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I’d buy that man a beer anyday!

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Good Guy With a Gun Stops Man Shooting Up Las Vegas Building Lobby by Julio Rosas

AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
A building employee of Las Vegas’ Turnberry Towers is being hailed as a hero by residents for shooting a man who was firing upon the building’s front desk on Friday.

KTNV reports a man wearing a helmet had an AR-15 and other weapons when he entered the towers Friday afternoon. The gunman then fired at the front desk, shattering glass but not hitting anyone.

That is when the resident said the building employee fired at the gunman, hitting him and causing him to try to flee the area while still be shot at by the employee.

Security video shows the moment when the shooter was exiting the building after being shot. He survived

Resident Benjamin Teal told KLAS the employee was warning people about the gunman before going back to engage the shooter.

“My valet comes out waving his arms saying, ‘There is a guy with a gun, turn around and go the other way,’ and so we go down to the basement the first level where the valet parking is and then we heard about six to seven or eight gunshots,” Teal said. “It was pretty distinguishable to be a gunshot.”

A social media user claimed the gunman was a resident and the shooting was “unprovoked, never had issues with anyone here, just went to his car, grabbed an [AR] and came back in and shot the front lobby up. Homberto, who works in receiving, is a hero. He shot the armed man and saved so many lives. Nobody was injured other than the shooter.”

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Navy SEAL Firearms

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US Coast Guard in Vietnam (1967)

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Wake Island: The Alamo Of The Pacific

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One More Shot: The Sacrifice of Alonzo Cushing at the Battle of Gettysburg from a fine blog : THIS IS WHY WE STAND

Commanding Battery A, 4th United States artillery in Major General Winfield S. Hancock’s Second Corps, First Lieutenant Alonzo H. Cushing stared down the mighty Army of Northern Virginia’s final fury at the Battle of Gettysburg on Friday, July 3, 1863.

As nearly 13,000 rebel soldiers streamed forward across open fields with the dream of breaking the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge and achieving a war-winning victory for the Confederacy, the steely-eyed 22 year old Wisconsinite gave every ounce of his devotion to the defense of the threatened Federal position.

Struck by a searing hot piece of shrapnel during the Confederate artillery barrage that preceded the assault, both Cushing’s thighs and his stomach were ripped open. With all of his officers dead and only two of his guns still operational, the first lieutenant did not waver, holding his belly to keep his entrails from spilling out and continuing to perform his duty. As other artillery units withdrew from the ridge, Cushing ordered his remaining guns moved up to the stone wall at “the Angle” to meet the enemy onslaught head-on.

Despite pleas from his subordinates urging him to go to the rear for medical treatment, Cushing remained firm: “No, I stay right here and fight it out or die in the attempt.” With the Confederates less than 100 yards away, he grasped the lanyard that fired his gun and shouted, “I will give them one more shot!” As his weapon roared one last time, the young artilleryman was shot in the head and fell dead beside his gun.

Alonzo Cushing gave the last full measure of devotion in defense of the Union center and played an unforgettable role in the resistance that broke the back of the Army of Northern Virginia on July 3, 1863. One hundred fifty-one year after his heroism at Gettysburg, Cushing was posthumously awarded the United States military’s highest decoration for valor under fire, the Medal of Honor.

Read the full story of the epic Battle of Gettysburg in this three part series: Day One – The Armies Collide, Day Two – A Time for Heroes, and Day Three – Triumph and Tragedy.

Sources

American Battlefield Trust: Alonzo H. Cushing.

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson.

Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg by James M. McPherson.

National Park Service: Lt. Alonzo Cushing at Gettysburg.

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I bet you never heard of this war!

The Quasi-War with France
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
USS Constellation Capture of the French Privateer Sandwich by armed Marines on the Sloop Sally, from the U.S. Frigate Constitution, Puerto - NARA - 532590.jpg
Left: USS Constellation vs LInsurgenteright: U.S. Marines from USS Constitution boarding and capturing French privateer Sandwich
Date July 7, 1798 – September 30, 1800 (2 years, 2 months, 3 weeks and 2 days)
Location
Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea
Result Convention of 1800
Belligerents
Commanders and leaders
Strength
  • Up to 9 frigates, 4 sloops, 2 brigs, 3 schooners
  • 5,700 sailors and Marines
  • 365 privateers
Unknown
Casualties and losses
  • American:
    • Military personnel: 82+ killed, 84+ wounded
    • Civilians: Unknown
    • Ships: 22 privateers, up to 2000 merchant ships captured
  • French:
    • Military personnel: 20+ killed, 42+ wounded, 517 captured
    • Civilians: Unknown
    • Ships: 1 frigate, 2 corvettes, 1 brig; 118 privateers sunk or captured[1]

The Quasi-War (FrenchQuasi-guerre) was an undeclared naval war fought from 1798 to 1800 between the United States and the French First Republic, primarily in the Caribbean and off the East Coast of the United States. The ability of Congress to authorize military action without a formal declaration of war was later confirmed by the Supreme Court and formed the basis of many similar actions since, including American participation in the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War.[2][a]

In 1793, Congress suspended repayments of French loans incurred during the American Revolutionary War. The dispute escalated further due to different interpretations of the 1778 treaties of Alliance and Commerce between the two countries. France, then engaged in the 1792–1797 War of the First Coalition, which included Great Britain, viewed the 1794 Jay Treaty between the United States and Britain as incompatible with those treaties, and retaliated by seizing American ships trading with Britain.

Diplomatic negotiations failed to resolve these differences, and in October 1796 French privateers began attacking merchant ships sailing in American waters, regardless of nationality. The dissolution of Federal military forces following independence left the US unable to mount an effective response and by October 1797, over 316 American ships had been captured. In March 1798, Congress reassembled the United States Navy and in July authorized the use of military force against France.

In addition to a number of individual ship actions, by 1799 American losses had been significantly reduced through informal cooperation with the Royal Navy, whereby merchant ships from both nations were allowed to join each other’s convoys. Diplomatic negotiations between the US and France continued, the establishment of the French Consulate in November 1799 led to the Convention of 1800, which ended the war.

Background[edit]

Under the Treaty of Alliance (1778), the United States had agreed to protect the French West Indies in return for their support in the American Revolutionary War. As the treaty had no termination date, France claimed this obligation included defending them against Great Britain and the Dutch Republic during the 1792 to 1797 War of the First Coalition. Despite popular enthusiasm for the French Revolution, especially among anti-British Jeffersonians, there was little support for this in Congress. Neutrality allowed New England shipowners to earn huge profits evading the British blockade, while Southern plantation owners feared the example set by France’s abolition of slavery in 1794.[3]

In 1793, Congress suspended repayment of French loans incurred during the Revolutionary War, arguing the execution of Louis XVI and establishment of the French First Republic rendered existing agreements void. They further argued American military obligations under the Treaty of Alliance applied only to a “defensive conflict” and thus did not apply, since France had declared war on Britain and the Dutch Republic. To ensure the US did not become involved, Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1794, while President George Washington issued an Executive Order forbidding American merchant ships from arming themselves.[4] France accepted these acts, but on the basis of ‘benevolent neutrality’, which they interpreted as allowing French privateers access to US ports, and the right to sell captured British ships in American prize courts, but not vice versa. However, the US viewed ‘neutrality’ as the right to provide the same privileges to both.[5]

Caribbean, main focus of operations during the Quasi-War

These differences were further exacerbated in November 1794 when the US and Britain signed a new trade agreement, which contradicted the 1778 Commercial Treaty granting France “most favoured nation” status. The Jay Treaty resolved outstanding issues from the American Revolution, and expanded trade between the two countries; between 1794 and 1801, American exports to Britain nearly tripled in value, from US$33 million to $94 million.[6]

As a result, in late 1796 French privateers began seizing American ships trading with the British. An effective response was hampered by the almost complete lack of a United States Navy, whose last warship had been sold in 1785, leaving only a small flotilla belonging to the United States Revenue Cutter Service and a few neglected coastal forts. This allowed French privateers to roam virtually unchecked; from October 1796 to June 1797, they captured 316 ships, 6% of the entire American merchant fleet, causing losses of $12 to $15 million.[7] On March 2, 1797, the Directory issued a decree permitting the seizure of any neutral shipping without a role d’equipage, a crew manifest which listed the nationalities of each crewmen.[8] Since virtually no American merchantman carried such a document, this effectively initiated a French commerce war on American shipping.[9]

Efforts to resolve the conflict through diplomacy ended in the 1797 dispute known as the XYZ Affair.[10] However, the hostilities created support for establishing a limited naval force, and on June 18, President John Adams appointed Benjamin Stoddert the first Secretary of the Navy.[11] On July 7, 1798, Congress approved the use of force against French warships in American waters, but wanted to ensure conflict did not escalate beyond these strictly limited objectives.[12] As a result, it was called a “limited” or “Quasi-War” and led to political debate over whether it was constitutional. A series of rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States established its legality and confirmed the ability of the US to conduct undeclared war or “police actions“.[13]

Forces and strategy[edit]

Since battleships were expensive to build and required highly specialised construction facilities, in 1794 Congress compromised by ordering six large frigates. By 1798, the first three were nearly complete and on July 16, 1798, additional funding was approved for the USS CongressUSS Chesapeake, and USS President, plus the frigates USS General Greene and USS Adams. The provision of naval stores and equipment by the British allowed these to be built relatively quickly, and all saw action during the war.[14]

The US Navy was further reinforced by so-called ‘subscription ships’, privately funded vessels provided by individual cities. These included five frigates, among them the USS Philadelphia, commanded by Stephen Decatur, and four merchantmen converted into sloops. Primarily intended to attack foreign shipping, these were noted for their speed, and earned huge profits for their owners; the USS Boston captured over 80 enemy vessels, including the French corvette Berceau.[15]

With most of the French fleet confined to home ports by the Royal Navy, Secretary Stoddert was able to concentrate his forces against the limited number of frigates and smaller vessels that evaded the blockade and reached the Caribbean. The US also needed convoy protection, and while there was no formal agreement with the British, considerable co-operation took place at a local level. The two navies shared a signal system, and allowed their merchantmen to join each other’s convoys, most of which were provided by the British, who had four to five times more escorts available.[16]

This allowed the US Navy to concentrate on attacking French privateers, most of very shallow draft and armed with between one and twenty guns. Operating from French and Spanish bases in the Caribbean, particularly Guadeloupe, they made opportunistic attacks on passing ships, before escaping back into port. To counter those tactics, the US used similarly sized vessels from the United States Revenue Cutter Service, as well as commissioning their own privateers. The first American ship to see action was the USS Ganges, a converted East Indiaman with 26 guns; most were far smaller.[17]

The Revenue cutter USS Pickering, commanded by Edward Preble, made two cruises to the West Indies and captured ten prizes. Preble turned command of Pickering over to Benjamin Hillar, who captured the much larger and more heavily armed French privateer lEgypte Conquise after a nine-hour battle. In September 1800, Hillar, Pickering, and her entire crew were lost at sea in a storm.[18] Preble next commanded the frigate USS Essex, which he sailed around Cape Horn into the Pacific to protect U.S. merchantmen in the East Indies. He recaptured several U.S. ships that had been seized by French privateers.[19][20]

For various reasons, the role of the Royal Navy was minimised both at the time and later; the first significant study of the war by US naval historian Gardner W. Allen in 1909 focused exclusively on ship-to-ship actions, and this is how the war is often remembered.[21] However, historian Michael Palmer argues American naval operations cannot be understood in isolation and when operating in the Caribbean

…they entered a European theater where the war had been underway since 1793. The Royal Navy deployed four to five times more men-of-war in the West Indies than the Americans. British ships chased and fought the same French cruisers and privateers. Both navies escorted each other’s merchantmen. American warships operated from British bases. And most importantly, British policies and shifts in deployment had dramatic effects on American operations.[22]

Significant naval actions[edit]

A 20th-century illustration depicting United States Marines escorting French prisoners

From the perspective of the US Navy, the Quasi-War consisted of a series of ship-to-ship actions in US coastal waters and the Caribbean; one of the first was the Capture of La Croyable on 7 July 1798 by the Delaware outside Egg Harbor, New Jersey.[23] On 20 November, a pair of French frigatesInsurgente and Volontaire, captured the schooner USS Retaliation, commanded by Lieutenant William BainbridgeRetaliation would be recaptured on 28 June 1799.

On 9 February 1799, the frigate Constellation captured the French Navy’s frigate L’Insurgente and severely damaged the frigate La Vengeance, largely due to Captain Thomas Truxtun‘s focus on crew training[citation needed]. By 1 July, under the command of Stephen DecaturUSS United States had been refitted and repaired and embarked on its mission to patrol the South Atlantic coast and West Indies in search of French ships which were preying on American merchant vessels.[24]

On 1 January 1800, a convoy of American merchant ships and their escort, United States naval schooner USS Experimentengaged a squadron of armed barges manned by French-allied Haitians known as picaroons off the coast of present-day Haiti. On 1 February, the American frigate USS Constellation unsuccessfully tried to capture the French frigate La Vengeance off the coast of Saint Kitts. In early May, Captain Silas Talbot organized a naval expedition to Puerto Plata on the island of Hispaniola in order to harass French shipping, capturing the Spanish coastal fort at Puerto Plata and a French corvette. Following the French invasion of Curaçao in July, the American sloops USS Patapsco and USS Merrimack began a blockade of the island in September that led to a French withdrawal. On 12 October, the frigate Boston captured the corvette Le Berceau.[25]

On 25 October, the USS Enterprise defeated the French brig Flambeau near the island of Dominica in the Caribbean Sea. Enterprise also captured eight privateers and freed eleven U.S. merchant ships from captivity, while Experiment captured the French privateers Deux Amis and Diane and liberated numerous American merchant ships. Although overall USN losses were light, by the time the war ended in 1800, the French had seized over 2,000 American merchant ships.[26]

Conclusion of hostilities[edit]

By late 1800, the United States Navy and the Royal Navy, combined with a more conciliatory diplomatic stance by the government of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, had reduced the activity of the French privateers and warships. The Convention of 1800, signed on 30 September, ended the Quasi-War. It affirmed the rights of Americans as neutrals upon the sea and abrogated the alliance with France of 1778. However, it failed to provide compensation for the $20 million “French Spoliation Claims” of the United States. The agreement between the two nations implicitly ensured that the United States would remain neutral toward France in the wars of Napoleon and ended the “entangling” French alliance.[27] This alliance had been viable only between 1778 and 1783

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America’s deadliest Irishman – the Irish James Bond

Meaner than McGregor, meet the Irish MMA fighter who took on gangsters, Nazis and foreign spies.

Forcemen of 5-2, First Special Service Force, preparing to go on an evening patrol in the Anzio beachhead, Operation Shingle, Italy, ca. 20-27 April 1944.

Forcemen of 5-2, First Special Service Force, preparing to go on an evening patrol in the Anzio beachhead, Operation Shingle, Italy, ca. 20-27 April 1944. PUBLIC DOMAIN

With two world titles to his name and a high-profile fight against Floyd Mayweather under his belt, Conor McGregor is undoubtedly Ireland’s most famous ever MMA fighter, but another man, more merciless than McGregor, can claim to be its deadliest. 

Dermot ‘Pat’ O’Neill was an unbeatable grappler who combined techniques from half-a-dozen styles to take on notorious Kung Fu experts, ruthless Asian gangsters, and battle-hardened Nazis in confrontations where defeat meant death.

The original ultimate fighter, he began his remarkable rise to seventh dan in Jiu Jitsu by keeping law and order as a cop in the back alleys of Shanghai, and his career reads like the biography for an Irish James Bond: intelligence officer shadowing communist agitators, handpicked member of the first SWAT team, hand-to-hand combat instructor for the OSS in WWII, army captain who led his Special Forces squad behind enemy lines, and finally, the man to whom the US Marines, US Air Force and even the CIA turned to learn new fighting skills during the Cold War.

Born to Francis O’Neill from County Laois, and his wife Mary (née Moore) from County Offaly, on March 21, 1905, at Newmarket, Cork, police service was always likely for Dermot as his father was a District Inspector with the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).

In 1924, he signed on as a cabin boy on a steamer, jumping ship 12,000 miles later when they arrived in Shanghai where his oldest brother Frank worked for a bank.

Shanghai was divided in every sense, made up of the Chinese city, the French ‘Concession’, and the International Settlement, which was part of China but since 1863 had been run by the British to protect their business interests and those of America.

In the International Settlement, the British and Irish held most of the top positions in the Shanghai Municipal Police’s (SMP) Foreign Branch while the Japanese worked alongside Germans, Sikhs, Chinese, and ‘White’ (pro-Tsar) Russians in the 14 stations, battling groups like the Green Gang who earned millions controlling drugs, prostitution, and arms smuggling, using martial arts, blades, and firearms to protect their rackets.

O’Neill’s family name and his nationality were a help when he answered the SMP’s newspaper ad in 1925. Headquarters had sent cadets to the RIC for training, and long recruited directly from both that force and the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) so just six weeks later this youngster, who wrote ‘school’ under ‘Previous Employment’ on his application, found himself on patrol for the first time, and inevitably in a gunfight.

A generation before, a tough young English patrolman named William E. Fairbairn found that the bayonet skills which won him fame in the Royal Marines were useless against skilled Asian gangsters trained in ‘Kung Fu’. He spent two years training in ‘Judo’ with a local sensei, emerging a second dan black belt and introducing his simplified ‘Defendu’ to ensure the SMP could protect themselves.

 

 

Dermot, who had been a boxer in his teens, rose to sergeant within two years. By the 1930s he was a Sub Inspector shadowing foreign insurgents for Special Branch, and an expert in Jiu Jitsu, eventually studying under legendary sensei Tatsukuma Ushijima.

Corruption was widespread. Many of O’Neill’s Chinese colleagues were gangsters, swearing oaths to brotherhoods similar to the Mafia. SMP Detective Lu Liankui, for example, became a key Green Gang boss.

The Settlement’s Municipal Council turned a blind eye to the deliberate recruitment of such criminals hired to keep a lid on other gangs, but in the wake of 123 murders and almost 1,500 armed robberies in 1927 they demanded action.

Fairbairn’s solution was to form the first SWAT Team, the SMP ‘Reserve Unit’ which would also handle riots, guard VIPs, protect gold shipments, and escort condemned prisoners.

Fairbairn had complete faith in O’Neill, and as the highest ranked non-Japanese in the world in his art, a natural choice for the unit’s unarmed combat instructor. When he wasn’t going out on raids, the Irishman trained the USMC 4th Marine Regiment, the ‘China Marines’, who sometimes supported the unit on missions.

By 1934, Shanghai had grown to the sixth-largest city in the world and the fame of the innovative Fairbairn, who some suggest was a model for Ian Fleming’s’ M’ in the Bond novels, had spread too, his officers’ tough-guy exploits filling newspapers and even a US comic book.

 

O’Neill’s reputation also rose and in 1938 he accepted the job of Head of Security with the British Legation in Tokyo, where he earned his fourth dan black belt.

Back in Shanghai, Pat had regularly grappled with Judo students from the local Tung Wen College, well aware that his opponents were being trained as spies at a school with close links to Japan’s secret societies, and the feared Kempeitai, Tokyo’s version of the Gestapo.

Determined not to be trapped in Tokyo, on October 4, 1941, Pat smuggled himself onto a fishing boat, eventually reuniting with his brother Frank in Sydney just before the attack on Pearl Harbor, where he was soon telegrammed by Fairbairn urging him to join his old boss in the USA working for the Office for Strategic Services (OSS).

In May 1942, the Irishman found himself teaching agents at ‘Camp X’ just over the border in Ontario, Canada but soon became restless jumping at the chance to work with volunteers drawn from the US and Canadian armies with the ‘First Special Services Force’ (FSSF).

The FSSF’s inspirational CO Lt. Colonel Robert Frederick, a major general in the United States Army during World War II, initially asked OSS head William ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan if he could borrow this valuable civilian for two months, and told Pat that he had 40 hours per intake to train not only the officers but 1,800 who enlisted in unarmed combat, knife fighting and SMP-style pistol shooting.

“I am not here to teach you how to hurt,” the new instructor would curtly snap across the parade ground at their base in Fort William Henry Harrison near Helena, Montana. “I’m here to teach you how to kill!”

Pat soon realized he would need a system as good as Defendu, but more direct, dirty and evasive.

“The aim of hand-to-hand combat,” he later told USMC Brass, “is to make every man a dangerous man, armed or unarmed”.

His trademark ‘O’Neill to the nuts’ of a Nazi sentry would ensure he would never father a son and he also combined brutal eye gouges, deadly punches to the throat and vicious stomps to form ‘The O’Neill Method of Close Combat’.

On June 19, 1943, though still not an American citizen, he accepted the Colonel’s offer of a commission-in-the-field with the rank of US Army Captain.

“They ‘Shanghai-ed’ me,” the new captain chuckled.

O’Neill took part in all aspects of the brigade’s grueling training, so determined not to be left out of the action he persuaded his CO to have him assigned as an Intelligence Officer and Frederick’s bodyguard before they shipped out in November 1943.

Originally destined for commando missions behind German lines in Norway, the FSSF ended up fighting the Nazis first in Italy, where they played a key role in crucial battles, amazing General Eisenhower when they scaled soaring peaks at the vital Monte la Difensa in spite of stiff resistance from battle-hardened Panzergrenadiers, and later facing an equally tough enemy at Monte Cassino.

O’Neill became Uncle Sam’s newest nephew at an Italian farmhouse a few hours before St Patrick’s Day 1944 when he was awarded his US citizenship. He would soon personally lead heavily armed light infantry squads behind German lines at Anzio when with faces blackened night after night they silently killed sentries and stole documents and maps which Pat would vet before passing back to US Fifth Army Intelligence.

His ‘Braves,’ as they called themselves, used psychological warfare too, planting cards with their USA-Canada red arrow patch and Das dicke ende kommt nocht (‘The worst is yet to come’) on corpses.

With their combat strength dropping to 500 men, the FSSF’s end soon came, and though they never failed in a mission, after fighting in the Liberation of France, the proud ‘Devil’s Brigade’ was officially disbanded near the town of Menton, close to Nice, on December 5, 1944, their success making them a model for future special units like the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, and the Green Berets.

O’Neill became Provost Marshall of Monte Carlo before working with General MacArthur as Liaison Officer in Okinawa, retiring with a Bronze Star and the rank of Major, when always keen to learn, he took in lethal Okinawan Karate, and studied Aikido.

The Irishman was not so fortunate in his personal life. He had married a local schoolteacher named Mary Frances Hardigan in 1943 but their union, which produced one daughter, Barbara, did not survive the immediate postwar period.

Now a fifth dan he spent much of the 50s in Japan helping the State Department monitor communist insurgents, even traveling to Vietnam long before the US became officially embroiled there.

Pat got to see his beloved Ireland one last time in the 1970s before life did what few opponents ever could, laying the now-seventh-dan black belt flat on his back after a fall in his apartment in DC from which he never fully recovered.

Major Dermot O’Neill succumbed to pneumonia on August 11, 1985, and his cremated remains were buried in the military section of Arlington Cemetery on December 5, 41 years to the day after the FSSF was disbanded.

In spite of all his success, O’Neill never saw himself as a soldier or an early MMA fighter in the samurai spirit.

He remained, like his father, an Irish cop, happy to leave the money and fame to others.

It was simply as an old-fashioned ‘intelligence man’ that perhaps the greatest Irish fighter of them all hoped to be remembered.

*Originally published December 2015. Updated in August 2022. 

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David C Dolby – Medal of Honor Recipient (What a STUD!!!!!!)

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Dr. Dabbs – USS Buckley: Ready the Crockery to Repel Boarders by WILL DABBS

This is how pretty much every ship-to-ship combat action of this era is depicted in film. It’s predictable, but I still like it.

It’s a trope of pirate movies everywhere. Two massive galleons slug it out with their long nines before heaving alongside battered and broken. With masts shattered and rigging in disarray, the two mighty vessels collide like punch-drunk fighters, grapnels spanning the gap as soon as they come within range. Marines, stewards, and able seamen crouch behind the heavy oak with cutlasses and pistols in hand, ready to go. At the Captain’s command, the melee begins.

Master and Commander was a truly superlative movie. Its filmmakers did a better job than most depicting the gritty reality of shipboard life in the early 19th century.

There’s always somebody who swings Tarzan-fashion from one ship to another amidst sleeting musket fire. As these are movies the injured do not scream for their mothers and those destined to die just fall over without a great deal of fuss. As a species, we have forgotten the details of what happens when two groups of desperate men go at each other with blades. The end result in the real world, particularly onboard an 18th-century Man-o-War with no medical facilities beyond a near-sighted cook with a dirty bone saw, would be gruesome beyond imagining.

What the heck is this thing? I have a fair amount of experience with helicopters, and I’ve never seen anything like that.

The recent Tom Holland epic Uncharted had a variation on that theme that made me want to hurl. In this case, two 16th-century derelict treasure ships once helmed by Ferdinand Magellan are rigged as sling loads beneath these weird twin-rotor Chinook/Skycrane cyborg helicopters. Forget for a moment that the smallest of Magellan’s carracks, the Victoria, weighed 85 tons or 170,000 pounds. Two matching helicopters nonetheless hoist the two supposedly-fragile antique ships out of the Filipino jungle and fly off with them.

At least in this promotional still from the gonzo movie Uncharted, they used a sort-of real helicopter.

There results that same basic ship-to-ship combat set piece only this time it is executed while both vessels are suspended underneath helicopters in flight. Eventually, the Good Guys even use the 500-year-old cannon on one of the ships to shoot down a helicopter. I thought I would be sick. However, it seems not everybody agreed with me. The movie returned $401 million on a $120 million investment and was the fifth-highest-grossing video game movie adaptation of all time. I’m sure we will see sequels until the sun burns out.

This is the destroyer escort USS Buckley during sea trials.

While the repel boarders scene in Uncharted indeed savaged credulity, there was an actual exchange on the high seas off the Cape Verde Islands on the evening of May 5, 1943, that was itself pretty darn weird. The epic fight between DE-51, the destroyer escort USS Buckley, and the German U-boat U-66 involved, believe it or not, the weaponization of coffee mugs, empty brass from the American destroyer escort’s deck guns, and a coffee pot. The end result was the last ship-to-ship close-quarters fight in American naval history.

Oberleutnant Gehard Seehausen was by all accounts a gallant U-boat skipper. Things did not end well for him.

The evening was clear with a bright moon. U-66 was a Type IXC U-boat and the seventh most successful German submarine of the war, having sunk 33 Allied merchant vessels. U-66 was on her ninth war cruise. She had been at sea for four months and was perilously low on fuel. The skipper was Oberleutnant Gehard Seehausen.

This is an image of U-66 under attack while on the surface being resupplied by U-117. U-117 was sunk with all hands. U-66 escaped to fight another day.

Unknown to the Captain and crew of U-66, a US Navy TBM Avenger launched from the American escort carrier USS Block Island on antisubmarine patrol had picked up her radar return and pinpointed the boat’s location some 20 miles from the USS Buckley. The German Kriegsmarine used massive replenishment U-boats called Milk Cows as well as dedicated submarine tenders to resupply their tactical subs with fuel and ordnance while patrolling downrange. On this crisp clear night, U-66 was desperate for a nocturnal rendezvous.

This is the chart plot from the Buckley’s engagement with U-66.

The Buckley’s skipper, Lieutenant Commander Brent Able, headed toward the boat’s location at his best possible speed–around 23 knots. It was LCDR Able’s 28th birthday. Seven miles out he picked up the U-boat on his own radar. Presuming a stationary German submarine on the surface was waiting for resupply, LCDR Able took a gamble and approached the German boat boldly hoping the enemy Captain might mistake him for the expected sub tender.

The destroyer escort USS Buckley was well-suited for close-quarters surface action with a German U-boat.

Once within range, the U-boat skipper fired three red flares, the prearranged signal between his boat and their supply ship while under radio silence. Able closed the distance to 4,000 yards before Seehausen realized his mistake. In desperation, the German skipper ordered a torpedo snapshot in the darkness. The crew of the Buckley was not aware of this until they noticed the German fish passing harmlessly off their starboard side. In response, LCDR Able positioned his ship such that the U-boat was silhouetted in the moonlight and opened fire with everything he had.

This is the bow of the Buckley while in dry dock after its encounter with U-66. The initial impact twisted the ship’s hull badly.

For the next two minutes, the American destroyer pummeled the surfaced U-boat with withering fire from her 3-inch deck guns, 40mm Bofors, 20mm Oerlikons, and .50-caliber machine guns. High explosive rounds were observed tearing into the conning tower and superstructure of the boat. Seehausen fired another ineffectual torpedo before beginning to maneuver randomly. By now the Buckley had pulled to within twenty yards of the stricken boat. When the geometry was perfect, LCDR Able gave his vessel a hard right rudder and rode the nimble warship up onto the deck of the U-boat. At this point things got real.

The Close Fight

The surface fight was chaotic and pitiless.

Now realizing their dire straits, the German skipper ordered his men up and on deck. Some attempted to surrender, while others continued the fight. In the bright moonlight, the next ten minutes were unfettered chaos.

The tight confines of a U-boat deck on the high seas in the dark would have been a terrifying place to fight.

The crew of the Buckley had time to prepare for this moment, and the small arms lockers had been emptied. Under the immediate command of the U-boat’s First Officer Klaus Herbig, German sailors began swarming up and onto the forecastle of the destroyer escort. Pintle-mounted .50-calibers and Thompson submachine guns exacted a horrible butcher’s bill, yet the desperate Germans pushed forward still. When the enemy sailors started clambering onto the deck the Americans took it personally.

Apparently when wielded with enthusiasm this can be a formidable weapon.

Two of the attacking enemy were struck in the head with thrown coffee mugs. The crew of the second 3-inch gun was unable to depress the weapon sufficiently to bring effective fire onto the U-boat so they began throwing the heavy empty cases down on the swarming Kriegsmariners. Despite their valiant efforts, five German sailors still managed to make it onboard the American vessel.

The Thompson submachine gun was the ideal tool to clear a U-boat’s deck of attacking sailors.

The boatswain’s mate responsible for the forward ammunition party came face to face with a German sailor heaving himself over the deck coaming. The American sailor pulled his 1911 pistol and shot the man dead, his body pitching backward and falling into the sea. The Chief Fire Controlman’s duty station was on the bridge, and he had a Thompson. With a clear view of the chaos below he swept the deck of the German boat with long bursts of automatic fire, obtaining what the skipper later described as, “Excellent results.”

One of these puppies upside the head can be a powerful motivator.

One of the rampaging Germans did manage to make it into the wardroom. He was then confronted by a ship’s cook who doused him in hot coffee. The steward proceeded to give the guy a proper pummeling with the coffee pot. At this point, five Germans have accessed the American vessel and LCDR Able wanted some breathing room. He ordered reverse screws and pulled his destroyer escort off of the ventilated U-boat. The five Germans were captured in short order and then escorted below by a sailor armed with a hammer.

The 40mm Bofors was designed primarily as an antiaircraft weapon. When directed against something soft and squishy its high explosive rounds were devastating.

The damaged U-boat was still making turns for about 18 knots, so the fight immediately became dynamic yet again. One German attempted to unlimber the U-boat’s main deck gun. Once again per LCDR Able’s after-action report, his body, “disintegrated when struck by four 40mm shells.” As the U-boat scraped along the Buckley’s starboard side a dead-eyed American torpedo man lobbed an armed hand grenade through the open hatch to the U-boat’s conning tower. The Buckley’s gunners continued to rake the enemy ship with quarter-pound high explosive 20mm rounds. Then the GI grenade detonated with a sickening crump within the bowels of the German vessel.

The crew of U-66 had very little time to get clear of the doomed U-boat.

Before the Americans could react, the U-boat veered into the side of the Buckley near the stern. The crushing impact tore a hole in the engine room and sheared off the starboard screw. With flames spouting from the conning tower and multiple cannon holes, the Germans abandoned ship.

The Aftermath

At close range, the .45ACP is a devastating round.

The entire engagement spanned some sixteen minutes. During the course of the fight, the crew of the Buckley expended 300 rounds of .45ACP, sixty rounds of .30-06, thirty rounds of 12-gauge 00 buckshot, and a pair of fragmentation grenades. This is obviously in addition to the dinnerware and coffeepot.

This happy mob represents about half of U-66’s surviving crew. They look like such children.

Over the next half hour, the Buckley recovered 36 German sailors, roughly half of the U-boat’s crew. Oberleutnant Seehausen went down with his ship. Despite some not inconsiderable damage, the Buckley returned to Boston under her own power. She was refit and returned to active service in June of 1944. After 23 years on the reserve list, the Buckley was scrapped in 1969.

Service aboard a German U-boat during World War 2 was tough duty. Relatively few survived.

Oberleutnant Seehausen was posthumously promoted to Kapitainleutnant and awarded the German Cross in Gold in 1944. He already held the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd classes. He was 26 at the time of his death. U-boat service was the most hazardous posting in the German military. Roughly 75% of U-boat crewmen perished before the end of hostilities.

LCDR Able left the Navy after the war for a successful law practice.

The USS Buckley earned a Navy Unit Citation for the action. LCDR Brent Able was awarded the Navy Cross, the Navy’s second-highest award for valor. Because of the intimate nature of the engagement, the crew of the Buckley was authorized to wear a combat star on their European-African Theater ribbons. The sinking of the German U-boat U-66 was likely the only naval engagement in history to be waged with ammunition drawn from the ship’s galley.