Katie and Asroc aboard WWII warships

Asroc and Katie were two methods of introducing nuclear weapons to WWII-era warships. One was fairly well thought-out and had a long run in service during the Cold War. The other did not and is remarkable for how unusual it was.

(A nuclear RUR-5 Asroc detonates near the WWII aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-10) during 1962.) (photo via Federation of American Scientists)

(Blueprints for the 1950s modification to the WWII Iowa class battleships to enable them to fire 16″ nuclear shells.) (photo via Battleship New Jersey Museum)

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“jumboized” WWII warships

After WWII the US Navy modernized war-built vessels to various degrees for many reasons. Many options were available: new weapons, new radars and sonars, enlarged superstructures, new radios, adding or removing aircraft capability, replacement engines, layout changes, and so on.

Normally one thing that couldn’t be changed was the physical size of the hull. Things could be added, moved, replaced, altered, or rebuilt inside or atop the hull; but at the end of the day the WWII hull was what it was.

In the examples below, extremely dramatic “surgery” actually changed the length and size of the entire ship.

(Not a case of seeing double: the bow and stern sections of USS Navasota (AO-106) pointed in opposite directions during the WWII warship’s 1960s “jumboization”.)

(The WWII submarine tender USS Proteus (AS-19) cut completely in half during 1959. This “jumboization” was one of the most complex engineering jobs ever done prior to the computer age.)

M24 Chaffee during the Vietnam War

The American M24 Chaffee light tank of WWII saw postwar combat in southeast Asia for a quarter-century starting in 1950, first with the French army, then the South Vietnamese army, and finally the South Vietnamese air force. 

(A French army M24 Chaffee in combat during the Indochina War.)

(A M24 Chaffee of the ARVN (South Vietnamese army) attacking Gia Long Palace during the 1963 coup.)

(With a PanAm Boeing 707 in the background, a M24 Chaffee of the VNAF (South Vietnamese air force) guards Tan Son Nhut in Saigon. Even as the Vietnam War was being fought, the airport’s civilian side continued to handle commercial aviation. These air force tanks would be the last WWII Chaffees in Vietnam.)

turboprop-powered Liberty Ship

Two Liberty Ships which survived WWII were later used as heavily-modified test hulls by the US Navy, the stranger of the two being YAG-37 which was powered by aircraft propellers.

(A WWII Liberty Ship.)

(YAG-37, the former WWII Liberty Ship S.S. John L. Sullivan, during the turboprop experiments.) (US National Archives photo)

USS Midway: retrieval of land-based South Vietnamese warplanes 1975

The fall of Saigon in 1975, and along with it the fall of South Vietnam and final end of the Vietnam War, is most remembered in the United States for the dramatic helicopter evacuation of the American embassy.

Less known is the final chapter to the “Frequent Wind” story: how the aircraft carrier USS Midway, built to fight the Imperial Japanese Navy during WWII, ended up retrieving the remnants of the defunct VNAF (South Vietnamese air force) during the summer of 1975.

(USS Midway (CV-41) at the end of WWII, prior to commissioning.)

(USS Midway with US Air Force helicopters staged prior to the start of “Frequent Wind” in 1975.)

(A most unusual scene as the flight deck of USS Midway is filled with land-based warplanes of the defunct South Vietnamese air force.)

USS Albemarle / USNS Corpus Christi Bay

WWII-era seaplane tenders were on their way out of the US Navy by the time of the Vietnam War. However one, USS Albemarle, would have a second life as a US Army floating repair base during that conflict.

(Launching of the WWII US Navy seaplane tender USS Albemarle.) (Associated Press photo)

(The ex-USS Albemarle being converted into USNS Corpus Christi Bay (T-ARVH-1) at Charleston Naval Shipyard.)

(USNS Corpus Christi Bay during the Vietnam War.) (photo by Bob Brandt)

Tokagypt: the Cold War Hungarian WWII Soviet-copy Egyptian pistol

The Tokagypt, Hungary’s odd Egyptian-contract post-WWII TT-33 half-clone, is somewhat known in the firearms community. It appears in any number of books from the relatively entry-level Small Arms Visual Guide up to professional-grade publications. Yet in either case, the level of information is often similar and very brief: it was a 9mm copy of the Tokarev, it was made for Egypt, they didn’t want them all, some were used by terrorists…..and little else is usually explained. So perhaps this will be of value to those interested.

(August 1983 American intelligence photo of a Tokagypt.)

the M1 Garand in Vietnam

Since starting wwiiafterwwii, numerous people have contacted me requesting I write something on this topic. This is understandable as the M1 Garand remains one of the most popular rifles of all time, and there is a high degree of interest with American readers (and to my surprise, some readers in Vietnam as well) in the Vietnam War.

Other discussions on this topic usually end up in a fairly simplistic debate of “yes there were Garands used in Vietnam” or “no they were all gone by then” so hopefully this is of some value.

(South Vietnamese soldiers with M1 Garands on patrol during 1963.)

(A member of Vietnam’s DQTV militia takes aim with a M1 Garand in December 2018.)

flow of WWII weapons after the war

Since starting wwiiafterwwii, I have wanted to do something on this topic but was unsure how to approach it. I am interested in how WWII weapons performed in battle against Cold War replacements. But also, it is fascinating to consider how they ended up where they did after WWII……how did a Garand built to fight Imperial Japan end up in the Somali desert in the 1970s, or how did a Waffen-SS sturmgewehr end up in 21st century Damascus?

(An ex-Wehrmacht NbW 42 Nebelwerfer with Interarms markings in the 1960s.)

1980s drug war: WWII gear used

(The WWII-veteran USCGC Cherokee on a 1980s narcotics patrol.)

(A demilitarized WWII-veteran C-46 Commando which crashed while in use as a smuggling plane during the 1980s.)

The US Coast Guard was formed (as the Revenue Cutter Service) on 4 August 1790. The Posse Comitatus law of 1878 restricts use of the American military in law enforcement. However the US Coast Guard is specifically exempted from any restrictions, and in fact law enforcement is one of it’s core missions.

During the Cold War the US Coast Guard’s funding came from the Department Of Transportation, not the Pentagon, and money just to buy fuel was at a premium, let alone new construction. The fleet during President Carter’s term was in a bottleneck; as all Prohibition-era cutters were gone, but new modern hulls were not being launched fast enough to replace them. Some aged WWII ships were pressed into service as cutters.