U.S. Navy WWII ships's small arms compliment

[Bob Womack]

Does anyone have access to info on what compliment of small arms was issued to each class of ship during WWII? I'm specifically interested in submarines, destroyer escorts, and destroyers, but I'm really interested in all of them. I've search on the web and come up empty.

Thanks for any help!!!

Bob

Information

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[CINDERS]

Small bit of info in this bit;
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&r...xk54rR7H0CYGuA

[gsimmons]

My dad was on DE-258 The Walter S. Brown, he said they had pistols, M1903 rifles and Thompsons. I'll try to find the picture.

[Bob Womack]

Small bit of info in this bit;
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&r...xk54rR7H0CYGuA

Thanks for that. The portions on decks guns were especially revealing to me about that part of the sub's weapons. Knowing that there were standard inventories of goods assigned to all new construction, I've been trying to nail down numbers. I've read the excellent book Little Ship, Big War, on the subject of DEs warfare, specifically aboard DE-343 William Warner Abercrombie, as well as virtually all of the monographs from sub commanders and crewmen. There is some mention but no numbers, and that has been my experience in reading most monographs.

Bob

[Seaspriter]

Bob, Thanks for this request. I'm quite curious too. My father commissioned a DD during WWII and I commissioned a DE/Fast Frigate during the Vietnam era. Neither of us were gunnery officers, so we didn't go prowling around in the small arms gun locker or do inspections there.

However, I do recall -- because we used them for practice off the fantail -- BAR, Colt 1911 (strapped to my side in Vietnam), flare guns, and I believe an M-14 (M-16s were just being phased in and we had none on board in 1970-72).

I suspect the complement aboard a WWII small arms gun locker was very similar -- would really like to see the inventory list.

Robert

[emmagee1917]

From Culver's :
Small arms on WW2 Battleships.
What I know for sure.
Off the USS California(BB44) small arms salvaged on 12/07/41 were:
Battery #1 96 1903 rifles,15 1911s,6 BARs,4 Lewis guns
Battery #2 81 1903 rifles,14 1911s,6 BARs,4 Lewis guns
Battery #3 84 1903 rifles,18 1911s,6 BARs,4 Lewis guns
Battery #4 91 1903 rifles,16 1911s,8 BARs,4 Lewis guns,4 Thompsons

USS Saratoga (CV3) turned in to stores 8/41:
5 Cutlasses
10 BARs
157 1903 Springfields

Respectfully submitted
Ed Byrns

The Navy would have a few small arms on board , the Marine detachment would bring their own . The Navy guns would tend to be older or secondary line guns ( Remington '03 / A3s and S/W revolvers ) while the Marine's would be M1 Garands and 1911A1s , depending on the time / unit .
Chris

[oldpaul]

Wow, cutlasses in 1941. It made me check online and apparently they were in stores with the U.S. Navy until 1949 and the last model issued was the M. 1917. Very nice. Arrgh. Tom

[Bob Womack]

I've read the stories of several submarines that did stop, search, and sink during WWII. I'd bet the cutlass would have come in handy, if for nothing other than cutting away souvenirs. SS-306 Tang displayed a labeled life ring from one of her victims on her periscope shears each time she entered port.

Bob

[Seaspriter]

The carrying of small arms aboard Naval vessels goes back hundreds of years. At the founding of our Navy in the Revolution, all Frigates (like the Constitution in Boston Naval Shipyard) carried a contingent of Marines aboard that were stationed in the tops firing on the enemy's gun crews. In the event of the need for a landing party on unfriendly territory, such as hunting pirates (which we did in earnest between 1821-25), the landing party was appropriately armed.

Now for the juicy part (at least for me). In 1971 I was a junior officer aboard the newly commissioned DE/FF-1075. We were in Guantanamo Bay for our shakedown cruise (working the thousands of "bugs" out of every piece of gear). We were on Operational Readiness trials off the coast of Cuba when a Very High Priority Top Secret, Captain's Eyes Only encrypted message was received in the radio shack. I was the Top Secret Encryption Officer (among a myriad of other duties). I went to the crypto vault, took out the encryption codes, raced to the Captain's Quarters with the message, and he then asked me to leave and called in the Executive Officer while he personally decoded the message.

A minute or two later, the ship wheeled around abruptly and we rooster-tailed it back to Gitmo. On the pier were crates of supplies and ammunition. All hands (including Officers) were ordered to bear a hand loading all the crates on the double.

All the Gitmo Operational Readiness inspectors were ordered to stay on board. As the last crate was put on the fantail, the brow (gangplank) was taken in, all lines cast off, and we high-tailed it out of Gitmo at flank speed bound to patrol the Windward Passage, the strait between Cuba and Haiti. No one but the Captain and the XO and the Gunnery Officer knew what was going on at that time. Why all the commotion? What could the Top Secret message have ordered?

As soon as we had cleared Gitmo harbor, all Officers and Chief Petty Officers were called to the Wardroom. Laid out on the wardroom table were sufficient 1911 Colt 45s to arm us all. The Captain told us that Dictator Duvalier of Haiti (Popa Doc) had just died, and the CIA received information that Cuba was preparing to cross the Windward Passage and invade Haiti (island of Hispaniola). We were the only ship in the immediate vicinity to fill the gap between Cuba and Hispaniola.

Worse, our main battery, a newly-designed 5" 54 gun mount (which was designed to fire a 5" shell at the rate of 1 round per second) was CasRep'd (meaning it had been placed on the Casualty Report) -- it was inoperable due to some design flaws. Machine guns had not yet been mounted topside (that happened the next year in Subic Bay). Yikes, we had no other weapons to fight a Cuban invasion other than small arms!

Our Captain, Alan Higginbotham, a very good senior officer who came to the destroyer fleet via the submarine force, explained grimly that our ship was not going to suffer the fate of the U.S.S. Pueblo under Captain Lloyd Bucher. That ship held the ignominious distinction of being the only U.S. Navy ship ever captured without a fight (by the Koreans only three years earlier). If we couldn't use our main battery, we'd have to engage with small arms. He expected it would be a fight to the death if necessary -- we weren't going to give up the ship (like Bucher and his crew who were tortured as prisoners of war.) The rest of the Gunner's Mates were issued the limited numbers of BARs and M-14s.

Then Chief Gunner's Mate Gerry Russell (after the Navy we became a close friends), gave us all a short refresher course in how to use the 1911. We then strapped on the 45s, and went to General Quarters Battle Stations.

Fortunately (for us and for Haiti) the Cubans did not invade, we protected the peace with 45s and BARs and M-14s. If you don't think we all thought of ourselves as John Wayne prototypes (Sands of Iwo Jima, etc.), make no mistake -- the choice was clear: be scared of the grim possibility of warding off the Cuban amphibious armada with small arms, or be courageous, tough, and stalwart -- we chose the latter, which served us well the following year in Vietnam.

(maybe this post is a little off the focus of the thread, but I couldn't resist writing the heretofore unwritten story.)

Robert

[browningautorifle]

I couldn't resist writing the heretofore unwritten story

Which we always enjoy hearing...