I am now able to make. I am too proactive to like being confined as I am. I want to shoot back. I want to help plan the effort to secure all the locations they fire these rockets from. I want to help pour the concrete that makes the T-barriers that protect our berthings. Please, I've proven myself under fire (for the most part) can I do more, now?

Once the reaction teams made it to the scene, EOD made sure there was no UXO in the area. I was standing there looking at where the rocket impacted, someone mentioned to them I was in the shower. The EOD OIC said to me, "You're a lucky guy." I repeat: An EOD guy said to a YN he was a lucky guy...

Damn. Find a guy who won the Powerball, and have something happen to you that will make him tell you you're a lucky guy; that's the level this sentiment is on.

I need to know how I am more than a possibly alive, possibly dead cat in a box. I need to be reassured of that. I am looking to my leaders in their deeds--not words, to do that for me. For once in my life, I can look my leaders in the eye and tell them they owe something to me. And that's all that I want, is to be shown that I am more than that cat in a box.