Darwin's Bulldog by Briney

Vue • Military • posted on Nov 20, 2011

Open full image in new tab Zoom on image

Hover over top left image to zoom.
Click anywhere to exit.

Members remain the original copyright holder in all their materials here at Renderosity. Use of any of their material inconsistent with the terms and conditions set forth is prohibited and is considered an infringement of the copyrights of the respective holders unless specially stated otherwise.

Description

USS Peary as she might have looked in late December 1941, arriving in Australia's Northern Territory after running a gauntlet of fires, bombs, and torpedoes all the way from the Philippines. And finding a rare sight indeed, the first intact Allied fighters in God knows how long. Peary has been in the news lately, what with Presidential visits etc. A 1919-vintage USN Clemson-class destroyer. Peary was sunk during the air raid in Darwin, Australia, on February 19th 1942. It suffered five direct hits from Japanese divebombers (four bombs exploded), but two machine gunners on the stricken ship kept firing doggedly while there were still planes in the sky... 80 men were killed and 13 wounded. Incidentally, in 1940, on the other side of the world, the US had given some of these vintage "four pipers" to the beleagured UK in exchange for American access to bases in British overseas territories. Of course, by the time 1942 rolled around, the pushy Brits wanted access to ALL Hitler's bases in Europe. Being generous, the Brits passed one of these (cough) "obsolete" destroyers, HMS Cambeltown, over to the Fuhrer as a down-payment... and right up the wazoo too!... in the audacious St Nazaire commando raid. BANG!!! That was just a month and a half after the first Darwin air-raid. Clemson-class destroyer modelled in Shade 10 P-40's (Bazze of course) Thanks for viewing...

Comments (9)

)

neiwil

7:42AM | Sun, 20 November 2011

"Pushy Brits"....how dare you! :-) Cambeltown was a fine ship beloved of her crew, that plus all the free (admitidly dodgy) explosives was a bargain for a few substandard bits of realestate on the continent.St Nazaire was a mistake, the commando's got the date wrong for an officer exchange program and the ship blew up by accident.....honest!!! Great image, have to say you do ships wakes very well...strange, I was only reading about 'four pipers' the other day. (The attack on St Nazaire was a dareing venture by brave men and as a Brit (pushy or otherwise) I'm rightly proud and grateful for their efforts..)

)

debbielove

7:45AM | Sun, 20 November 2011

Cool! And no-one knows just how many Germans were crawling over the 'left' behind Destroyer when it went BANG! Needless to say there wasn't much left.. Super render mate! Rob

)

EyeOfTheJen

10:59AM | Sun, 20 November 2011

wow,, the thumbnail looked like a real photo.. and thank you for the background history.

)

Mara105

12:08PM | Sun, 20 November 2011

really wonderful ^^

)

jac204

1:15PM | Sun, 20 November 2011

Wonderful image and slice of history.

)

Osper

1:26PM | Sun, 20 November 2011

Nice job on your model! Oh ....and the pic. I'm sure you have taken enough broadsides from the Brits. St. Nazaire was a test on what happens when you get the wrong Michilin guide for your beach party!!! ;)

)

Briney

2:10AM | Mon, 21 November 2011

Yes, thanks for your comments. I did have my tongue in cheek about British enthusiasm for ahem "access" to Hitler's bases... A drastic measure of course, costly in lives but it worked. I was also struck by the "Beware of Commandos Bearing Gifts" moral of the raid's aftermath. I'll bet that's the last time the Nazis arranged tours on anything left behind by commandos.

)