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Identify this Navy Armed Guard class?

Posted by Mike Daugherty on January 31, 2010, 2:01 pm

All,
We recently discovered a BNP674 belonging to my Father in law, Lutz, Wilbur W. S2c who was a Navy Armed Guard.
It indicates that Wilbur completed the prescribed course of study at the "Naval Mine Warfare School, Yorktown, Virginia"
The next line says "A/TD MK 29 (Seaman)".
Can anyone identify if this was a course name or was it a specific piece of equipment as in a MK 29 model of automatic or anti-torpedo defense.

Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class?

Posted by alvin bell on April 18, 2010, 2:21 pm, in reply to "Identify this Navy Armed Guard class? "

Looking for WW11 members on the MS Square Knot in the Pacific ?

Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class?

Posted by butcher jack on March 16, 2010, 9:50 am, in reply to "Identify this Navy Armed Guard class? "

@ yorktown we were shown how to use new rocket launchers most important get your hands out of the way.I do not rember any spec #s

Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class?

Posted by Ron Carlson on February 5, 2010, 7:36 am, in reply to "Identify this Navy Armed Guard class? "

Aha! Your brilliant Armed Guard webmaster to the rescue, he said modestly.

I have found what appears to be the answer in some of the excellent transcription work that Rick Pitz had done over the past couple of years, to our great collective benefit.

Chapter 3 of "Administrative History: Arming of Merchant Ships and Naval Armed Guard Service in World War II" contains a lengthy discussion of a defensive weapon that was intended to be used on merchant ships, named the "Mark 29 mine." See http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/Admin-Hist/172-ArmedGuards/172-AG-3.html#Mark29.

This was not a mine in the sense that one usually thinks of it, namely an explosive device floating or anchored in the water to explode when an unlucky ship happened upon it. Rather it was an explosive device, one or more of which would be trailed ("streamed") behind a vessel, with acoustic capabilities that would pick up the sound of an approaching torpedo fired from a submarine. When the torpedo reached the mine, the mine would explode, in turn causing the torpedo to explode before it reached the ship.

While possibly having some theoretical value, there were serious practical difficulties with this device, not the least of which was what happened to the ship when both the mine and the torpedo exploded nearby. A host of such problems eventually led to the abandonment of the Mark 29 mine as a defensive weapon aboard merchant vessels.

But before the Navy finally reached that decision, it trained a number of Armed Guard officers and men in the operation of the mine, with that training taking place at the Naval Mine Warfare School in Yorktown, Virginia, matching exactly the information Mike has about his father-in-law. I can't decipher the "A/TD" designation Mike found on his father-in-law's paperwork, but the above explanation seems to fit.

Training for Armed Guard personnel in the use of the Mark 29 mine began in August 1943 but was suspended in November 1943 or shortly thereafter, and associated equipment intended for installation on merchant ships was disposed of. As the report laconically notes, "Armed Guard officers did not indicate that a single torpedo was ever detected by the device."

I think we have an answer to Mike's question.

[PS. Mike, the good thing about talking to yourself is that you never get in over your head intellectually.]

Ron Carlson, Webmaster

Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class?

Posted by Mike Daugherty on February 5, 2010, 8:35 pm, in reply to "Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class? "

My Father in law graduated 6 November, 1943. Barely 2 weeks later they canned the project. I guess there are always good things and bad things to every project. It almost sounds like the MK 29 was a precursor two a now common anti-submarine device the "nixie" or towed array.

It also seems like the MK 29 was to ships as reactive armor is to tanks today. Explosive plates that detonate on contact and explode or deform incoming rounds.

I sure wish I had known to talk to Wilbur about this stuff while he was alive.

Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class?

Posted by Mike Daugherty on February 5, 2010, 8:22 pm, in reply to "Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class? "

Very interesting information!! Thanks!

Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class?

Posted by Mike Daugherty on February 4, 2010, 10:01 pm, in reply to "Identify this Navy Armed Guard class? "

Now I think this was the Model of a Gunsight. (since I'm talking to myself it seems) Maybe someone here will recognize the equipment in the following link.
http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/USNAVY/CHAPTER-26-D.html

Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class?

Posted by Fran Kent on February 4, 2010, 10:23 pm, in reply to "Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class? "

Mike: I don't like to think anyone is talking to himself here. I never stood a gun watch (I was an RM), but I noticed things, and I never saw a gun equipped with radar of the sort pictured here on any of the merchant ships I served on. Radar, I think, would require the presence of a radarman for purposes of operation and maintenance, and I never knew or saw a radarman assigned to an A.G. gun crew. But I left the A.G. before the war ended, and this sort of thing may have come along after my return to the Fleet.
-- Fran

Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class?

Posted by Mike Daugherty on February 5, 2010, 8:24 pm, in reply to "Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class? "

Interesting. So the gunners just used "kentucky windage" to lead the planes then?

Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class?

Posted by Fran Kent on February 5, 2010, 10:30 pm, in reply to "Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class? "

I'm in no way qualified to make this statement, but I'd bet that no armed freighter or tanker in the WWII era carried any fire-control gear. There were of course gunsights on the 20mm's and on the 3/50's and 5/38's, but this was optical, not electronic. If I'm wrong about this, I'd be delighted if someone out there would let it be known.

Re: Identify this Navy Armed Guard class?

Posted by Mike Daugherty on February 4, 2010, 9:40 pm, in reply to "Identify this Navy Armed Guard class? "

Perhaps this was a MK 29 Gunsight???

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