Countdown to Kickoff

[kingofnerf]

Clemson Tigers at South Carolina Gamecocks

Williams-Brice Stadium  Columbia, SC

Saturday, November 27, 2021

https://www.ticketcity.com/south-carolina-tickets/williams-brice-stadium-tickets/clemson-tigers-at-south-carolina-gamecocks-nov-27-2021-3537312.html

So I would say Day 27 is anything Carolina vs. Clemson.  Let's get some payback on November, 27th.

 

[Swayin]

The North American A-26, the attack version of the T-6 Texan trainer.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

27th Division - made up of NG soldiers from NY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27th_Infantry_Division_(United_States)

 

[Homebrewcock]

 

[Homebrewcock]

 

[Homebrewcock]

 

[kingofnerf]

Short S-27.

The Short S.27 and its derivative, the Short Improved S.27 (sometimes called the Short-Sommer biplane), were a series of early British aircraft built by Short Brothers. They were used by the Admiralty and Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps for training the Royal Navy's first pilots as well as for early naval aviation experiments. An Improved S.27 was used by C.R. Samson to make the first successful take-off from a moving ship on 9 May 1912.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_S.27

 

[kingofnerf]

Sikorsky Ilya Muromets S-27 E (Yeh-2) bomber.

 

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[kingofnerf]

USS Northampton, CA-26.

USS Northampton (CL/CA-26) was the lead Northampton-class cruiser in service with the United States Navy. She was commissioned in 1930, originally classified a light cruiser because of her thin armor but later reclassified a heavy cruiser because of her 8-inch guns. During World War II she served in the Pacific and was sunk by Japanese torpedoes during the Battle of Tassafaronga on 30 November 1942. She was named after the city of Northampton, Massachusetts, the home of former President Calvin Coolidge.

The senior officer killed on Northampton during the battle of Tassafaronga was Chief Engineer, Commander (select) Hilan Ebert of Alliance, Ohio. Ebert was awarded the Navy Cross. In honor of Commander Ebert, the destroyer escort USS Ebert was launched 11 May 1944 by Tampa Shipbuilding Co., Inc., Tampa, Florida; sponsored by the widow of Commander Ebert; Mrs. Hilan Ebert. Commanding officer of the ship, Captain Willard A. Kitts survived the sinking and was also decorated the Navy Cross for handling the evacuation of Northampton.

Fletcher rescued survivors of Northampton, ingeniously using cork-floated cargo nets to take great groups of them from the water.

In fiction

Northampton plays a prominent role in Herman Wouk's novel War and Remembrance as Victor Henry's first seagoing command in many years. The ship's operations in the book are identical to those in its real life. The novel includes a discussion of the design compromises imposed on the Northampton-class by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. The ship also figured prominently in the War and Remembrance miniseries.

Northampton was also used as a reference in the 1937 film Navy Blue and Gold, in which James Stewart played a seaman who was stationed on Northampton before being awarded an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Stewart's character mentioned that he played football for Northampton, and that it was the fleet football champion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Northampton_(CA-26)

The actor Jason Robards was serving as a Radioman 3rd class aboard the Northampton when she was sunk.

Naval service in World War II

Following the completion of recruit training and radio school, Robards was assigned to the heavy cruiser USS Northampton in 1941 as a radioman 3rd class. On December 7, 1941, Northampton was at sea in the Pacific Ocean about 100 miles (160 km) off Hawaii. Contrary to some stories, he did not see the devastation of the Japanese attack on Hawaii until Northampton returned to Pearl Harbor two days later. Northampton was later directed into the Guadalcanal campaign in World War II's Pacific theater, where she participated in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.

During the Battle of Tassafaronga in the waters north of Guadalcanal on the night of November 30, 1942, Northampton was sunk by hits from two Japanese torpedoes. Robards found himself treading water until near daybreak, when he was rescued by an American destroyer. For her service in the war, Northampton was awarded six battle stars.

Two years later, in November 1944, Robards was radioman aboard the light cruiser USS Nashville, the flagship for the invasion of Mindoro in the northern Philippines. On December 13, she was struck by a kamikaze aircraft off Negros Island in the Philippines. The aircraft hit one of the port five-inch gun mounts, while the plane's two bombs set the midsection of the ship ablaze. With this damage and 223 casualties, Nashville was forced to return to Pearl Harbor and then to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, for repairs.

Robards served honorably during the war, but was not a recipient of the U.S. Navy Cross for bravery, contrary to what has been reported in numerous sources. The inaccurate story derives from a 1979 column by Hy Gardner.

Aboard Nashville, Robards first found a copy of Eugene O'Neill's play Strange Interlude in the ship's library.  Also while in the Navy, he first started thinking seriously about becoming an actor. He had emceed for a Navy band in Pearl Harbor, got a few laughs, and decided he liked it. His father suggested he enroll in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) in New York City, from which he graduated in 1948.

Robards left the Navy in 1946 as a Petty officer first class. He was awarded the Good Conduct Medal of the Navy, the American Defense Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Robards

 

[Swayin]

The Martin B-26 Marauder, one of the mainstay medium bombers of the war. More than 5,000 were built.

 

[Swayin]

The Boeing P-26 Peashooter; first flew in 1931 and was still in service in the Philippines at the start of the war. Was the first production all-metal fighter aircraft and the first pursuit monoplane to enter squadron service with the United States Army Air Corps. 

 

[kingofnerf]

USS Monterey, CVL-26.

Former President Gerald Ford served as a gunnery officer aboard Monterey.  He is seated second from right on the front row in the picture below.

Though enemy planes had been unable to damage Monterey, she did not complete her first full year of service unscathed. In December, she steamed into the path of Typhoon Cobra, with winds over 100 knots (190 km/h; 120 mph). At the height of the storm, which lasted two days, several planes tore loose from their cables, causing several fires on the hangar deck.

During the storm future US President Gerald Ford, who served on board the ship, was almost swept overboard. Ford, serving as General Quarters Officer of the Deck, was ordered to go below to assess the raging fire. He did so safely, and reported his findings back to the ship’s commanding officer, Captain Stuart Ingersoll. The ship’s crew was able to contain the fire, and the ship got underway again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Monterey_(CVL-26)

 

[kingofnerf]

USS Perkins, DD-26.

Service history

After almost seven years of peacetime service with active and reserve destroyer squadrons, Perkins recommissioned on 3 April 1917 with Lt. Cmdr. Forney Moore Knox in command. Assigned to the second division of United States destroyer forces in Europe, a division which included Paulding, Wilkes, and Ammen, she operated out of Queenstown, Ireland, from June into November 1917.

During this duty, she rescued survivors of Tarquah on 7 August, and escorted Bohemia from Saint Nazaire to Ireland and New York from Queenstown to Liverpool. In November 1917 she departed Ireland for New York, New York.

During the winter of 1917–1918, she underwent overhaul at Charleston, South Carolina. From March to December 1918 she operated out of Gravesend Bay, New York, on anti-submarine patrol and escort duty. She sighted German submarine U-151 off New Jersey on 2 June 1918. On convoy duty, she escorted various ships, including President Grant and President Washington, between Halifax, Nova Scotia and New York.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Perkins_(DD-26)

 

[Homebrewcock]

 

[kingofnerf]

USS Belknap, CG-26.

Collision, fire, and reconstruction

Belknap was severely damaged in a collision with the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1975 off the coast of Sicily. A fire broke out on Belknap following the collision, during the fire her aluminum superstructure collapsed after it was weakened by the heat. Seven sailors were killed on Belknap and one on John F. Kennedy.

Shortly after the fire began, boats from other vessels operating with John F. Kennedy and Belknap began to pull alongside the burning ship, often with complete disregard for their own safety. The guided missile destroyer Claude V. Ricketts and destroyer Bordelon moved in on both sides of Belknap, their men directing fire hoses into the amidships area that the stricken ship's crew could not reach. Bordelon was also badly damaged in a collision with Kennedy the following year which forced her removal from service. Claude V. Ricketts moved in and secured alongside Belknap's port side, and evacuated the injured while fragments from exploding ammunition showered down upon her weather decks. The frigate Pharris closed in the carrier's starboard side to provide fire-fighting assistance.  Ammunition from Belknap's three-inch ready storage locker, located amidships, cooked off, hurling fiery fragments into the air and splashing around the rescue boats. Undaunted, the rescuers pulled out the seriously wounded and delivered fire-fighting supplies to the sailors who refused to surrender their ship to the conflagration.

The ammunition ship Mount Baker was involved later in the rescue and salvage of Belknap, escorting her to an ammunition depot and then providing electric and water services as Mount Baker's Explosive Ordnance Disposal team retrieved all of the remaining ammunition from Belknap. Mount Baker also took aboard most of Belknap's crew until they could be transferred to a way station for re-assignment.

The fire and the resultant damage and deaths, which would have been less had Belknap's superstructure been made of steel, helped persuade the US Navy to pursue all-steel construction in future classes of surface combatants. However, in 1987 the New York Times cited cracking in aluminum superstructures such as what occurred in the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, rather than fire, as the reason the Navy returned to steel on some ships. 

The first USN combatant ships to revert to all steel superstructure were the Arleigh Burke-class, which were commissioned beginning in the 1990s. Belknap was reconstructed by the Philadelphia Navy Yard from 30 January 1976 to 10 May 1980. Since the hull was still in good condition the Navy decided to use this as a test platform for the Aegis-class cruiser electronics and updated weapons systems. Until the Aegis-class cruisers came along Belknap was one of the most powerful warships in the world and saw service in Beirut as part of the multinational peacekeeping force, becoming the first ship to fire on an enemy since the Vietnam War. It was the ship's Naval Tactical Data Systems' (NTDS) reliability during this time in Beirut which was named as the defining reason that the Belknap was chosen as the Sixth Fleet flagship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Belknap_(CG-26)

 

[kingofnerf]

The football program cover for the 1953 Citadel game which was played on 9-26-1953.

 

[kingofnerf]

The football program cover for the 1963 UNC game which was played on 10-26-1963.