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Donitz’s command bunker today
When the Allied bombing campaign of Germany began in earnest, B-17s by day and Lancasters by night, the Kreigsmarine went underground. U-boat papa Karl Dönitz set up a command bunker (Führungszentrum...
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Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Ferdinand Petrie
Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, photographers...
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Keeping a 20mm Oerlikon combat-ready
In the past couple months, I have been corresponding back and forth with a chap in Ohio who owns a very operational and transferable WWII era 20mm Oerlikon. I featured his cannon in a couple different...
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Warship Wednesday May 25, 2016: The Kaiser’s Pirate of Nauset Beach
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a...
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You do know FitaFita, don’t you?
“Fita-Fita Guard. The native Samoan Naval Guard Force is brought to attention by BMI/c Suitonu, USN, a veteran of 15 years on the force, March 1943. Naval Station in Samoa.” Note the traditional...
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Warship Wednesday June 1, 2016: One well-traveled sloop
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period (though our ship today is a pure sailing vessel from that era) and will...
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That’s a lot of Knox
USN photo # DN-ST-95-01861, by Calvin Larsen, from the Department of Defense Still Media Collection, courtesy of dodmedia.osd.mil. Click to embiggen An aerial stern view of the decommissioned...
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Grace would be proud
U.S. Navy photo by Leah Garton (2048×1366) Sailors on the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Hopper (DDG-70) conduct two developmental flight tests of the Standard Missile-3 Block IB...
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Making like 1990
Throwback Thursday! February’s Tip of the Spear, the journal of SOCOM, includes a great article by James D. Gray, the Combatant Craft Historian of the Combatant Craft Crewman Assc, (page 24-25) that...
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New ships, new rates for NAVOCEANO
Last week the new 353-foot Pathfinder-class oceanographic research ship, USNS Maury (T-AGS 66), set sail from my hometown of Pascagoula, MS to Port Everglades, FL and will soon start gathering...
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No .4 gun reporting for duty
From Kevin Smith at the Cruiser Olympia at Independence Seaport Museum: “Today the crew performed the task of a gunners gang, taking down the traversing gear for our #4 5″/51 broadside gun, which we...
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Navy salvage divers may soon have Tony Stark’s hardhat
Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) lead engineer/senior electrical engineer William Hughes III demonstrates the Divers Augmented Vision Display (DVAD) during a lab simulation....
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Warship Wednesday June 15, 2016: It’s you, you’re the rocket mail
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a...
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The more things change
So the Navy is conducting operations with two (2) carrier strike groups in the Far East, which has China all puffy ( “The U.S. picked the wrong target in playing this trick on China,” the People’s...
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Fancywork, a lost art connecting mariners across the ages
The art of tying cordage around Boatswain’s pipes, handrails, ship’s wheels, bell pulls, boat paddles and just about any other gripping surface goes back hundreds of years to the days of sail and...
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Warship Wednesday June 29, 2016: Greely’s last hope
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a...
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To all Sailors, everywhere ye may be
While poking around locally, I found these two wartime shellback certificates from WWII in an area seafood restaurant. These time-honored “Crossing the line” certificates come when veteran Sons of...
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Happy Independence Day
Classic F-4J Phantom IIs Vandy 1 and Vandy 761 of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron VX-4, back in the smokey J79 days of Naval Aviation. And when Playboy wasn’t just about the articles.
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Warship Wednesday July 6, 2016: Of British frogmen and Japanese holy mountains
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a...
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Panama, class of ’21
“Combined Atlantic and Pacific Fleets in Panama Bay, Jan. 21st 1921,” taken by M.C. Mayberry, of Mayberry and Smith, Shreveport, Louisiana: Click to big up 1777×529. Courtesy of the Naval Historical...
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