USS Bonita (SF-6/SS-165), a Barracuda-class submarine and one of the “V-boats,” was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for the bonito. Her keel was laid down by the Portsmouth Navy Yard. She was launched on 9 June 1925 as V-3 (SF-6), sponsored by Mrs. L.R. DeSteiguer, wife of Rear Admiral DeSteiguer, and commissioned on 22 May 1926, Lieutenant Commander Charles A. Lockwood, Jr. in command. Like her sisters, Bonita was designed to meet the fleet submarine requirement of 21 knots (39 km/h) surface speed for operating with contemporary battleships.
Flashes from the 6-inch guns of Orion can be seen against the darkness during a nighttime bombardment of enemy positions on the Garigliano River.
Orion was commissioned on 18 January 1934, for service with the Home Fleet but she was transferred to the America and West Indies Station, based at the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island, in the Imperial fortresscolony of Bermuda, in 1937 where she was with the 8th Cruiser Squadron. She arrived at Bermuda on the 3rd of September, 1937. Around 19:15 on the 21st of September, while exercising off Bermuda, Orion was ordered, in response to a request from the United States Consul for assistance, to make its way towards the position of the sail training ship USS Annapolis, four hundred miles from Bermuda at 35 degrees North and 54 degrees West. Cadet Robert Hugh Quinn, aboard Annapolis, required an immediate operation for appendicitis and the 7 knot speed of Annapolis would not enable it to reach Bermuda in time. The two ships were in sight of each other by 0858 on the 22nd of September. After Captain Hines of the Annapolis came aboard to meet with the captain of Orion, HRG Kinahan, Orion set off for Bermuda by 1038 with the American cadet, entering through the Narrows channel at night and arriving at the dockyard at 0246 on the 23rd of September, from where Quinn was delivered to the Royal Naval Hospital. On the 27th of October, 1937, the Flag of the America and West Indies Station was transferred to Orion when HMS York was sent to Trinidad due to civil unrest there, leaving the Commander-in-Chief at Admiralty House, Bermuda. Orion remained temporary flagship until HMS York returned on the 21st of November, 1937. On the 15th of November, the ocean liner MV Reina del Pacifico, which operated between Liverpool and Valparaíso, Chile, via Bermuda, the West Indies and the Panama Canal, stopped at Bermuda on its way to Chile with the body of former Prime MinisterRamsay MacDonald who had died aboard on the 9 November. MacDonald’s body was transferred to the navy for return to Plymouth. All of the cruisers of the station were away from Bermuda at that moment except for Orion and HMS Apollo. As Apollo was undergoing a refit at the dockyard, it would have fallen to Orion to deliver MacDonald’s body, but as flagship she could not leave the station. Apollo was consequently hurried through her refit instead. Orion was tasked with the memorial service for MacDonald, whose body was taken aboard the Royal Navy tug Sandboy once the Reina del Pacifico was in Bermudian waters and landed on Front Street in the City of Hamilton along with the dockyard Chaplain, the Orion’s Chaplain, an Honour Guard, sentries and coffin bearers. MacDonald’s coffin was borne on a gun carriage to the Church of England‘s Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity, in a procession that included the ship’s company of Orion and a detachment of the Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), serving in the Bermuda Garrison and based at Prospect Camp. At the cathedral, Arthur Browne, the Bishop of Bermuda, conducted the memorial service, which was followed by a lying in state. The following day, the procession was repeated back to the Sandboy which bore MacDonald’s body to Apollo at the dockyard, which departed Bermuda for Plymouth at 1100, also carrying MacDonald’s daughter, Miss Sheila MacDonald.[4][5]Orion conveyed the ashes of Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor-General of Canada, back to England in February 1940.
In June 1940 she was transferred to the Mediterranean, where she was with the 7th Cruiser Squadron as John Tovey‘s flagship. She took part in the bombardment of Bardia, and the Battle of Calabria in July 1940. Late in that month, she sank the small Greek freighter Ermioni which was ferrying supplies to the Italian-held Dodecanese islands.[6] During the rest of 1940 she escorted Malta convoys and transported troops to Greece. In the early part of 1941 she was in the Crete and Aegean areas and was also at the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941.
In the course of an attack on a German convoy headed for Crete on 22 May, she was damaged in a duel with its escort, the Italian torpedo boat Lupo. On 29 May 1941, during the evacuation of Crete, she was bombed and badly damaged while transporting 1900 evacuated troops.[7] Around 360 people died, of whom 100 were soldiers. After extensive damage control had been undertaken she limped to Alexandria at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph), providing a spectacular sight in the harbour with the mast wedged into the ship’s funnel and significant battle damage. On 29 June Orion sailed for passage to Simonstown, South Africa via Aden for temporary repairs and then sent to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California for major repairs.[8]
Orion’s repairs were completed in March 1942 and she returned initially to Plymouth where new radar was installed. During mid 1942, she was widely employed, in home waters and on convoy escort duties to Africa and the Indian Ocean.[8]
Orion returned to the Mediterranean in October 1942. This time she was with the 15th Cruiser Squadron. She was involved in convoy escort duties and supported the army in the invasion of Sicily. She spent most of the rest of the war around the Mediterranean. James Gornall the former English first-class cricketer, promoted to Captain in 1941 was placed in command of her in 1943. She also took part in the Normandy Landings in June 1944, where she fired the first shell.
Orion was involved in the Corfu Channel Incident in 1946, a conflict between Britain and Albania involving the navigation of British ships in the channel between the Greek island of Corfu and the Albanian coast.
Fate
Orion ended service in 1947, was sold for scrap to Arnott Young (Dalmuir, Scotland) on 19 July 1949 and was scrapped in August 1949
Russian warships from the Pacific Fleet have crossed the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and entered the Red Sea, the state-run Tass news agency said, venturing into a maritime region plagued by Houthi attacks and crowded with naval vessels.
The detachment included the missile cruiser Varyag and frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov, Tass reported Thursday, citing the Russian Pacific Fleet’s press service, which said the ships were carrying out “assigned tasks within the framework of the long-range sea campaign.” The ultimate destination of the ships was unclear from the report, as was the reason Russia sent vessels to the area.
For months, the Yemen-based Houthis have carried out a series of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea in retaliation for Israel’s military actions in Gaza, forcing many ships to redirect their journeys. The group told China and Russia earlier this month that their ships can sail through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden without being attacked. In exchange, the two countries may provide political support to the Houthis in bodies such as the United Nations Security Council, according to several people with knowledge of the militant group’s discussions.
The Houthis, an Islamist group, say they’re targeting ships linked to Israel, the US and UK. Yet, they appear to have mis-identified some vessels. Missiles exploded near a ship hauling Russian oil near Yemen in late January. It happened days after a spokesman for the Houthis told a Russian newspaper that Russian and Chinese merchant ships needn’t fear attacks.
The Houthis also fired a missile at Chinese-owned oil tanker Huang Pu on Saturday, US Central Command said, highlighting continued risks to shipping in the seas off Yemen despite the agreement.
Since the attacks started, most Western shipping firms have avoided the strait and are instead going around southern Africa. However, US and UK warships in the Red Sea have been hitting Houthi targets in Yemen for weeks in an attempt to deter the militant group from attacks on merchant vessels, while Iran, which supports the Houthis, has a spy ship just outside the Red Sea. A French ship is also nearby.
Earlier this month, Iran, Russia and China held joint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry. Both the Varyag and Marshal Shaposhnikov took part in the drills, which Russia said were meant to practice “safety in maritime economic activities,” including liberating ships hijacked by pirates.
Russia has also sought a naval base on the Red Sea in Sudan, though a civil conflict in that country may put back those plans.
In San Francisco Bay, California, circa 1934. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.West Virginia during a naval review in 1927 Photograph taken from a Japanese plane during the torpedo attack on ships moored on both sides of Ford Island. View looks about east, with the supply depot, submarine base and fuel tank farm in the right center distance. A torpedo has just hit USS West Virginia on the far side of Ford Island (center). Other battleships moored nearby are (from left): Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee (inboard of West Virginia), Oklahoma (torpedoed and listing) alongside Maryland, and California. On the near side of Ford Island, to the left, are light cruisers Detroit and Raleigh, target and training ship Utah and seaplane tender Tangier. Raleigh and Utah have been torpedoed, and Utah is listing sharply to port. Japanese planes are visible in the right center (over Ford Island) and over the Navy Yard at right. Japanese writing in the lower right states that the photograph was reproduced by authorization of the Navy Ministry. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. More details Japanese reconnaissance photo showing Battleship Row; West Virginia is leaking fuel from torpedo hitThe U.S. Navy battleship USS West Virginia (BB-48) underway off Pearl Harbor on 30 April 1943, en route to the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington (USA), for reconstruction. The Pearl Harbor Navy Yard had just finished temporary repair of the damage she had received in the Japanese attack of 7 December 1941.The U.S. Navy battleship USS West Virginia (BB-48) off the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Washington (USA), 2 July 1944, following reconstruction. She is painted in Camouflage Measure 32, Design 7D.
USS West Virginia (BB-48) was the fourth dreadnought battleship of the Colorado class, though because Washington was cancelled, she was the third and final member of the class to be completed. The Colorado class proved to be the culmination of the standard-type battleship series built for the United States Navy in the 1910s and 1920s; the ships were essentially repeats of the earlier Tennessee design, but with a significantly more powerful main battery of eight 16-inch (406 mm) guns in twin-gun turrets. West Virginia was built between her keel laying in 1920 and her commissioning into the Navy in 1923. The ship spent the 1920s and 1930s conducting routine training exercises, including the typically-annual Fleet Problems, which provided invaluable experience for the coming war in the Pacific.
West Virginia was moored on Battleship Row on the morning of 7 December 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II. Badly damaged by torpedoes, the ship sank in the shallow water but was later refloated and extensively rebuilt over the course of 1943 and into mid-1944. She returned to service in time for the Philippines Campaign, where she led the American line of battle at the Battle of Surigao Strait on the night of 24–25 October. There, she was one of the few American battleships to use her radar to acquire a target in the darkness, allowing her to engage a Japanese squadron in what was the final action between battleships in naval history.
After Surigao Strait, the ship remained in the Philippines to support troops fighting during the Battle of Leyte in 1944 and then supported the invasion of Lingayen Gulf in early 1945. The ship also took part in the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa later that year, providing extensive fire support to the ground forces invading those islands. During the latter operation, she was hit by a kamikaze that did little damage. Following the surrender of Japan, West Virginia took part in the initial occupation and thereafter participated in Operation Magic Carpet, carrying soldiers and sailors from Hawaii to the mainland United States before being deactivated in 1946. She was decommissioned in 1947 and assigned to the Pacific Reserve Fleet, where she remained until 1959 when she was sold to ship breakers and dismantled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_West_Virginia_(BB-48)
Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Garrett Legan, assigned to Charlie Company, Battalion Landing Team 1/5, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, prepares for fast-rope training aboard the amphibious transport dock USS Somerset (LPD-25) during Exercise Tiger TRIUMPH in Visakhapatnam, India, March 20, 2024. US Marine Corps Photo
Elements of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (15th MEU) embarked on amphibious transport dock USS Somerset (LPD-25) are now conducting an exercise in India, while back in the U.S., the MEU’s MV-22B Ospreys are beginning reintegration training, according to Friday releases by the MEU.
The 15th MEU completed its participation in Exercise Cobra Gold 24 in Thailand on Mar. 8 and now are in India carrying out the third iteration of Exercise Tiger TRIUMPH (Tri-Services India-U.S. Amphibious Exercise). Tiger Triumph is a combined, joint exercise between U.S. and Indian armed forces focused on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief readiness and enhancing interoperability, according to a 15th MEU release. The exercise 24 is being held from Mar. 18-31, in the port of Visakhapatnam and the waters near Visakhapatnam and Kakinada.
The exercise is scheduled to include a harbor phase, followed by a sea phase, in which U.S. and Indian forces will practice combined operational maneuver, command and control, and joint sustainment operations, according to the release.
“Our Marines and sailors are excited to be here for the third iteration of Tiger TRIUMPH and train alongside the Indian Armed Forces,” said U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Lindsay Mathwick, commanding officer of Combat Logistics Battalion 15, 15th MEU, and commander of troops aboard Somerset in the release. “We are looking forward to enhancing our combined and joint capability with our Indian partners across the range of military operations and continue to strengthen our shared vision of a secure Indo-Pacific”.
India has not released the specific details of its participating forces, stating in a release only that Indian Navy ships with integral helicopters and landing crafts embarked, Indian Navy aircraft, Indian Army personnel and vehicles and Indian Air Force aircraft and helicopters along with the Rapid Action Medical Team (RAMT) would be taking part in the exercise. However, the amphibious transport dock INS Jalashwa (L41) (ex-USS Trenton, LPD-14) is participating in the exercise as the formal opening ceremony was held aboard it.
Somerset and the embarked elements of the 15th MEU are part of the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and the 15th MEU team. The Boxer ARG is operating in a disaggregated construct during parts of its deployment. Somerset and embarked elements of the 15th MEU are under the command and control of Combined Task Force 76/3, which is employed by U.S. 7th Fleet to operate with allies and partners. The rest of the Boxer ARG, consisting of amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD-4) and amphibious dock landing ship USS Harpers Ferry (LSD-49) are operating off the U.S. West Coast, according to USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker, in preparation for a spring deployment to the Indo-Pacific. The spring deployment will also be the first operational deployment for the amphibious combat vehicle, reported USNI News.
An Army UH-60 Blackhawk assigned to 2-158th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 16th Combat Aviation Brigade, 7th Infantry Division, leave the landing area of the USS Somerset (LPD-25) while underway in the Gulf of Thailand, Feb. 29, 2024. US Army Photo
The 15th MEU is also reintegrating its MV-22B Ospreys following the lifting earlier this month of a grounding order. A Friday release stated that reintegration training for the Ospreys began on Thursday at Camp Pendleton, California, and involved transporting a platoon of Marines across the camp.
The training was conducted at two sites, according to the release, and involved a section of MV-22B Ospreys from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 165 (Reinforced) – part of the aviation combat element of the 15th MEU – and Marines with Bravo Company, Battalion Landing Team 1/5. Bravo Company is BLT 1/5 is airborne assault company for the 15th MEU.
“This type of reintegration training is an important step in returning our pilots and enlisted aircrew to full proficiency and readiness to support the 15th MEU,” said Lt. Col. Drew Bossart, the commanding officer of VMM-165 (Rein.) in the release. “We continue to follow the Marine Corps’ deliberate, three-phased approach as our pilots regain basic flight currency, rebuild our instructor cadre, and achieve proficiencies. I am fully confident in our aircraft and that our pilots and aircrews will soon achieve a high state of operational readiness.”
The training involved pilots landing Ospreys at Camp Pendleton’s helicopter outlying landing field (HOLF) at San Mateo, which has a section that matches the flight deck dimensions of an amphibious assault ship, allowing pilots to simulate landing on a ship. Bravo Company Marines conducted multiple boarding and disembarking drills at the HOLF just as they did previously during at-sea training on board Boxer.
Lt. Col. Lindsay Mathwick, right, commanding officer of Combat Logistics Battalion 15, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and the commander of troops aboard the amphibious transport dock USS Somerset (LPD-25), speaks to and enjoys local Indian hors d’oeuvres with Cmdr. Joseph Cozart, left, assistant chief of staff for logistics, Expeditionary Strike Group 7 and Task Force 76/3, and Commodore Dalip Singh, commanding officer of Naval Air Station INS Dega, center, during the opening ceremony of Exercise Tiger TRIUMPH in Visakhapatnam, India, March 19, 2024. US Marine Corps
Following the landing zone drills in San Mateo, VMM-165 (Rein.) pilots transported Bravo Company Marines to a confined area landing site (CAL) in the Las Flores area, where Bravo Company Marines exited the aircraft and established security to simulate how they would insert and extract at a landing zone during a mission.
After completing the training at the CAL site, Bravo Company’s Marines were flown back to San Mateo for their final landing and the Ospreys returned to their squadron headquarters at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.
“MV-22s are the cornerstone of the 15th MEU’s Marine Air-Ground Task Force, providing us unrivaled flexibility for expeditionary operations across the spectrum of military operations and movement from ship to shore,” said Col. Sean Dynan, the commanding officer of the 15th MEU in the release “VMM-165’s pilots and aircrews have the full support of the 15th MEU as they take a measured approach to progress through all requirements carefully and deliberately.”
VMM-165 (Rein.) and the 15th MEU will continue to conduct progressive training events over the coming weeks, both ashore and at sea, concluded the release.
Pennsylvania underway, c. 1920USS Pennsylvania during visit to Australia in 1925The U.S. Navy battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) underway off New York City (USA) during the Naval Review before President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 31 May 1934. Pennsylvania was then serving as flagship of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, Admiral David F. Sellers, USN. Pennsylvania in 1932, with tripod masts and her enlarged bridge
Named for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, she was laid down at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in October 1913, was launched in March 1915, and was commissioned in June 1916. Equipped with an oil-burning propulsion system, Pennsylvania was not sent to European waters during World War I, since the necessary fuel oil was not as readily available as coal. Instead, she remained in American waters and took part in training exercises; in 1918, she escorted President Woodrow Wilson to France to take part in peace negotiations.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Pennsylvania served as the flagship of first the Atlantic Fleet, and after it was merged with the Pacific Fleet in 1921, the Battle Fleet. For the majority of this period, the ship was stationed in California, based in San Pedro. Pennsylvania was occupied with a peacetime routine of training exercises (including the annual Fleet problems), port visits, and foreign cruises, including a visit to Australia in 1925. The ship was modernized in 1929–1931. The ship was present in Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941; she was in drydock with a pair of destroyers when the Japanese launched their surprise attack on the port. She suffered relatively minor damage in the attack, being protected from torpedoes by the drydock. While repairs were effected, the ship received a modernized anti-aircraft battery to prepare her for operations in the Pacific War.
Allocated to the target fleet for the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests in 1946, Pennsylvania was repaired only enough to allow her to make the voyage to the test site, Bikini Atoll. She survived both blasts, but was badly contaminated with radioactive fallout from the second test, and so was towed to Kwajalein, where she was studied for the next year and a half. The ship was ultimately scuttled in deep water off the atoll in February 1948.
