We should all live so long — and well
January 31st, 2012 | Amphibious operations Historical Marine Corps Navy Photos Seabees SEALs SURFLANT World War II | Posted by Bill McMichael
Reaching 100 years of age is remarkable enough. But the Navy made it extra special for a former Navy Seabee Dec. 2.
Retired Capt. James R. Mims, the nation’s oldest living Seabee, was made an honorary member of Amphibious Construction Battalion 2 by the unit’s top sailor, Command Master Chief (SCW) Johnny DeSarro, during Mims’ 100th birthday party, held at the Oaks Country Club in Richmond, Va.. Mims also received a U.S. flag flown over the Capitol building, a birthday greeting from President Obama and a very cool commemorative paddle.
Retired Capt. James R. Mims stands with Command Master Chief (SCW) Johnny DeSarro (left) and Senior Chief Builder John Woolston, PHIBCB 2 Operations Chief, at his 100th birthday party after receiving a commemorative paddle custom-designed by Woolston. // U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class (SW/AW) Jonathan Pankau
Mims has experienced some remarkable moments in his life. In DeSarro’s words, Mims “served at Okinawa during World War II, swore in the first 25 frogmen, known today as Navy SEALs, and met and spoke with Adm. Ben Moreell” — the father of the Seabees.
DeSarro wanted to hear more about all that, so he returned to Richmond Dec. 19 to meet Mims at his hangout — a local restaurant called Joe’s Inn, where Mims goes every Friday for a meeting of the Bon Air Rotary Club — where he has a 56-year perfect attendance record.
Amphibious Construction Battalion 2 Command Master Chief (SCW) Johnny DeSarro and retired Navy Capt. James R. Mims sits down for breakfast at Joe's Inn, a local Richmond restaurant, during a Dec. 19 meeting discuss his history and experiences as the world's oldest Seabee. // U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class (SW/AW) Jonathan Pankau
Naval Surface Force Atlantic released the Mims story on the day after the start of Bold Alligator, the largest Navy-Marine Corps amphibious exercise in a decade. The timing was splendid because Mims had some stories to tell about one of the biggest amphibious assaults in history.
Mims was a Civil Engineer Corps cargo officer during that mission and his task that day was to rendezvous with the main Seabee camp, according to the story, by SURFLANT Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class (SW/AW) Jonathan Pankau.
“We rode on a (Landing Ship Tank) from Saipan to Okinawa in 1945 on an Easter Sunday morning,” Mims told Pankau. “There were 1,400 ships in that operation and we had some Marines in an Army DUKW (a six-wheel-drive amphibious truck used for transporting goods and troops over land and water and for use approaching and crossing beaches in amphibious attacks) heading for the east side of the island,” said Mims.
Their mission was to trick the enemy by drawing fire to their location on the eastern coast of Okinawa and to delay Japanese reserve troops, according to Pankau. The main landing force assaulted the beach on the western coast that Easter Sunday, supported by the 2nd Marine Battalion’s effective decoy tactics.
“About halfway to the shore we started drawing fire so the LST driver turned around to lay down a smoke screen,” Mims told Pankau. “We repeated this several times to draw the fire away from the west. The Army guy driving the LST wouldn’t go all the way to the beach so we had to jump out and wade through the water while the enemy was laying down strafing fire by us.”
Exhaustion set in after two days of combat without sleep and Mims found an abandoned fox hole to take shelter in. As he looked up from his fox hole, a formation of Japanese fighter planes passed overhead.
“I don’t know whether they were kamikazes or what but they flew so low I could see the first pilot’s face. I’ll never forget the smile on his face,” Mims told Pankau.
Earlier, Mims had a brush with another seminal moment in naval history: The forming of the Navy SEALs.
Today’s SEALs trace their lineage to a group of volunteers selected from the Seabees in the spring of 1943, according to Naval Special Warfare Command. Mims was the enlisting officer for the first 25 frogmen, according to the story.
“I was at Camp Perry at the time and a lieutenant said to me ‘I want you to go out there and swear in those frogmen.’ And so, as a junior lieutenant, I went out there and swore them in and then I said, ‘What’s a frogman?’ Turns out they were the beginning of the SEALs.”
Mims had no idea that he swore in the original 25 frogmen until he saw a familiar name in an obituary in the Richmond paper naming one of the first frogmen. He later saw them in action and described the night operation he witnessed, where the frogmen pulled onto the beach in rubber rafts. They performed reconnaissance missions and set up targets for bombing and troop placements. Mims laughed, Pankau wrote, as he recalled the sign they left up for the Marines that said, “What kept you?”
DeSarro said that making a Mims an honorary member of the unit was special.
“We (Seabees) are fiercely proud of our heritage and we are very protective of anything that ties us to our history,” DeSarro said. “Making the paddle for him ties us back, in a big way, to our legacy and our heritage.
“Everything we do as Seabees, we do to live up to the expectations of our predecessors,” he said. “We bear the burden of carrying on the Seabee tradition that men like Capt. Mims laid out before us.”
Naval Academy’s ‘South Pacific’ is a secret
January 24th, 2012 | Naval Academy Navy The Pacific World War II | Posted by Jenn Rafael
The Naval Academy Glee Club is putting on Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific," but apparently isn't allowed to say so. // Amazon.com
Next month, Naval Academy midshipmen will perform possibly the most nautical musical ever to hit Broadway — but you wouldn’t know it by reading the school’s announcement of tickets for the winter musical.
It’s South Pacific, but “licensing restrictions prohibit releasing the name of the production in this announcement.”
The story is set on a South Pacific island during World War II, featuring two love stories threatened by prejudice and war. Nellie, a spunky nurse from Arkansas, falls in love with a French planter, while Lt. Joe Cable finds himself denying his love for an island native.
The songs are familiar: “There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame” and “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Younger Than Springtime” and “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.”
“The performance will be a fully realized Rodgers and Hammerstein production, complete with dancing, costumes, and a live pit orchestra made up of midshipmen musicians,” according to the news release.
The show will be performed Feb. 24, 25, and 26 and March 2, 3, and 4 in Mahan Hall. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets go on sale Jan. 24 and can be purchased online, by calling the Music and Theatre Box Office at 410-293-8497 or at the door.
A battleship of your very own
November 1st, 2011 | Battleships Historical Navy Photos World War II | Posted by Jenn Rafael
Pretend to be Adm. Bull Halsey with this 20-foot replica of the battleship New Jersey, up for auction for $80,000. // ebay.com
With the battleship Iowa being prepared for its debut next year as an interactive museum near Los Angeles, you might be thinking, where’s my battleship?
The car enthusiast website jalopnik.com has the scoop: For a mere $80,000, you can own your own replica of the battleship New Jersey.
The ebay auction description notes the ship is powered by a 120 HP Sea Doo jet drive. Also: “Two of the main guns are fully articulating and fire streams of high pressure water. The vessel also contains a 4000 watt generator, air compressor and high pressure stainless steel water pump.”
And since the listing notes that there’s room for a two-man crew, you and a shipmate can split the cost.
Navy officer and Doritos inventor dies
September 29th, 2011 | Historical Navy Veterans World War II | Posted by Sam Fellman
Arch West, 97-year-old former naval officer who invented Doritos, died on Sept. 20. // theimpulsivebuy via Flickr
The idea for Doritos tortilla chips, which brought about a sea change in snacking and became a top seller for Frito-Lay, came from the mind of former Navy man Arch West, who died of natural causes on Sept. 20. He was 97. West joined the Navy in 1943 and served as a gunnery officer onboard destroyer escort Holt in the Pacific during World War II, according to The Dallas Morning News.
A chance encounter on a family vacation inspired West to mass-market tortilla chips, according to The Washington Post:
“He was on a family vacation in Southern California in 1964 when he first bought a grease-smeared bag of toasted tortillas at a roadside shack.
As marketing vice president at Frito-Lay, Mr. West immediately sensed he had stumbled upon a snacking phenomenon.
When he returned to work, Mr. West pitched his idea: a crispy, triangle-shaped corn chip that would complement the company’s lighter Lay’s potato chip and the thicker, curly Frito.”
The Washington Post also published a photo of West from his Navy days.
Doritos are now the chips of choice for millions around the world. They come in 21 flavors, from old stand-bys like Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese to more extreme offerings like Blazin’ Jalapeno and All Nighter Cheeseburger. Global sales of Doritos were nearly $5 billion in 2010, a Frito-Lay spokeswoman told the Post.
Family members plan on tossing Doritos chips at his Oct. 1 burial so that West can face the ages with his addictive creation on-hand.
That flag
August 2nd, 2011 | Aviation Foreign navies Helicopters Historical Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Maritime operations Naval aviation Navy Pearl Harbor Photos Ships The Pacific Training World War II | Posted by Bill McMichael
I remember a 1990-ish visit to a Japanese submarine base and being dumbfounded to see the subs flying the rising sun flag off their stern masts. Dumbfounded, because being, ahem, of a certain age, I associated the flag — a red disc with red and white “beams” extending outward — with the aggressive World War II-era regime that launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in an effort to exercise total dominance over the Pacific. Its use was banned in 1945 following the surrender to the United States and its allies, but many Americans don’t realize that it was re-adopted in 1954 as the war flag and naval ensign of the Japan Ground and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, respectively.
This isn’t news to U.S. sailors stationed in Japan, now a staunch U.S. ally, or those who’ve trained with the Japanese navy — such as the Norfolk-based sailors assigned to Destroyer Squadron 26, taking part in a “PASSEX” with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Training Squadron — manned by newly commissioned Japanese surface warfare officers — through today off the U.S. East Coast.
The Japan Maritime Self Defense Force training ship KASHIMA passes the destroyer Nitze during a passing exercise. // U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Marie Brindovas, PASSEX Public Affairs.
PASSEX is an exercise that tests routine operational challenges and is meant, according to the Navy, to strengthen the partnership between the U.S. and Japan. Tasks include operating a Japanese helo on a U.S. ship.
Sailors assigned to the destroyer Nitze guide a Japanese SH-60 helicopter onto the flight deck. // U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Marie Brindovas, PASSEX Public Affairs.
Today, incidently, is a big date in post-World War II affairs. The final meeting of the “Big Three” nations — the U.S., the Soviet Union and Great Britain — concluded on a sour note. The failure to resolve expected post-war issues at the Potsdam Conference, historians say, helped set the stage for the Cold War.
Cheese sub surfaces
May 10th, 2011 | Humor Navy Submarines World War II | Posted by Sam Fellman
USS Jallao, a Wisconsin-built attack sub that earned it stripes in World War II, surfaces in pure Wisconsin cheddar. // Angela Hemauer
When submarine vets gathered last Thursday in Manitowoc, Wis., they found an accurate – and edible – tribute to their years of undersea service: a 22-inch-long sculpture of attack submarine Jallao made of pure cheese.
It was the creation of Sarah Kaufmann, a.k.a. the Cheese Lady. You won’t be surprised to know that this “nationally-recognized cheese sculptor,” according to a press release, hails from Wisconsin, the nation’s cheese capital. (Jallao was built with sturdy two-year-old aged Wisconsin cheddar.)
Behind the conning tower of the surfacing sub is its hull number, 368. Jallao was one of 28 subs built by Manitowoc Shipping Co. during World War II. After commissioning it in 1944, Jallao’s crew headed to the Pacific theater and earned four battle stars – also depicted in cheese. The gathering in Wisconsin last weekend was for vets who served aboard the 28 Wisconsin-built subs and their families.
This is not the first naval fromage-homage for Kaufmann. A few years ago, she sculpted a model of carrier Ronald Reagan in Sargento as big as a small boulder.
Dec. 7, 1941
December 7th, 2010 | Aviation Historical Pearl Harbor Sinking World War II | Posted by Bill McMichael
Today marks the 69th anniversary of “a date which will live in infamy” — the devastating Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that prompted the U.S. entry into World War II. The Navy regrouped, fought back and, four years later, enjoyed the ultimate payback, hosting the formal Japanese surrender ceremony aboard the battleship Missouri.
The battleship Arizona belches smoke as it topples over into the sea during a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a Dec. 7, 1941 file photo. The ship sank with more than 80 percent of its 1,500-man crew, including Rear Adm. Isaac Kidd. The attack left left 2,343 Americans dead and 916 missing. // AP Photo.
The anniversary is being marked at commemorations around the world, chief among them ceremonies at the new Pearl Harbor Visitor Center at the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument and on Ford Island, where a memorial commemoration will be held in honor of those killed in the attack on the battleship Oklahoma. (See the schedule by scrolling down here.)