Whelmed With Information...

(Source)

So I had an idea for a post, based on something I saw on a poster at work...

Like it says, USS Emory S. Land (AS-39) is a submarine tender, normally just referred to as a sub tender. (Why say the whole word when you can get away with saying just a piece of it?) At first glance, from a distance, I wondered why a cruise ship looking thing was on a poster of the ships of the United States Navy (2014 vintage for those who are curious). So I zoomed in (by walking closer to the poster, my eyes have no actual zoom feature, which would be kinda cool now that I think of it) and said, "Ah, it's a sub tender."

'Twas then that I realized that I'd never really thought much about sub tenders. In the entire United States Navy there are only two of 'em (used to be three in that class, but the Navy decommissioned one, the newest one, I have no idea why) to tend to 80 submarines (if you count the "boomers," no, not the baby boomers, the ballistic missile submarines and their sisters the guided missile submarines, which used to be ballistic missile submarines, but I digress, in 2014 we had 62 attack boats and 18 Ohio-class "boomers").

So I started digging.

For those of you wondering what a sub tender actually does, well, it's a depot ship that tends to submarines. (As opposed to destroyer tenders, and the like) -

A depot ship is an auxiliary ship used as a mobile or fixed base for submarines, destroyers, minesweepers, fast attack craft, landing craft, or other small ships with similarly limited space for maintenance equipment and crew dining, berthing and relaxation. Depot ships may be identified as tenders in American English. Depot ships may be specifically designed for their purpose or be converted from another purpose. (Source)

Here are the two extant examples in the U.S. Navy -

USS Emory S. Land (AS-39) and USS Frank Cable (AS-40), the U.S. Navy's only active submarine tenders, are moored in their homeport of Guam. USS Pasadena (SSN-752) is visible alongside of Emory S. Land. The ships provide maintenance, hotel services and logistical support to submarines and surface ships in the U.S. 5th and 7th Fleet areas of operations.
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Daniel Willoughby

So now you know about sub tenders, but while I was chasing that item, I learned that any small (ish) ship can have a tender. Minesweepers, patrol boats, older destroyers (newer ones are a lot bigger than their predecessors), and the like had tenders, BITD (which stands for Back In The Day, as in "back in olden times," and yes, that's on the Acronym Page).

The destroyer tender USS Klondike (AR-22) with a flotilla of Allen M. Sumner-class destroyers*, Subic Bay, Philippines, November 1963.

While chasing that I ran across an article on German Schnellboote (which the Germans called S-Boote**, literally "fast boats," while we called them E-Boats, short for "Enemy boats" - not real clever but at least it's accurate). Which of course led me to an article on the disaster at Slapton Sands, where a squadron of German S-Boote attacked a group of Allied LSTs*** (with a single escort) practicing for the D-Day invasion. Which was not the first tragedy to befall Exercise Tiger. (A friendly fire incident saw troops on the beach getting hit by naval gun fire because they hadn't been informed that the landing operation had been postponed by an hour.) You can read about that here.

A Canadian LST off-loads an M4 Sherman during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.

Deutsches Kriegsmarine S-Boot
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Whilst in the midst of chasing Schnellboote I was sidetracked answering a question from juvat on his post the other day. It had to do with the F-4D Phantom currently gracing the masthead, which I reproduce below as the headers have been changing weekly. (So it won't be there in a week or so.) FWIW, chasing down Air Force tail codes can be a rather time-consuming task as I discovered.

The question was regarding the aircraft itself. Had juvat flown it? Had I ever worked on it? Because the squadron the aircraft belonged to in Vietnam (with the 8th TFW, the mighty Wolf Pack) was the same squadron which had been part of the Wolf Pack in Korea (juvat's and my old outfit) but not at Kunsan AB itself but over at Taegu AB. My answer was -

I tracked that tail number down to the 497th TFS (of the Wolf Pack) flying out of Ubon RTAFB. The tail code "FO" matches Ubon's according to a reference for a list of Vietnam-era USAF tail codes. As to the photo itself, according to the Air Force, the photo in the header was taken in 1972 over North Vietnam.

As far as I know, that particular bird didn't go to Korea but wound up in Spain (at Torrejon AB), at least according to Joe Baugher. So maybe he flew it, maybe I worked on it, in my defense, it was a long time ago. And guess what, I looked up that squadron just a moment ago and found this -

A U.S. Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II from the 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 51st Tactical Fighter Wing, banking to the left over South Korea during exercise "Team Spirit '86".

Which of course made me say, "Huh?" Which no doubt makes you ask, "Why Sarge, why would that make you say 'Huh?'"

Well you see, it's the same squadron which was at Taegu AB. That "GU" tail code really caught my eye, according to an issue of Air Force Magazine (May 1989, pdf here) -

Code Aircraft   Unit, location, and command
GU    F-4E        497th TFS, Taegu AB, Korea (PACAF)

So the 497th was reassigned from the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing to the 51st Tactical Fighter Wing (which was a Composite Wing when I was in Korea, tail code "OS" for those who wonder about such things), which is based at Osan AB, the squadron itself staying at Taegu AB. I had always assumed (yes, I get it) that when the 8th transitioned to the Lawn Dart, er, I mean Viper (the F-16, officially the Fighting Falcon, yeah, no one calls it that) the 497th had as well. Nope, they remained in situ but were reassigned and reequipped. In fact the 497th was inactivated in January of 1989. They became something else after that. (They are now the 497th Combat Training Flight assigned to Singapore, of all places.)

So I had tons of information I was looking at while searching for something to post about. A whelm of information, if you will.

whelm

verb: whelm; 3rd person present: whelms; past tense: whelmed; past participle: whelmed; gerund or present participle: whelming

engulf, submerge, or bury (someone or something).

"a swimmer whelmed in a raging storm"

flow or heap up abundantly.

"the brook whelmed up from its source"

noun: whelm; plural noun: whelms

an act or instance of flowing or heaping up abundantly; a surge.

"the whelm of the tide" (Source)

Yes, I didn't know that before I decide to get cute and title the post "Whelmed With Information...," only to discover that "whelm" is actually a word. As is "gruntle," but I'll let you chase that one yourselves. Feel free to post what you discover in the comments.

As for me, I have a few more items of information to chase down.

Rather than, you know, write a "real" post.






* Specifically USS Taussig (DD-746), USS John A. Bole (DD-755), USS Lofberg (DD-759), and USS USS John W. Thomason (DD-760) (Source).
** Boote is the plural for the German word for boat, i.e. Boot.
*** LST = Landing Ship, Tank.