USS
CHIVO (SS-341) All Hands Newsletter
Newsletter #109 – January 2025
USS
CHIVO (SS-341) All Hands Newsletter
USS Chivo's 2024 Reunion
Chivo’s
October 2024 reunion was hosted by Peter
& Angela McVicker
(1969-1970) in Kings Bay, GA. Unfortunately, my wife and I
were unable to attend due to a family emergency. I only
mention that because I have no first hand information about the
reunion, and no details or pictures have been sent to me. I
can’t even give you a list of attendees, but I do know that 20 crew
members were present and with their spouses and guests, there were 39
people total.
After
Christmas, I met with Bob
Bernhardt (1971),
Chivo’s organization president, and he assured me that there would
be another Chivo reunion in 2026. Bob explained that the next
reunion would likely be in Myrtle Beach, SC. He added that it
would be shorter, probably 3 days, and not include pre-arranged tours
or outside activities. No one has been selected to host or
plan the reunion.
* * * From The Quartermaster's Notebook * * *
Eternal Patrol . . . Recently we learned that the following shipmates have passed away:
Binnacle List . . . These shipmates are facing some serious challenges:
Damn the Torpedoes! Full Speed Ahead!
Originally
the term torpedo was applied to a primitive explosive charge
suspended by a float just below the surface of the water, like a
contact mine. During the American Civil War, the entrance to
Mobile Bay in Alabama was protected by numerous torpedoes. In
August 1864, Admiral David Farragut led a squadron of Union ships
into Mobile Bay. When one of his ships struck a torpedo and
sunk, the other ships began to falter and turn back. That’s
when Farragut shouted his famous words, “Damn
the torpedoes . . . full speed ahead!”
The
first submarine to sink a ship with a torpedo, this time an explosive
attached to a spar, was the CSS Hunley. She attacked and sunk
the USS Housatonic on February 1864 in the harbor at Charleston, SC.
In
1866, Robert Whitehead, an English engineer, invented the first
effective self-propelled torpedo. French and German inventions
and improvements followed closely. As early as 1885, a
successful wire guided, short range torpedo was being used throughout
the British Empire for harbor defense. By 1900 the term
torpedo was only used to describe self-propelled projectiles that
traveled under or on water, and it no longer included mines and
booby-traps.
Torpedoes
were widely used in WW I both against shipping and against
submarines. Twenty U-boats were sunk in WW I by torpedos.
Also in WW I people began thinking about dropping lightweight
torpedos from aircraft.
On
17 August 1915 two Royal Navy seaplanes armed with aerial torpedos
took part in the Gallipoli campaign. Flight Commander Edmonds
torpedoed and sank an Ottoman transport ship a few miles north of the
Dardanelles. His formation colleague, Flight Lieutenant
Dacre, was forced to land on the water owing to engine trouble but,
seeing an enemy tug close by, he taxied up to it and released his
torpedo, sinking the tug. Without the weight of the torpedo
Dacre was able to take off and return to the seaplane tender.
In
the years between WW I and WW II, financial stringency caused nearly
all navies to skimp on testing new torpedoes and technologies.
The Japanese, an exception, continued testing and developing their
Type 91 aerial torpedo, later used at Pearl Harbor, and the type 93
“Long Lance” torpedo.
The
Best Torpedo in WW II - The
Type 93, or “Long Lance,” was fired by Japanese cruisers and
destroyers. It is considered to be the best torpedo of WW
II. It had a longer range than any other torpedo, it was
faster than other torpedoes, and it had a larger warhead than other
torpedoes. The type 93 was reliable and often surprised target
ships that thought they were out of range. One of the longest
ranged torpedo hits in history was scored by the Type 93 when the
heavy cruiser Haguro launched a torpedo from 22,000 yards at the
battle of the Java Sea in 1942.
The Japanese type 95
torpedo was a submarine version of the long lance torpedo and
slightly smaller. It still had about three times the range of
the MK-14 and was the fastest torpedo in common use by any navy
during WW II. It’s warhead size was the largest of any
submarine torpedo.
And
the Worst Torpedo in WW II - The
U.S. Navy’s mark 14 torpedo was possibly the worst torpedo in the
early years of World War II. Initially, the mark 14 would
often run about 10 feet deeper than the set depth, causing it to pass
underneath its target. The magnetic detonator would frequently
detonate prematurely, causing the torpedo to explode before reaching
its target. The contact detonator would often fail to detonate
the warhead, or would jam when it hit the side of a target ship.
And finally, the Mark 14 would sometimes run in a large circle
instead of straightening out, which could cause it to return and
strike the firing ship. Bottom line, the Mark 14 had an
estimated failure rate of 50–80%.
The Navy eventually solved
some of the problems with the Mark 14, including the depth control
valve and the firing pin weight of the contact detonator.
However, the magnetic detonator remained a problem, and was
eventually abandoned in favor of the contact mechanism.
A
HOLLYWOOD FOOTNOTE - Hedy
Lamarr, 1914-2000, a beautiful Austrian born, American actress
developed and patented a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes
in WW II using frequency-hopping technology to defeat the threat of
jamming by the Axis powers. Although it was not pursued by the
Navy, in the 1960s her invention led to the various spread-spectrum
techniques incorporated in Bluetooth technology, GPS and versions of
Wi-Fi.
* * * Current Chivo Board Members * * *
President |
Bob Bernhardt (71 Decom) |
|
Vice President |
Doug Plummer (68-70) |
|
Treasurer |
Bob Kuphal (64-66) |
|
Secretary |
VACANT - Stan Pollard acting |
|
Reunion Director |
Your name could be here |
|
Communications Director |
Stan Pollard (68-71 Decom) |
The mission of the CHIVO Reunion Organization is:
to perpetuate the memory of our shipmates and their deeds, to promote good fellowship and comradeship, and to pledge loyalty and patriotism to the United States of America.
to participate in activities that foster recognition of the contributions made by members of all Armed Forces and their families, both Past and Present, that uphold the spirit of the Declaration of Independence.
to provide aid and comfort to service members in need.
We have no dues, and we have a lot of fun!
USS
CHIVO (SS-341) Reunion Organization
All Hands Newsletter
#109 – January 2025