Survivor of USS Arizona from Pearl Harbor attack dies at 100

YUBA CITY, California — The oldest living crew member of the battleship USS Arizona to have survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has died in Northern California at the age of 100.

Retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Langdell died Feb. 4 at a nursing home in Yuba City, according to his son, Ted Langdell. A tally maintained by the USS Arizona Reunion Association, for which Langdell had served as president, identified him as not only the oldest Arizona survivor, but the last surviving officer from the naval ship that lost 1,177 men — nearly four-fifths of its crew — when it was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941.

Langdell was an ensign on an assignment that had him sleeping on a military base adjacent to the ship in Honolulu on the morning Pearl Harbor was attacked. He spent the following hours and days trying to rescue shipmates from the burning water, preparing for another possible air assault and leading the survivors tasked with removing the remains of the dead from the partially sunken ship, his son said.

“I felt absolutely helpless as I watched the attack,” Langdell told The Associated Press on the 56th anniversary of the attack that drew the United States into World War II. “If I had been aboard, I would have been killed in that No. 2 (gun) turret. That was the one that blew up. It was my luck to be assigned off the ship that day.”

The New Hampshire native spent another four years in the Navy before going to work as an auctioneer, a furniture manufacturer’s representative and eventually the long-time owner of a Yuba City furniture store.

Ted Langdell said his father did not talk about Pearl Harbor during his childhood and returned there for the first time since the war in 1976, when his older son was in the Navy. After that, Langdell took comfort in meeting with fellow survivors and pride in always wearing a USS Arizona hat.

“It drew attention not just to him, but gave him the chance to tell stories,” the son said.

Per his wishes, Langdell’s ashes will be put aboard the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii, mostly likely on Dec. 7.

The reunion association says there are now eight remaining survivors.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

US Navy to deploy laser for 1st time

BATH, Maine—Some of the Navy’s futuristic weapons sound like something out of “Star Wars,” with lasers designed to shoot down aerial drones and electric guns that fire projectiles at hypersonic speeds.

That future is now.

The Navy plans to deploy its first laser on a ship later this year, and it intends to test an electromagnetic rail gun prototype aboard a vessel within two years.

For the Navy, it’s not so much about the whiz-bang technology as it is about the economics of such armaments. Both costs pennies on the dollar compared with missiles and smart bombs, and the weapons can be fired continuously, unlike missiles and bombs, which eventually run out.

“It fundamentally changes the way we fight,” said Capt. Mike Ziv, program manager for directed energy and electric weapon systems for the Naval Sea Systems Command.

Laser Weapon System

The Navy’s laser technology has evolved to the point that a prototype to be deployed aboard the USS Ponce this summer can be operated by a single sailor, he said.

The solid-state Laser Weapon System is designed to target what the Navy describes as “asymmetrical threats.” Those include aerial drones, speed boats and swarm boats, all potential threats to warships in the Persian Gulf, where the Ponce, a floating staging base, is set to be deployed.

Rail guns, which have been tested on land in Virginia, fire a projectile at six or seven times the speed of sound—enough velocity to cause severe damage. The Navy sees them as replacing or supplementing old-school guns, firing lethal projectiles from long distances.

But both systems have shortcomings.

Lasers tend to loser their effectiveness if it’s raining, if it’s dusty, or if there’s turbulence in the atmosphere, and the rail gun requires vast amount of electricity to launch the projectile, said Loren Thompson, defense analyst at the Lexington Institute.

“The Navy says it’s found ways to deal with use of lasers in bad weather, but there’s little doubt that the range of the weapon would be reduced by clouds, dust or precipitation,” he said.

Producing enough energy for a rail gun is another problem.

New destroyer Zumwalt

The Navy’s new destroyer, the Zumwalt, under construction at Bath Iron Works in Maine, is the only ship with enough electric power to run a rail gun. The stealthy ship’s gas turbine-powered generators can produce up to 78 megawatts of power. That’s enough electricity for a medium-size city—and more than enough for a rail gun.

Technology from the three ships in that DDG-1000 series will likely trickle down into future warships, said Capt. James Downey, the program manager.

Engineers are also working on a battery system to store enough energy to allow a rail gun to be operated on warships currently in the fleet.

Both weapon systems are prized because they serve to “get ahead of the cost curve,” Ziv said.

In other words, they’re cheap.

Each interceptor missile aboard a US Navy warship costs at least $1 million apiece, making it cost-prohibitive to defend a ship in some hostile environments in which an enemy is using aircraft, drones, artillery, cruise missiles and artillery, Thompson said.

With a laser operating on about 30 kilowatts of electricity—and possibly three times that in the future—the cost amounts to a few dollars per shot, Thompson said.

The “Star Wars” analogy isn’t a bad one.

Just like in the movies, the Navy’s laser directs a beam of energy that can burn through a target or fry sensitive electronics. Unlike the movie, the laser beam is invisible to the human eye.

The targeting system locks onto the target, sending a beam of searing heat. “You see the effect on what you are targeting but you don’t see the actual beam,” Ziv said.

Other nations are developing their own lasers, but the Navy is more advanced at this point.—David Sharp

source: technology.inquirer.net

US sends ‘Mercy’ to Yolanda victims

MANILA, Philippines – A US Navy hospital ship will come to the Philippines to support disaster relief efforts in areas ravaged by the supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan).

Expected to dock in the Philippines this December, naval ship “Mercy” was activated by US Pacific Fleet on Wednesday for immediate deployment, commander of the US Pacific Fleet Admiral Harry Harris Jr. said in an official statement.

“If ordered to deploy, Mercy would get underway in the next several days and could arrive in the Philippines sometime in December, joining other US Pacific Fleet units already supporting Operation Damayan,” the Pentagon’s humanitarian assistance program for “Yolanda” victims launched in cooperation with the US Agency for International Development. Damayan in Filipino means “help in time of need”.

As of posting time, the US has transported more than 107,000 pounds of relief supplies.

In the official website of USNS Mercy has three to four operating rooms, one emergency room, four Intensive Care Unit beds and isolation ward, 62 ward beds and 22 hotel beds.

The US Navy will also send amphibious ships USS Ashland (LSD 48), USS Germantown (LSD 42), USS McCampbell (DDG 85) and USNS Charles Drew (T-AKE 10), which were expected to arrive in the country starting Thursday.

“This collection of ships and their complement of aircraft, to include much-needed helicopters, will provide food and water, the capability to move relief supplies to isolated areas, and to help move the badly injured for medical care,” Harris said.

source: globalnation.inquirer.net