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

[Peter Laidler]

UK and Australian submarines carried Lanchesters and .38" revolvers until the late 60's as we used to overhaul them from the Naval Ordnance Depot in Singapore (I think it was called HMS Terror but don't quote me.....). There were still 6 Lanchesters in the main workshop Armoury when we left in very late 1969 from an ex UK submarine that had been gifted/sold to Australia that presumably left without them!

[emmagee1917]

I had an uncle that served on the USS Indianapolis during early WW2 . One of his jobs was to inventory the small arms locker every quarter ( or was it monthly ? ) . He remembered it had 4 cutlasses on the list . One time , it only listed 2 , not 4 . He and the other , superior , officer were in a quandry about what to do . My uncle speaks up and says , " Well , why don't you take one and I'll take the other ? " . Both agreed that was a good solution .
One time when we were back visiting them , he offered to give me that cutlass . I refused , saying he should give it to one of his kids . I guess they didn't want it , because he sold it in a yard sale the next day .I still kick myself over that today , decades later .
Chris

[Bob Womack]

That's a heckuva sea story to have in your pocket but I bet it was a tense situation to live through!

Bob

[browningautorifle]

Would have been a nice cutlass to have too, specially if marked.

[Seaspriter]

bet it was a tense situation to live through!

You are right, Bob. I was Officer of the Deck on the 4-8 (am) watch the following morning. We were standing modified General Quarters. Just before sunrise, our surface radar picked up a large number of skunks (unknown/unidentified vessels) leaving from the coast in the vicinity of Baracoa. If it was the amphibious armada of small vessels crossing the Passage, we were in trouble. A P-3 aircraft had come on station that evening; we sent it to scout the skunks. Fortunately they were just fishing boats leaving port. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

After the watch I went down to CIC (Combat Information Center) to check on the Electronics Signal Intelligence Reports (I was also Electronic Warfare Officer). EWT1 Doxford was manning the EW gear, and blurted out he just detected what could have been a ping from a Russian missile tracking system emanating from the Gulf of Gonave in Haiti. We got pinged a second time -- set all electronics countermeasures, called for full General Quarters, and alerted Washington. Fortunately the radar profile was just slightly different from the missile tracking frequency -- it came from an innocent transmission by a merchant freighter. We were lucky again. Later that day other ships arrived in the area, and two days later the CIA determined that Castro, if he had thought about an invasion, had cast those thoughts aside. We stowed the 45s, BARs, and M-14s, won our Operational Readiness certification, and breathed easy.

(Recall during the Falkland Islands war HMS Sheffield was hit and sunk by an Exocet missile. From what I was told, two missiles were fired from an Argentine aircraft. Both missile were actually aimed at a British carrier, which cloaked itself in electronic disguise, repositioning itself to the missile. Once two missiles passed through the electronic image of the carrier, one crashed innocently into the sea. The other was deadly; it locked onto the Sheffield which was behind the carrier on escort duty. The crew of the Sheffield had only 5 seconds warning -- too little to respond. The missile hit, dooming the ship. That incident was 30 years ago; imagine what electronics are doing now.)

[CINDERS]

I wonder in their right mind who would want to take on a battlewagon, I hope your uncle was not involved in the disaster that befell that crew and ship I have read the book about her and the crew it is often referred to as "The day of the shark" because of the item she had up the bow, secrecy was paramount so there was no route on record for her journey to or from her destination, on the way back from Tinian she met the Japanese submarine that sank her...... the book is call "Abandon Ship" By Richard F Newcomb.

[Seaspriter]

Intrigued by the question of Naval small arms in 1940, I pulled out my father's 1940 Edition of the Blue Jacket's Manual, which was issued to all enlisted recruits and officer candidates. It was originally prepared in 1902, and revised several times by 1940. In particular, the 1940 edition was intended to "modernize the manual so that it agrees in substance with the latest training courses and includes such other information as would tend to make an able seaman and a thorough man-o'-war's man."

The contents on small arms would most probably reflect what small arms the sailor or officer would find aboard a typical naval vessel.

Chapter 40: "Carrying the Automatic Rifle and Submachine Gun" refers specifically to the Browning Automatic Rifle and the Thompson Submachine Gun.

Chapter 42: "Small Arms" refers specifically to the 1903 Springfield (not Model 1917 Enfield) described specifically as "the United States Magazine Rifle, Model of 1903," and "the Colt 45 caliber automatic pistol is the United States Navy standard." (No other small arms are specifically cited, except in short mention of life-line guns, etc.

Of course there is a full chapter on "Elementary Gunnery" and "Advanced Gunnery" addressing the basics and nuances of the large cannons -- 5" to 16".

There is very little about intermediate guns such as machine guns, submarine deck guns, or anti-aircraft guns.

[Mk VII]

Navy manuals often tended to lag behind the latest technical developments in radar and weapons, and were heavy on sailing boat drill and other stuff less relevant to the for-the-duration sailor.

[Frederick303]

Some years ago when The Springfield Research Service (SRS) database was on line I was searching for a Krag that was known to be in my family and the serial range of Krags around it to see if I could correlate it to some sales to a NY Volunteer Cavalry unit. In any case ins researching this I can across a slot of Krags that were said to be donated to the US Navy in WWII in 1942 and were so entered in the data base. They were a range of 1896 and 1898 rifles.

The only information I was ever able to get on this was an older Navy Chap at a show who said for a brief period of time in 1942, the US NAVY was pulling M1903 rifles out of ships and gibing them to the Marines, replacing such arms with the Krags that were donated. He specifically said some minesweepers were so equipped.

By late 1942 or early 1943 the need went away and presumably the Krag rifles also. Back in an old American rifleman from the late 1950s I seem to recall a naval station selling Krag rifles in the Northwest around 1957 to 1958.

The one thing that makes me wonder about actual widespread issue was there is no WWII ammunition contract for Krags. According to DCM records the last Krag ammo was sold of in the 1920s and by the 1930s they were selling the reduced charge Krag loads to DCM shooters, so there could not have been much ammo in the system to support any real issue.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The Royal Australian Navy also had Lanchesters on some ships before and during WW2. I suspect that some of these arrived in ships transferred from the Royal Navy.

Trying to find the WW2 "official" annuals (imaginatively titled: HMAS Mk1, HMAS Mk2, etc) These were large-format, hard-bound books published annually by the Australian War Memorial during the conflict and into the 1950s. In one of these is a nice big photo of an Australian Naval Rating clutching a Lanchester.

I have found the complete set for the Army and RAAF, along with the Volunteer Defence Corps, but the RAN ones are probably still sealed in a box somewhere.

Photo of Lanchesters in RAN service.