Erzurum offensive

The Erzurum offensive ( "Erzurumskoe srazhenie", Turkish: "Erzurum Taarruzu") or Battle of Erzurum (Turkish: "Erzurum Muharebesi") was a major winter offensive by the Imperial Russian Army on the Caucasus Campaign, during the First World War that led to the capture of the strategic city of Erzurum.
The Ottoman forces, in winter quarters, suffered a series of unexpected reverses, which led to a Russian victory.
Background.
After the defeat at the Battle of Sarikamish, the Ottomans tried to reorganise. The Armenian Genocide made supplying their forces a problem. Trade by Armenians, which had supplied the Ottoman Army, was disrupted. The dismissal of Armenian soldiers into labor battalions and their massacres further worsened the problem. However, throughout 1915, the northern sectors of the front remained quiet.
At the same time, the end of the Gallipoli Campaign would free up considerable Turkish soldiers, which made Nikolai Yudenich, the commander of the Russian Caucasus Army, prepare to launch an offensive. He hoped to take the main fortress of Erzurum in the area, followed by Trabzon. That would be was a difficult campaign since Erzurum was protected by a number of forts in the mountains.
Eight of the available Ottoman divisions were designated for the Caucasus Front. Yudenich believed that he could launch an offensive before the Ottoman divisions could be redeployed and readied for battle.
Forces.
Russian.
The Russians had 130,000 infantry and 35,000 cavalry. They also had 160,000 troops in reserve, 150 supply trucks and 20 planes of the Siberian Air Squadron. According to other sources, the attacking group (the Russian Caucasian army) included about 120 thousand people and 338 guns.
Ottoman.
The Ottoman High Command failed to make up its losses from 1915. The war in Gallipoli was using all of its resources and manpower. The IX, X and XI Corps could not be reinforced, and the 1st and 5th Expeditionary Forces were deployed to Mesopotamia Campaign which did not show signs of ending soon. The Ottoman High Command recognised the dire situation on other fronts and decided that the region was of secondary importance. As of January 1916, Ottoman forces were 126,000 men, only 50,539 of whom were combat soldiers. There were 74,057 rifles, 77 machine guns and 180 pieces of artillery. Many of the guns that were supposed to defend the city had been moved to Gallipoli to counter the British forces. The guns still in the region were older weapons and not in very good condition.
Soldiers were in poor condition and suffered from inadequate food as was typical of many of the time's Ottomam soldiers. Ottoman forces in the Caucasus Campaign were large on paper but not on the ground. Another source claims that 78,000 troops were in the region, perhaps associating the number of rifles to actual soldiers.
Operations.
The Ottoman High Command did not expect any Russian operations during winter. Mahmut Kamil was in Istanbul, and his chief of staff, Colonel Felix Guse, was in Germany. General Yudenich launched a major winter offensive. In mid-January, there was heavy snow, which often came up to 4 feet.
Defense lines.
The Russians had a slight edge in numbers but could not rely on numbers alone. For that reason, the Russian plan was to break through a weak part of the line.
On January 10, the initial offensive was directed at the XI Corps. The first engagement was at the Azkani village and its mountain crest of Kara Urgan. In four days, the Russians managed to break through the XI Corps, whose losses were high.
On January 17, at Battle of Koprukoy The forces at Köprüköy, the main town on the road to Erzurum, were forced to leave. By 18 January, the Russian forces approached Hasankale, a town on the road to Erzurum and the new location of the Third Army headquarters. on January 23 Kargabazar Dag Hinis. Within a week, the defensive formation was dissolved.
On January 29, Mahmut Kamil Paşa returned from Istanbul. He could feel that the Russians would not only attack Erzurum but also renew the offensive southern flank around Lake Van. Hınıs, to the south, was taken on February 7 to prevent reinforcements from Muş from coming in. Mahmut Kamil tried to strengthen the defensive lines. That drew most of the Ottoman reserves and diverted their attention away from the decisive attack farther north. On the same day, Russian forces captured Muş after the Battle of Mush, 70 mi from Erzurum.
On February 11 and 12th, the Deve-Boyun Ridge, an important artillery platform, was the scene of heavy fighting. North of the Deve Boyun ridge, the Russian columns approached over the Kargapazar ridge, which the Ottomans had considered impassable. The X Corps guarded that sector of the line, and its commander had positioned his divisions so that they could not support one another. Mahmut Kamil had five divisions in the Deve-Boyun ridge area but was slow to react to events north of that position.
City of Erzurum.
The fortress was under Russian threat, both from north and east. With the victories, the Russian Army had cleared the approaches to Erzurum. The Russians were now planning to take Erzurum, a heavily-fortified stronghold. Erzurum was considered as the second best-defended town in the Ottoman Empire. The fortress was defended by 235 pieces of artillery. Its fortifications covered the city on a 180° arc in two rings. There were eleven forts and batteries covering the central area. The flanks were guarded by a group of two forts on each flank. The Ottoman Third Army lacked the soldiers to adequately man the perimeter. Also, casualties totaled 10,000 and an additional 5,000 had been taken prisoner, 16 pieces of artillery had been lost and 40,000 men had found refuge in fortress.
On February 11, the Russians began to shell the fortified formations around Erzurum. Fierce fighting erupted. Ottoman battalions of 350 men had to defend against Russian battalions of 1,000 men. There were few reinforcements for the beleaguered Ottomans. In three days, the Russians had managed to reach the heights overlooking the Erzurum plain. It was now obvious to the Third Army's leaders that the town had been lost. The Ottoman units began to retreat from the fortified zones at the front and to evacuate the town of Erzurum.
On February 12, Fort Kara-gobek was taken. On the 13th, the Russians continued their attacks.
On February 14, Fort Tafet was taken, and the Russians had now penetrated through both rings of the cities's defenses.
By February 15, the remaining forts surrounding Erzurum were evacuated.
Early in the morning of the 16th, Russian Cossacks were among the first to enter the city. Ottoman units had successfully withdrawn and avoided encirclement, but casualties were already high, and 327 pieces of artillery had been lost to the Russians. Support units of the Third Army and around 250 wounded at the town's hospital were taken prisoner.
Although aerial reconnaissance revealed the Ottomans retreat, the Russian pursuit was not effective as it could have been. Meanwhile, remnants of the X and XI Corps established another defensive line, 8 km east of Erzurum.
Casualties.
The initial phase of the offensive, known as the Battle of Koprukoy, resulted in 20,000 casualties for the Ottomans and 12,000 for the Russians. At the end of the offensive, during the storming of the city of Erzurum itself, the Russians captured some 9 standards, 5,000 prisoners and 327 guns. The Ottomans lost about 10,000 men killed and wounded as well as 5,000 prisoners. Of the Russians, 1,000 were killed, 4,000 wounded and 4,000 affected by frostbite.
Aftermath.
The Ottoman Empire did not have a chance to enjoy its victory at the Battle of Gallipoli since its loss of Erzurum changed the atmosphere in an instant. The V Corps (consisting of 10th and 13th Divisions) was deployed from Gallipoli. On 27 February, Mahmut Kamil was replaced with Vehip Paşa. The new location of the headquarters became Erzincan. At that time 3rd Army had only 25,500 men, 76 machine guns and 86 pieces of artillery battle ready. As a further result of the Erzurum Campaign, Trabzon fell in April.
In literature.
The Battle of Erzurum forms the climax of John Buchan's novel Greenmantle.


Homam-e Tabrizi

Homam-e Tabrizi () or Homām-al-din B. ʿAlāʾ Tabrizi (1238/39–1314/15) was a Persian poet of the Ilkhanid era. He was a follower of Saadi and his poetry was mostly in form of ghazal.
Biography.
His birthplace is unknown as are details of his life and education. Most sources following Dowlatshah Samarqandi claim that he was a student of Nasir al-Din Tusi. He is also said to be a student or associate of Qutb al-Din Shirazi. He roses in prominence in the political and intellectual circles of Tabriz and was close to the Jovayni family. He also founded a Sufi lodge house (Khanghah) in Tabriz which was endowed by the Jovayni family. Homam mentions a travel to Baghdad and is said to have made a pilgrimage to Mecca. He is buried in the poet's monument Maqbaratoshoara in Tabriz. An important book detailing cultural activities of Tabriz in the Ilkhanid era called Safina-yi Tabriz sheds more light on the cultural activities of the city.
Works and influences.
Homam left a prose, a commendation (Taqriz) of Rashid al-Din's "Esharat" contained in a manuscript in the library of Tehran university. He is most well known for his Divan which is around 3944 verses. The Divan contains Persian, Arabic poems and also macaronic ghazal in Persian and the Iranian old Azari language. Homām is best known for his ḡazals, which follow those of Saʿdi in style and tone. Many of them are replies (jawābs) to specific ḡazals of Saʿdi (see, e.g., Ḥabib al-siar II, p 564; IV, p. 653), and later Homām was called “the Saʿdi of Azerbaijan” (Ātaškada I, p. 146). The Ghazals in the Divan are his most important contribution to Persian literature. Among his Mathnawis, two stand out in particular. One is in the meter of Sanai's "Hadiqat al Haqiqa" and focuses on similar themes. The other, "Sohbat-nama" is a disquisition on love. Homam's poetry was influenced by Saadi, Sanai and Anvari. In turn, he influenced Hafiz and Kamal al-Din Khujandi.
Sample Persian poetry.
A sample quatrain from Homam in Persian:
پس از سال به خوابت ديده ام دوش
مبادا هرگز آن خوابم فراموش
هنوزم هست ديدار تو در چشم
هنوزم هست گفتار تو در گوش
A sample Ghazal from Homam in Persian:
چو ما به ديدن رويت ز دور خرسنديم
نسيم با سر زلفت چرا كند بازي
به دست باد سر زلف را تو باز مده
كه هست پيشه آن هرزه گرد غمازي
اگر حريف مني يك زبان و يك دل باش
مكن كه خوش نبود ده دلي و طنازي
مكن تفرج سرو سهي ، همان بهتر
كه عشق با قد و بالاي خويشتن بازي
Old Iranian Azari language.
Homam also wrote in Iranian Azari language.
A Macaronic(mula'ma which is popular in Persian poetry where some verses are in one language and another in another language) poem from Homam Tabrizi where some verses are in Khorasani (Dari) Persian and others are in the dialect of Tabriz
Another Ghazal from Homam Tabrizi where all the couplets except the last couplet is in Persian. The last couplet reads:
Standard Persian:
بهار و گل با روی یار خوش است
بی یاران نه گل باشد و نه بهاران


Azari Tusi

Azari-e Tusi () Shaikh Jalaluddini Alii Hamza ibni Malik Hashimii Bayhaqii Isfarainii Marvazi (1380 in Esfarayen – 1462 in Esfarayen) was a Persian poet. Azari-e Tusi lived for a while in Tus.
Azari was a poet in Bahmani Sultanate. The name of his father was Ismail Shakh Baghdadi Ali ibn Malik. His nickname in some literature and tazkiras is Nuriddin. His book "Javahir-ul-Asrar" was written in 1430. Azari was born in Isfarain and from his early years he began writing poems and signed as Azari.
He made pilgrimage to Mecca twice by foot and wrote a book there which he called "Saye-al-sabak". After returning from the pilgrimage, he went to India and went to Ahmad Shakh Bahmani's castle.


Turi Wari

Turi Wari (c. 1933 – 24 April 1987) was a Papua New Guinean politician. He served as a member of the House of Assembly and National Parliament from 1968 until 1977.
Biography.
Wari was born around 1933 in Ialibu in the Territory of Papua, and was one of the first people in the area to come into contact with Europeans. As a result, between 1955 and 1968 he worked as an interpreter for the Department of Native Affairs. He married and had seven children.
He contested the Ialibu seat in the 1964 general elections, finishing second to Koitaga Mano, although around 7,000 votes behind. In the 1968 elections Mano transferred to the Kendep-Tambul seat and Wari was elected from the Ialibu constituency. He was re-elected from the renamed Ialibu-Pangia constituency in 1972 elections. However, he was heavily defeated in the 1977 elections, receiving just 150 of the 14,000 votes cast in the constituency.
He died of cancer in April 1987, survived by two wives and several children.


Johann Flierl

Johann Flierl (16 April 1858 – 30 September 1947) was a pioneer Lutheran missionary in New Guinea. He established mission schools and organised the construction of roads and communication between otherwise remote interior locations. Under his leadership, Lutheran evangelicalism flourished in New Guinea. He founded the Evangelical Lutheran Mission in the Sattelberg, and a string of filial stations on the northeastern coast of New Guinea including the Malahang Mission Station.
Early years.
He was educated at the mission seminary in Neuendettelsau, in Kingdom of Bavaria. Prior to finishing his education, the Neuendettelsau Missionary Society sent him to the Bethesda mission, near Hahndorf, in South Australia, where he joined an Old Lutheran community. While there, he felt called to serve in the newly established German protectorate, Kaiser-Wilhelmsland. On the journey to New Guinea, he founded the Hope Vale Mission Station in Cooktown, Queensland in Australia.
In Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, he established a lasting Lutheran presence at the missionary stations of Simbang, near Finschhafen, another on Tami, and a third, on the Sattelberg in the Huon Peninsula, plus several filial mission stations along the coast of the present-day Morobe province.
Early life and education.
Johann Flierl was born in rural Germany, in Buchhof, a tiny farmstead (with three houses), near Fürnied, in the vicinity of Sulzbach, in the Oberpfalz, Kingdom of Bavaria. He had at least two sisters. At age thirteen, when he finished his studies at the local primary school, his father apprenticed with a blacksmith, but changed his mind when he discovered that his son would have to work on Sundays. Since, from his early youth, Flierl had hoped to serve as a missionary to the North American Indians, his father tried to send him to the seminary in Neuendettelsau, but was told his son needed to be 17 years old before he could enroll in the program. For four years, Flierl worked on his father's farm and continued his education informally; he also learned to knit and reportedly he could knit a sock in a day. He finally enrolled in the seminary in 1875; when he was half through the program, he heard about an opportunity for mission work in a mission founded by Old Lutherans and, after his consecration in April 1878, he left for Australia.
Mission in Australia.
Flierl spent his first seven years of missionary life working on Lutheran Killalpaninna Mission (Bethesda) Station at Cooper Creek (1878–1885). In 1882, he married Louise Auricht, whose Old Lutheran family had immigrated from Prussia to Australia in 1839. Early in 1885, he heard about the founding of a German colony in New Guinea. On his journey there, he was delayed for more than a year in Cooktown, Cape Bedford, North Queensland; the German New Guinea Company refused him passage. While the diplomats and bureaucrats argued over technicalities, he founded the Mission Station "Elim", (later called Hope Vale, sometimes Hope Valley, but is modern Hopevale) to serve the Guugu Yimidhirr.
Connection to Neuendettelsau Mission Society.
Flierl was a pioneer missionary for Southern Australian Lutheran Synod and the Neuendettelsau Mission Society. The Synod and the Mission Society combined the post-Reformation Lutheran conviction with 19th-century Pietism, and sought to bring the "undiluted conviction" of the historical Lutheran confession to Australia and New Guinea. The German colony in Australia, similar to the German Lutheran colony in Missouri (US), had left Prussia in 1838 and the 1840s to escape "unionism," the movement toward uniformity of organisation and worship imposed upon them by the state. Wilhelm Löhe, a pastor at Neuendettelsau in Germany, brought a similar ideology to the Neuendettelsau Mission Society, even refusing to co-operate with the Barmen or Basel missionary societies, for example, because such co-operation would dilute the so-called "pure doctrine" by a sinful "unionism" with congregation that complied with state uniformity. The mission society provided clergy and religious education for Lutheran settlements in Missouri, Iowa and Ohio, Australia, and anywhere else "free thinking" Lutherans had settled.
Despite his childhood and youth in a "unionist" parish (and one in which Catholics and all Protestants shared ecclesiastical facilities), Flierl came to mission work in New Guinea with a similar mind-set to Löhe's, formed by his education at Neuendettelsau seminary and his experience among the so-called Old Lutherans in southern Australia. When he arrived in early July 1886, he established clear boundaries between his work and that of the business and official community; although they maintained respectful relationships, he sought to establish a Mission untainted by "unionism" and collaboration between the church and the state and true to the Word of God.
He and his first colleague, Karl Tremel (also spelled Treml), established the Mission near Simbang, in October 1886. Initially they lived in tents; with the help of some Australian Wesleyans (Methodists) they had recruited in New Pomerania, they later created a small compound of a few houses, a school, and a church. Another German missionary, Georg Bamler, joined them in 1887; the three men struggled with deadly diseases, primarily dysentery and malaria with its associated complications, and their discouragingly slow progress with the Kâte people. Despite these problems, Flierl started a second station on Tami, which lies in the Huon Gulf seven nautical miles SSE of Finschhafen, in 1889; it progressed with equally limited progress. New missionaries joined them: Johann Decker, Georg Pfalzer, Konrad Vetter (died in 1906), Johann Ruppert, (who died of typhoid in 1894), Friedrich Held (who died of blackwater fever) and Andreas Zwanger.
In 1889–91, a particularly bad malaria epidemic wiped out almost half the European population on the coast; even Finschhafen itself was largely abandoned when the German New Guinea Company moved its operations to Stephensort (now Madang). Louise Flierl arrived later in 1889 but told her husband she would not stay unless he found a healthier place to live than the mosquito – infested delta lands around Simbang; upon further exploration, he identified a promising site at in the highlands. In 1890, he built the Sattelberg Mission Station there and constructed a road approximately between the station and the Finschharbor ("Finschhafen"), which cut the travelling time from three days to five hours.
New Guinea stations.
Flierl's old policy at Simbang, and the one that prevailed at Sattelberg, focused on education and called for preliminary language study and literacy development; how else could someone study the Bible, a fundamental precept of post-Reformation with them. The Kâte adults seemed more interested in the practical aspects of European life, particularly the ironware. The local communities, though were curious and frequently ascribed the presence of the missionaries to returning ancestors, benevolent spirit powers bearing material goods, and called them the "Miti". To the Kâte, these men were different from the land-hungry planters, who rarely left the confines of their plantations; missionaries, on the other hand, were friendly, willing to explore the interior, and interested in knowing the people, their language, and their country-side. In part the variation in attitudes of the commercial and official interests, geographically located on the coast, and the evangelical attitudes, primarily located inland, but with supply, cultural and language links to the coast, is called by historians of colonialism "the rule of colonial difference." The "rule of difference" explains the ways in which colonizers, and the colonised, legitimate policy and reaction. Primarily it focuses on the ways in which the Europeans justify their own actions, how they view the "colonized" and how they structure policy.
Two groups of Germans inhabited Kaiser-Wilhelmsland. By far the largest group were the entrepreneurs, plantation owners, officials of the German New Guinea company, and government functionaires living in Finschhafen and Madang, and at plantations along the coast. They viewed the Kâte, and the other groups they encountered, differently from the evangelical Lutherans at Finschhafen and Sattelberg and their filial mission stations along the coast. For the businessmen and functionaires, the natives were another resource to be managed: for example, as rail tracks were laid along the coast, the products were loaded on to rail cars and pushed or pulled from point to point using human energy, rather than propelled by steam. Official visitors, both German and British, noted that the German plantation owners in particular were far more likely to use the lash than other groups.
This was unacceptable for Flierl. Although the Kâte were indeed different, and some groups occasionally ate their enemies, he still saw them as children of God. For him, it was necessary to bring all children of God to the understanding of salvation. The first baptisms—those of two adult men—were performed in 1899, injected encouragement into the mission life. Personal acceptance of salvation was a fundamental precept of Lutheranism, and the instruction of the two men in Lutheran doctrine had preceded the baptism, although the work was slow and painstaking. Flierl petitioned the Synod in Australia frequently for new missionaries, and in 1899, it sent Christian Keyser, who, it turned out, offered the spark needed for the great breakthrough in 1905.
Keyser understood better than Flierl the corporatist outlook of the Kâte people, and identified ways to bring them closer to the Word, primarily because he grasped a central feature of Guinean life that Flierl never understood: the Kâte could not conceive of themselves as autonomous individuals. Kâte concepts of self were woven inseparably into the context of extended families, clans, and ancestors. Consequently, the Kâte could not come individually to Christ — to do so would place one outside all social and cultural relationships—but rather, they had to come as a group. Keyser invented the method of group conversion, resulting in the first group baptisms in 1903, and mass conversions in 1905 and 1906.
Recognizing that his own usefulness in the Sattelberg had ended, in 1904, Flierl handed the directorship to Keyser, and moved himself and his family—which now included four children—to Heldsbach, away on the coast. There, he started a commercial coconut plantation and acquired the Mission's first large vessel, "The Bavaria," in 1907. He also took an extended trip to Europe, Australia and the United States, extending his contacts outside of Germany, and developing the Mission's financial resources.
Mission under Australian occupation.
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 complicated life for the German missionaries in the Finschhafen district, as it did the businessmen and government functionaires. The German population there had never been substantial. In 1902, fewer than 25 Europeans lived on the northeastern coast. By 1914, the number was still low, perhaps 300 in all of German New Guinea and 50 of them in Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, mostly plantation owners and their families, and a couple of dozen missionaries and their own families.
Australian troops invaded German New Guinea, taking the German barracks in Herbertshöhe (now Kokopo) in New Pomerania (now New Britain). The German defeat at Bita Paka in September 1914, and their subsequent surrender, brought effective resistance to an end. The missionaries in all stations signed neutrality oaths, required by the Australian administrators, and were permitted to continue their work. The two missionaries running the Neuendettelsau station on the Sattelberg, Otto Thiele and Christian Keysser, seemingly turned a blind eye to the presence of the pesky Hermann Detzner, a regular army officer stranded on a survey mission in the interior at the outbreak of war; Detzner refused to surrender to Australian authorities and spent the duration of the war annoying the Australians by marching from village to village in the jungle, flying the imperial flag, and singing patriotic songs.
During the war, Flierl also relied more on the connection between Lutheran churchmen in Australia and the United States, which he had nurtured carefully throughout the pre-war years. He did this by sending artefacts and letters to like-minded Lutherans; some of these artefacts are collected in a museum at the Wartburg Theological Seminary in Iowa, which also awarded Flierl an honorary degree. These new relationships were particularly important to maintain streams of personnel and supplies and became even more critical during the difficult post-war diplomatic and political dynamic of the Versailles Treaty negotiations. Potential territorial changes made it possible that the missions would be expropriated by Australians and the British and probable that their staffs would be expelled from their homes.
The war also wrought havoc on Flierl's family. The oldest boy, Wilhelm, was arrested in 1915, after two German officers (probably Detzner and another man) appropriated a vessel in an attempt to escape from New Guinea; their gear did not fit into the canoe, and they left behind a box, which caused the Australians to accuse Wilhelm of collaboration. He was incarcerated in Australia, and after the war he was repatriated to Germany. He eventually made his way back to New Guinea, via Texas, in 1927. Flierl's youngest son, Hans (or Johann), went to Germany in 1914 to attend the Neuendettelsau Seminary in Franconia, and instead was conscripted into the German army; after the war, Hans also went to Texas, and eventually returned to New Guinea.
Later years and family.
Flierl's four children were also involved in the mission. Wilhelm and Johannes both attended the Neuendettelsau Seminary and were ordained as mission pastors. Wilhelm took an interest in the local dialect, and wrote a dictionary of the Kâte language. Dora was a mission teacher and nurse; she remained single. Elise married Georg Pilhofer, another Lutheran missionary, who wrote a history of the Neuendettelsau Mission in New Guinea. Two of Flierl's cousins also entered the missionary field. Konrad Flierl was only 13 when his older cousin left for Australia, and he entered the Neuendettelsau preparatory program the following year. He was sent as a missionary to the United States in 1885. Another cousin, Johannes, also went to the Neuendettelsau Seminary, and replaced his cousin at Cooper Creek in 1886; after a disagreement with the Mission and the local synod, he left Australia.
Last years and death.
Flierl retired in 1930, age 72, and returned with his wife to her hometown in Australia. After her death in 1934, he lived with his daughter, Dora; he died in there on 30 September 1947.


Nasir ad-Din Mahmud

Nasir al-Din Mahmud (or Mahmud II) was the Zengid Emir of Mosul 1219–1234. He was successor of Nur al-Din Arslan Shah II and was the last Zengid ruler of Mosul. Contemporary historians state that he was killed by the atabeg of Mosul, Badr al-Din Lu'lu', following the death of his maternal grandfather the Emir of Erbil, Muzaffar al-Din Gökböri. Lu'lu' then began to rule Mosul in his own right.


USS Helena (CL-50)

USS "Helena" (CL-50) was a light cruiser built for the United States Navy in the late 1930s, the ninth and final member of the class. The "Brooklyn"s were the first modern light cruisers built by the US Navy under the limitations of the London Naval Treaty, and they were intended to counter the Japanese ; as such, they carried a battery of fifteen guns, the same gun armament carried by the "Mogami"s. "Helena" and her sister were built to a slightly modified design with a unit system of machinery and an improved anti-aircraft battery. Completed in late 1939, "Helena" spent the first two years of her career in peacetime training that accelerated as tensions between the United States and Japan increased through 1941. She was torpedoed at the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and was repaired and modernized in early 1942.
After returning to service, "Helena" was assigned to the forces participating in the Guadalcanal campaign in the south Pacific. There, she took part in two major night battles with Japanese vessels in October and November 1942. The first, the Battle of Cape Esperance on the night of 11–12 October, resulted in a Japanese defeat, with "Helena"s rapid-fire 6-inch battery helping to sink a heavy cruiser and a destroyer. The second, the first night of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in the early hours of 13 November, saw a similar defeat imposed on the Japanese; again, "Helena"s fast shooting helped to overwhelm a Japanese task force that included two fast battleships, one of which was disabled by heavy American fire and sunk the next day. "Helena" sank a destroyer and damaged several others in the action while emerging relatively unscathed. During her tour in the south Pacific, she also escorted convoys carrying supplies and reinforcements to the Marines fighting on Guadalcanal and bombarded Japanese positions on the island and elsewhere in the Solomons.
Following the American victory on Guadalcanal in early 1943, Allied forces began preparations to advance along the Solomon chain, first targeting New Georgia. "Helena" took part in a series of preparatory attacks on the island through mid-1943, culminating in an amphibious assault in the Kula Gulf on 5 July. The next night, while attempting to intercept a Japanese reinforcement squadron, "Helena" was torpedoed and sunk in the Battle of Kula Gulf. Most of her crew were picked up by a pair of destroyers and one group landed on New Georgia where they were evacuated the next day, but more than a hundred remained at sea for two days, ultimately making land on Japanese-occupied Vella Lavella. There, they were hidden from Japanese patrols by Solomon Islanders and a coastwatcher detachment before being evacuated on the night of 15–16 July. "Helena"s wreck was located in 2018 by Paul Allen.
Design.
As the major naval powers negotiated the London Naval Treaty in 1930, which contained a provision limiting the construction of heavy cruisers armed with guns, United States naval designers came to the conclusion that with a displacement limited to , a better protected vessel could be built with an armament of guns. The designers also theorized that the much higher rate of fire of the smaller guns would allow a ship armed with twelve of the guns to overpower one armed with eight 8-inch guns. During the design process of the , which began immediately after the treaty was signed, the US Navy became aware that the next class of Japanese cruisers, the , would be armed with a main battery of fifteen 6-inch guns, prompting them to adopt the same number of guns for the "Brooklyn"s. After building seven ships to the original design, additional changes were incorporated, particularly to the propulsion machinery and the secondary battery, resulting in the "St. Louis" sub-class, of which "Helena" was the second member.
"Helena" was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of . Her standard displacement amounted to and increased to at full load. The ship was powered by four Parsons steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, using steam provided by eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Unlike the "Brooklyn"s, the two "St. Louis"-class cruisers arranged their machinery in the unit system, alternating boiler and engine rooms. Rated at , the turbines were intended to give a top speed of . The ship had a cruising range of at a speed of . She carried four Curtiss SOC Seagull floatplanes for aerial reconnaissance, which were launched by a pair of aircraft catapults on her fantail. Her crew numbered 52 officers and 836 enlisted men.
The ship was armed with a main battery of fifteen 6 in /47 caliber Mark 16 guns in five 3-gun turrets on the centerline. Three were placed forward, two of which were placed in a superfiring pair facing forward, with the third being directly pointed aft; the other two turrets were placed aft of the superstructure in another superfiring pair. The secondary battery consisted of eight /38 caliber dual purpose guns mounted in twin turrets, with one turret on either side of the conning tower and the other pair on either side of the aft superstructure. As designed, the ship was equipped with an anti-aircraft (AA) battery of eight guns, but her anti-aircraft battery was revised during her career. The ship's belt armor consisted of on a layer of of special treatment steel and her deck armor was thick. The main battery turrets were protected with faces and they were supported by barbettes 6 inches thick. "Helena"s conning tower had 5-inch sides.
Modifications.
The main prewar alterations to the ship revolved around her anti-aircraft battery: in 1941, the Navy decided that each member of the "Brooklyn" class was to be equipped with four quadruple anti-aircraft guns, but the guns were in short supply, and "Helena" was the only member of the class to have received any of her 1.1 in guns by November 1941. The guns "Helena" received were placed in the mounts for the .50-cal guns, which were transferred to wheeled carts that could be moved to different firing positions.
The ship was reconstructed in 1942 during repairs as a result of damage sustained in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. SG surface search radar, SC air search radar, and FC and FD fire-control radar sets for her main and secondary batteries were installed, along with a new anti-aircraft battery of eight Oerlikon cannon and sixteen Bofors guns in quadruple mounts, along with a director for each Bofors mount. Her 1.1 in guns were removed to arm her sister ships and . The ship's armored conning tower had proved to inhibit good all-around visibility, so it was removed and an open bridge was erected in its place. In addition, the weight savings achieved by removing the tower helped to offset the increased weight from the larger anti-aircraft battery. The conning tower, along with those of several of the "Brooklyn"-class cruisers that were also rebuilt in 1942, were later installed on the reconstructed battleships that had been sunk at Pearl Harbor.
Service history.
Construction and early career.
The US Navy awarded the contract for "Helena" to the New York Navy Yard on 9 September 1935, and the keel for the new ship was laid down on 9 December 1936. Her completed hull was launched on 28 August 1938, and after completing fitting-out, she was commissioned into the fleet on 14 December 1939. World War II had broken out in Europe in September that year, but for the time being, the United States remained neutral. After entering service, the ship was occupied with sea trials and initial training, and she embarked on a major shakedown cruise abroad on 27 December, bound for South American waters. She stopped in Guantanamo Bay, an American-leased naval base in Cuba, on the way before arriving in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 22 January 1940; from there, she continued on to Montevideo, Uruguay, on 29 January. While in the latter port, the crew inspected the wreck of the German heavy cruiser that had recently been scuttled after the Battle of the River Plate the previous month. "Helena" got underway again in mid-February to return to the United States, again passing through Guantanamo Bay on the way. After returning, she was dry-docked for repairs from 2 March to 14 July.
She took part in training exercises and sea trials over the next several months until September, when she was transferred to the Pacific Fleet. She passed through the Panama Canal toward the end of the month and arrived in San Pedro, California, on 3 October. From there, she continued on to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to join the rest of the fleet, arriving there on 21 October. Over the course of the next year, the fleet spent its time conducting training exercises and shooting practice as tensions with Japan rose over the latter's war against China. During this period, from 14 July 1941 to 16 September, the ship was dry-docked for maintenance at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California; it was during this period that the ship received her 1.1-inch guns. "Helena" was slated to be dry-docked for another periodic maintenance in December 1941, and was moored in port with the minelayer tied alongside on 6 December, awaiting her turn in the shipyard. The ships happened to be moored in the berth normally reserved for the battleship , which was currently in the dry-dock. The ship's commander was at that time Captain Robert Henry English.
World War II.
Attack on Pearl Harbor.
On the morning of 7 December, the Japanese launched their surprise attack on the American fleet with a first wave of forty Nakajima B5N torpedo bombers, fifty-one Aichi D3A dive bombers, and fifty B5N high-level bombers, escorted by forty-three Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters. The Japanese expected "Pennsylvania" to be in her normal berth. Three minutes into the attack, which had begun at 07:55, a B5N torpedo bomber dropped its torpedo at what its pilot expected to be the battleship. The torpedo passed underneath "Oglala" and exploded against "Helena"s hull on the starboard side, nearly amidships. The blast tore a hole in the hull that flooded the starboard engine and boiler rooms and severed wiring for the main and secondary guns. The ship's crew raced to their battle stations and two minutes after the torpedo hit, the backup forward diesel generator had been turned on, restoring power to the guns. "Oglala" was less fortunate than "Helena", as the blast effect loosened hull plates on the minelayer and caused her to capsize.
The first pilot had mistaken the superimposed silhouettes of the two ships, backlit by the sun, to be "Pennsylvania". The second torpedo bomber in the wave closed to within of "Helena" and "Oglala" when the pilot realized the first pilot's mistake, breaking off his attack run and causing two more pilots to do the same. Four other pilots pressed their attacks, but all of their torpedoes missed; by this time, the ship's anti-aircraft guns were beginning to engage the Japanese attackers, forcing one of the bombers to drop their torpedo before they reached an ideal launch position. One of the torpedoes went wide and hit a transformer station, while the other three ran deep and embedded themselves in the harbor floor. During these attacks, one of the fighters strafed the ship, causing little damage.
At the same time that the first wave had begun their attacks, the Japanese aircraft carriers launched a second wave consisting of eighty-one dive bombers, fifty-four high-level bombers, and thirty-six fighters. As "Helena"s anti-aircraft guns got into action, they helped to fend off further attacks from the second strike wave while other men worked to control flooding by closing the many watertight hatches in the ship. The heavy anti-aircraft fire was credited with disrupting the aim of several Japanese bombers, which failed to hit the vessel with an estimated four near misses. Of these, one struck the pier while the other three landed in the water on her starboard side.
"Helena"s anti-aircraft battery provided a heavy barrage of fire during the attack; she fired approximately 375 shells from her 5-inch guns, around 3,000 rounds from her 1.1-inch guns, and about 5,000 rounds from her .50-cal. guns. She was credited with shooting down six Japanese aircraft, out of a total of twenty-nine aircraft downed in the raid. Twenty-six men were killed in the initial attack and another five later died of their wounds, while another sixty-six were injured but recovered. A significant number of the casualties were the result of the torpedo hit, with many of the remainder from bomb fragments from the near misses.
Two days after the attack, "Helena" was moved into dry dock No. 2 in Pearl Harbor for an inspection and temporary repairs to allow her to return to the west coast of the United States. Steel plates were welded over the torpedo hole and on 31 December, "Helena" was re-floated. She got underway for Mare Island for permanent repairs and modifications on 5 January 1942 in company with a convoy bound for California. The vessel arrived in the shipyard on 13 January and was dry-docked six days later. Repair work was completed by 4 July, with initial sea trials taking place on 3 to 4 July; only the directors for the 40 mm guns, still en route from the manufacturer, were left to be fitted. The directors arrived shortly thereafter and were installed on 10 July. "Helena" then conducted a brief period of training that lasted until 15 July, when she returned to Mare Island to have her SG radar installed. She departed Mare Island later that month, moving to San Francisco where she joined six transports bound for the south Pacific. The transports carried a contingent of Seabees to Espiritu Santo. There, "Helena" joined Task Force (TF) 64, then in the midst of the fighting around Guadalcanal.
Guadalcanal Campaign.
Over the course of the next two months, "Helena" and the rest of TF 64 were occupied with covering reinforcement convoys to support the Marines fighting on Guadalcanal and escorting carrier battle groups in the area. While "Helena" operated with the carrier on 15 September, a Japanese submarine attacked the fleet and hit "Wasp" with three torpedoes, inflicting fatal damage. "Helena" picked up some four hundred survivors from "Wasp" and carried them back to Espiritu Santo. Shortly thereafter, Captain Gilbert C. Hoover came aboard the ship to replace English. By this time, the task force consisted of "Helena", her sister ship , the heavy cruisers and , and the destroyers , , , , and .
Following the Actions along the Matanikau in late September and early October, the decision was made to send further reinforcements to the island, and so the 164th Infantry Regiment of the Americal Division embarked on a pair of destroyer transports; TF 64 provided the close escort for the vessels, screening them to the west to prevent Japanese forces from intercepting them. By this time, the unit was commanded by Rear Admiral (RADM) Norman Scott, who conducted one night of battle practice with his ships on 8 October before embarking on the operation. The ships patrolled to the south, just out of range of Japanese aircraft based in Rabaul over the course of 9 and 10 October and each day at 12:00 Scott took his ships north to Rennell Island, where they would be in position to reach Savo Island to block a Japanese squadron if it was detected by air. On 11 October, American aerial reconnaissance detected Japanese vessels moving toward the island carrying their own reinforcements, and Scott decided to try to intercept them.
Battle of Cape Esperance.
Unknown to Scott, the Japanese had sent a group of cruisers and destroyers to bombard the American garrison on Guadalcanal; this unit, commanded by Rear Admiral Aritomo Gotō, consisted of the heavy cruisers , , and and the destroyers and . As the two squadrons approached each other in the darkness at the southern end of the Slot shortly before 22:00 on 11 October, three of the four American cruisers launched their floatplanes, but "Helena" did not receive the instruction from Scott aboard his flagship "San Francisco", and so her crew dumped the aircraft overboard to reduce the risk of fire in the event of a battle. By 22:23, the American ships had arranged themselves into a line in the order "Farenholt", "Duncan", "Laffey", "San Francisco", "Boise", "Salt Lake City", "Helena", "Buchanan", and "McCalla"; this was despite the fact that "Helena" and "Boise" both carried SG radar, which was significantly more effective than the SC sets carried by the other vessels. The distance between each ship ranged from . Visibility was poor because the moon had already set, leaving no ambient light and no visible sea horizon.
"Helena"s radar operators picked up the oncoming Japanese squadron at 23:25, fixing their position as being away at 23:32. Shortly after "Helena" initially detected the Japanese, Scott had reversed the course of his ships, steaming to the southwest as Gotō's vessels steamed perpendicular to Scott's course. This would place the American squadron in position to cross the T of the Japanese formation. Officers aboard "Helena" assumed that Scott was aware of the contacts based on his course reversal. By 23:45, the gunnery radar of the American flagship finally detected the Japanese at a range of only , which was confirmed by lookouts on the American vessels. Hoover requested permission from Scott to open fire, and after receiving what he interpreted as an affirmative answer, he ordered his guns to begin firing at 23:46. The other ships in the squadron quickly followed "Helena"s example. Gotō was at that time still unaware of the Americans' presence and his ships were not prepared for action, having assumed that after the Battle of Savo Island, American naval forces would not challenge Japanese warships at night.
The initial salvos struck "Aoba", inflicting serious damage and mortally wounding Gotō, causing further confusion on the Japanese ships. After only a minute of firing, Scott ordered his ships to cease firing because he was concerned they were accidentally shooting at the leading trio of destroyers, which had fallen out of formation during the course reversal. Fire from the American ships did not actually stop at this point, and after clarifying the position of his ships, he ordered TF 64 to resume firing at 23:51. During this period, the captain of "Furutaka" turned to port to escape the heavy American fire, but reversed course at 23:49 to come to "Aoba"s aid. This maneuver rewarded "Furutaka" with numerous shell hits from several warships including "Helena", at least one of which detonated the torpedoes in her deck launchers and causing a major fire. "Kinugasa" also immediately turned to port, but unlike "Furutaka", her captain continued to withdraw along with "Hatsuyuki", avoiding any damage to his vessel. "Fubuki" turned to a course parallel with the American squadron; initially targeted by "San Francisco" and "Boise" and set on fire, "Fubuki" then drew heavy fire from most of the other vessels. In the confused, close-range action, either "Helena" or "Boise" (the only ships armed with 6-inch guns) accidentally hit "Farenholt", causing flooding and a fuel leak that forced her to withdraw from the battle.
At around midnight, Scott sought to reorganize his squadron to more effectively pursue the Japanese vessels; he ordered his ships to flash their fighting lights and come back into formation. At 00:06, lookouts aboard "Helena" and "Boise" spotted the wakes of torpedoes that had been launched by "Kinugasa" as she withdrew. Shortly thereafter, "Kinugasa" opened fire with her main battery, inflicting serious damage to "Boise". After a short duel between "Kinugasa" and "Salt Lake City", Scott broke off the action as the Japanese continued to flee northeast. Despite having been hit more than forty times, "Aoba" survived the battle, though "Furutaka" eventually succumbed to progressive flooding, as did "Fubuki"; "Helena" contributed to both vessels' demise. Despite having defeated the Japanese bombardment force, Scott missed a second group of warships carrying reinforcements to Guadalcanal, and they were able to deposit their men and supplies without incident.
Shortly after the battle, the new fast battleship was transferred to TF 64, which now came under the command of RADM Willis Lee. By this time, the unit also included "Helena", "San Francisco", the light cruiser , and six destroyers. On 20 October, "Helena" came under attack from a Japanese submarine while she patrolled between Espiritu Santo and San Cristobal, but the torpedoes missed. Over the course of 21–24 October, Japanese land-based reconnaissance aircraft made repeated contacts with TF 64 as a Japanese fleet approached the area, but in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands that began on the 25th, the Japanese concentrated their air attacks on the American carriers of TF 17 and 61 and Lee's ships saw no action. On 4 November, "Helena" was back off Guadalcanal to provide fire support during the Koli Point action. "Helena", "San Francisco", and the destroyer shelled Japanese positions as they came under attack from elements of the 164th Infantry Regiment and the 8th Marines, ultimately annihilating the Japanese defenders by 9 November.
Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.
In early November, both sides began preparations to resupply their forces fighting on and around Guadalcanal. An American convoy carrying 5,500 soldiers and supplies was organized, to be covered by TF 16, centered on the carrier ; "Washington" was detached from TF 64 to strengthen the covering force and the cruiser unit was reorganized as TF 67.4 and assigned as the close escort. Commanded by RADM Daniel J. Callaghan, the unit now included, in addition to "Helena", the heavy cruisers "San Francisco" and , the light cruisers "Atlanta" and , and the destroyers , "Laffey", "Sterett", , , , , and . Overall command rested with RADM Richmond K. Turner. Meanwhile, the Japanese had assembled a convoy of their own carrying 7,000 men and supplies for the army already on Guadalcanal; it was to be supported by a bombardment force of two fast battleships, a light cruiser, and eleven destroyers. A total of four heavy and one light cruisers and six destroyers would cover the convoy.
On 12 November, Callaghan's ships and their transport vessels arrived off Guadalcanal, and while they unloaded, a Japanese artillery battery opened fire on the transports. "Helena" and then some of the destroyers returned fire to suppress the Japanese gunners. A Japanese airstrike interrupted the work; two ships were damaged but "Helena" emerged unscathed. Reconnaissance aircraft detected the approach of the Japanese bombardment force, the convoy, and a detached group of destroyers. Turner believed that the Japanese aimed to either attach TF 67.4 and the transports as they withdrew that night or to bombard the Americans on Guadalcanal; he decided to keep Callaghan's unit off Guadalcanal and to send the convoy off with an escort of just three destroyers and two destroyer minesweepers, as TF 16 was too far south to be able to reach the area. Callaghan escorted the convoy through Lengo Channel before turning back west to position his ships between the Japanese squadron and the garrison on Guadalcanal. The approaching Japanese force, commanded by RADM Hiroaki Abe, centered on the battleships and .
Callaghan arranged his ships in a single column, as Scott had done at Cape Esperance, and he similarly failed to realize the advantage that the SG-radar-equipped ships provided, eschewing those vessels so-equipped for "San Francisco". Scott had transferred to "Juneau", which did mount an SG, but it was placed as the rearmost cruiser. Abe's ships reached the area off Cape Esperance at around 01:25 on 13 November, by which time his vessels had fallen into disarray due to bad weather that greatly hampered visibility. The destroyers he believed were screening his advance were in fact out of position. Abe was aware of Callaghan's presence off Guadalcanal earlier in the day, but did not know his current whereabouts. At 01:30, he received a report from observers that there were no American vessels off Lunga Point, leading him to order his ships to begin preparations for a bombardment. By this time, "Helena" had already picked up Abe's ships six minutes before at a distance of . Callaghan was not aware, as "San Francisco" had not yet detected the Japanese.
Both sides' destroyers encountered each other at 01:42; continued confusion on Callaghan's part led to contradictory orders that threw the American squadron into disarray just as the two forces collided. In the ensuing close-range melee, he ordered "odd ships fire to starboard, even ships fire to port", although he had not assigned any numbering system beforehand. Abe received incomplete reports from his destroyers, causing him to hesitate briefly before ordering his ships to open fire at 01:48. As the American and Japanese ships engaged each other in the chaotic battle, "Helena" initially engaged the destroyer , disabling her searchlight but drawing return fire that did insignificant damage. Bombarded by several other vessels, "Akatsuki" exploded under heavy fire and quickly sank. "Helena" then shifted fire to the destroyer at 02:04, only to be forced to check her fire when "San Francisco" passed between the two vessels. "Helena" nevertheless scored several hits that forced "Amatsukaze" to disengage; the Japanese destroyer was only saved from destruction by an attack by the destroyers , , and that caused "Helena" to engage them. "Murasame" received a hit that disabled one of her boiler rooms, forcing her to withdraw as well, while "Samidare" was set on fire.
During this period, one of her 40 mm guns fired at the cruiser as she steamed in the opposite direction. "Helena" then continued to maneuver among both sides' burning vessels, firing on a number of retreating Japanese vessels. As "San Francisco", which had been badly damaged by "Hiei", continued on through the melee, "Helena" turned to follow her to try to protect her from further harm. In the course of the 38-minute action, the American squadron was badly damaged and both Callaghan and Scott were killed in the confused fighting, the latter by friendly fire from "San Francisco". "Helena" emerged relatively unscathed, having received five hits that did negligible damage and killed one man. Two American destroyers were sunk, three more were disabled, as were two cruisers. In return, "Hiei" was badly damaged and would later be scuttled after repeated American air attacks the next day prevented her withdrawal; one destroyer had been sunk and a second was badly damaged. And more importantly, Callaghan's ships had prevented Abe from bombarding the airfield on Guadalcanal.
Hoover, the senior surviving officer in the shattered American squadron, ordered all vessels still in action to withdraw to the southeast at 02:26 while the Japanese retreated in the opposite direction. Hoover collected "San Francisco", "Juneau", "Sterett", and "O'Bannon" and escorted them south. At 11:00, the Japanese submarine fired a spread of torpedoes at "San Francisco" that missed, but one hit "Juneau". The torpedo detonated one of the ship's magazines and combined with the damage she had sustained the previous night, caused her to rapidly sink. Hoover decided that "Helena" was too valuable to risk stopping to pick up what he assumed to be very few survivors, and the other vessels in the group were too damaged to stop either. He instead signaled to a passing B-17 bomber, but the report of "Juneau"s fate was not delivered promptly, preventing other vessels from attempting rescue operations. Admiral William Halsey subsequently relieved Hoover of command, citing his failure to ensure a prompt report of the sinking was made, to attack the submarine, or to mount rescue operations. After the war, Halsey expressed regret over the episode, noting that Hoover had been exhausted by the previous night's fighting and that he had been motivated by the need to preserve his ship and those under his temporary command. Captain Charles P. Cecil replaced Hoover as the ship's commander.
Operations in 1943.
Beginning in January 1943, "Helena" took part in several attacks on Japanese positions on the island of New Georgia in preparation for the planned New Georgia campaign. The first of these took place from 1 to 4 January, when "Helena" (still as part of TF 67) covered a group of seven transports carrying elements of the 25th Infantry Division to Guadalcanal. The unit at that time included six other cruisers and five destroyers, and was commanded by RADM Walden L. Ainsworth. Ainsworth left four cruisers and three destroyers to cover the convoy on the 4th, taking "Helena", her sisters and , and two destroyers to bombard Munda in the early hours of 5 January. The ships fired a total of some 4,000 shells, but inflicted little significant damage to the Japanese airfield. The ships returned to Guadalcanal at 09:00 and began recovering their reconnaissance floatplanes when a Japanese airstrike arrived and damaged two of the other cruisers, though "Helena" was not targeted. The ship had received the new 5-inch shells fitted with proximity VT fuses, and her use marked the first time they were used successfully in combat.
"Helena" and the rest of her unit then returned to Espiritu Santo to refuel and replenish ammunition, remaining there until the morning of 22 January. Halsey had ordered Ainsworth to make an attack on Vila on the island of Kolombangara to neutralize the airfield there, and on 23 January he conducted a feint toward Munda to throw off Japanese aircraft who might have launched night torpedo attacks against his vessels. As at Munda, Ainsworth left a pair of cruisers and three destroyers to provide distant support while he took "Helena", "Nashville", and four destroyers into Kula Gulf to shell the airstrip. A "Black Cat" PBY Catalina provided spotting support while the two cruisers fired around 3,500 shells from the main and secondary gun, inflicting significant damage on the airfield and equipment. The Japanese launched group of eleven floatplanes to scout for Ainsworth's cruisers while a second group of thirty Mitsubishi G4M bombers, but the American ships used rain squalls to evade the floatplanes, along with long-range 5-inch fire directed by the SC and FD radars to keep the aircraft at bay. At dawn, a group of five P-38 fighters arrived to escort the ships during their continued withdrawal.
On 25 January, "Helena" and the rest of the squadron arrived back in Espiritu Santo. "Helena" continued to operate with TF 67, patrolling for Japanese vessels and escorting convoys to Guadalcanal as that campaign ground on into February. She was present as part of the distant support for the convoy operation that resulted in the Battle of Rennell Island on 29–30 January, but TF 64 was too far south to come to the aid of TF 18 during the action. On 11 February, the submarine attempted to torpedo "Helena" while cruising off Espiritu Santo, but the cruiser's escorting destroyers, "Fletcher" and "O'Bannon", sank the submarine with assistance from one of "Helena"s Seagull floatplanes. "Helena" thereafter went to Sydney, Australia, on 28 February, arriving there on 6 March for an overhaul. She was taken to the Sutherland Dock in the Cockatoo Island Dockyard on 15 March for repair work that lasted two days. She then got underway on 26 March to return north to Espiritu Santo to resume bombardment operations against New Georgia as part of what was now designated TF 68.
"Helena" arrived in Espiritu Santo on 30 March and rejoined Ainsworth's unit. As the preparations for the New Georgia campaign increased, the ships made repeated patrols into the Slot. Ainsworth's cruisers were also occupied with extensive training for the upcoming operations. While off Guadalcanal refueling from a tanker, "Helena" received instructions to get underway as quickly as possible, as a large Japanese airstrike was detected on radar. She and the rest of the cruiser unit steamed to the northwest of Savo Island to avoid the raid; they escaped damage, but the attack forced the Americans to cancel the planned cruiser patrol that night. On the night of 12–13 May, Ainsworth took his cruisers to shell Vila and Munda. "Helena" was tasked with bombarding the former and she fired a total of 1,000 shells at the island during the attack.
The invasion of New Georgia began on 30 June; "Helena" and the rest of TF 68 patrolled at the northern end of the Coral Sea; at that time, she cruised with "St. Louis", "Honolulu", and their escorting destroyer screen that consisted of "O'Bannon", , , and . By 1 July, the ships were about south of New Georgia, and on 3 July they reached Tulagi, where a false report of a Japanese airstrike briefly sent the ships' crews to their battle stations. The Allied plan called for a second landing on New Georgia in the Kula Gulf on the northeastern side of the island. A landing here would block the resupply route for the Japanese forces fighting on the island and it would also deny their use of the gulf to escape once they were defeated, as they had done on Guadalcanal.
Landing at Rice Anchorage.
Having attacked the Japanese positions around the Kula Gulf on several occasions, Ainsworth knew that the Japanese would be expecting further attacks as the New Georgia campaign got underway. He instructed the cruiser commanders to expect Japanese naval forces to intervene, to be prepared to evacuate damaged ships, and if necessary, to beach badly damaged vessels in the Rice Anchorage. On 4 July, the American invasion force—assault troops loaded aboard destroyer transports—departed Tulagi at 15:47, with "Honolulu" in the lead, followed by "St Louis" and "Helena". The four destroyers took up positions around them to screen for submarines, while the destroyer transports sailed independently. At the same time, a group of three Japanese destroyers, , , and , left Bougainville with a contingent of 1,300 infantry aboard to reinforce the garrison on New Georgia.
"Nicholas" and "Strong" reached Kula Gulf first, scanning it with their radar and sonar sets to determine if any Japanese warships were in the area. The cruisers and other two destroyers then entered the gulf to prepare to bombard Japanese positions at Vila. "Honolulu" opened fire first 00:26 on 5 July and Cecil ordered "Helena"s gunners to follow suit ninety seconds later. Black Cats circling overhead coordinated the ships' fire. The other vessels quickly joined in the bombardment, which lasted about fourteen minutes before the American column turned east to move to the Rice Anchorage to shell targets there. After six minutes of shooting, the ships departed, "Helena" having fired over a thousand rounds of 6- and 5-inch shells in the two bombardments. During the latter period, "Helena"s crew noted shell splashes from Japanese artillery batteries near the ship, but none of the American vessels were hit. Unbeknownst to the Americans, the three Japanese destroyers had arrived in the gulf while they were still shooting. Illuminated by the gun flashes, the American vessels were quickly identified by the Japanese over away.
The transport group then entered the gulf and steamed close to the shore to prevent intermingling with Ainsworth's squadron, which had turned north at 12:39 to leave the gulf. Captain Kanaoka Kunizo, the senior destroyer commander in charge of the reinforcement operation, decided to withdraw as well to avoid engaging a superior force with his ships loaded with soldiers and supplies. "Niizuki", the only radar-equipped destroyer, directed the aim of all three vessels, which launched a total of fourteen Long Lance torpedoes before withdrawing at high speed to escape back to Bougainville. One of these torpedoes struck "Strong", which was still stationed at the entrance of the gulf on sentry duty. The destroyer was fatally damaged, but the attack alerted Ainsworth that there were Japanese warships in the area. "O'Bannon" and "Chevalier" were detached to pick up survivors while Ainsworth prepared to search for the submarine he assumed to have been responsible, as none of his ships had detected the three Japanese destroyers on their radars. "Strong" sank at 01:22, with 239 of her crew taken off by the other destroyers, though some additional survivors were missed in the darkness and were later picked up by the transport group. Ainsworth's ships then resumed their cruising formation at 02:15 for the voyage back to Tulagi.
During the bombardment, the shell hoist for the left gun in turret No. 5 broke down, while propellant cases repeatedly jammed in turret No. 2; work on the turrets began immediately as the vessels steamed back to Tulagi. The ammunition hoist was quickly restored to working order, but the gun in turret No. 2 took more than five hours of work before the jammed case could be removed and replaced with a modified short case that allowed the shell that was still in the gun to be fired, clearing it for normal use. At 07:00, the destroyer joined the squadron, which reached Tulagi in the early afternoon, where the ships immediately began refueling. Shortly thereafter, Ainsworth received orders from Halsey to return to Kula Gulf, as reconnaissance aircraft had spotted Japanese destroyers departing from Bougainville to attempt the planned reinforcement run that he had inadvertently disrupted the night before. Ainsworth was to intercept the destroyers and prevent the landing of more Japanese forces on the island. He ordered the ships to end refueling and prepare to get underway; "Jenkins" replaced "Strong" and the destroyer took the place of "Chevalier", which had been damaged in an accidental collision with the sinking "Strong".
Battle of Kula Gulf.
Since the previous night's reinforcement run had been aborted, the Japanese assembled a group of ten destroyers to make a larger effort the next night. "Niizuki"—now the flagship of Rear Admiral Teruo Akiyama—and the destroyers and were to escort the other seven destroyers—"Nagatsuki", , , , , "Hatsuyuki", and —carried 2,400 troops and supplies. Meanwhile, the American force intending to block their advance had formed up by 19:30 and began the voyage back up the Slot. As the Americans steamed toward Kula Gulf, the crews got their vessels ready for action, including closing all of the watertight doors to reduce the risk of flooding and turning off all lights to prevent detection by the Japanese.
The American squadron passed Visuvisu Point at the entrance to the gulf early on 6 July, at which point the vessels reduced speed to . Visibility was poor owing to heavy cloud cover. Ainsworth had no information as to the specific composition or location of the Japanese force, and patrolling Black Cats could not detect them in the conditions. The Japanese destroyers had already entered the gulf and begun unloading their cargoes; "Niizuki" detected the American ships on her radar at 01:06 at a range of about . Akiyama took his flagship, "Suzukaze", and "Tanikaze" to observe the Americans at 01:43 while the other destroyers continued to disembark the soldiers and supplies; by that time, Ainsworth's ships had already detected the three ships off Kolombangara at 01:36. As the two sides continued to close, Akiyama recalled the other destroyers to launch an attack. The American vessels transitioned into a line ahead formation, with "Nicholas" and "O'Bannon" ahead of the cruisers; the line turned left to close the range to the Japanese vessels before turning right to move toward an advantageous firing position.
The American radars picked up Akiyama's escort detachment along with another group of destroyers that was racing to join him; Ainsworth decided to attack the first group and then turn about to engage the second. At about 01:57, the American vessels opened up with radar-directed rapid fire. Between the three cruisers, they fired around close to 1,500 shells from their 6-inch batteries in the span of just five minutes. "Helena" quickly expended the flashless propellant charges that had been kept after the previous night's bombardment mission, thereafter transitioning to normal smokeless propellant, which created large flashes every time the guns fired. "Helena" initially targeted the leading destroyer—"Niizuki"—with her main battery while her 5-inch guns engaged the following vessel. "Niizuki" also received heavy fire from the other American ships and was quickly sunk, taking Akiyama down with her. "Helena" then shifted fire to the next closest vessel, but by that time, "Suzukaze" and "Tanikaze" had both launched eight torpedoes at the American line. They then fled to the northwest, using heavy smoke to conceal themselves while their crews reloaded their torpedo tubes. Both destroyers received minor hits during their temporary withdrawal but were not seriously damaged.
Ainsworth instructed his ships to turn to the right at 02:03 to begin engaging the second group of destroyers, but shortly thereafter three of "Suzukaze"s or "Tanikaze"s torpedoes struck "Helena" on the port side, inflicting serious damage. The first torpedo hit about from the bow, abreast of the forward-most turret about below the waterline. It caused a major explosion that may have been the result of a magazine detonation. The blast destroyed the No. 1 turret, tore open the hull almost to the keel, and severed the bow from the rest of the hull. The rest of the hull began to flood as the force of the blast collapsed bulkheads below turret No. 2. But even after the severe damage inflicted by the first torpedo, the aft main guns continued to fire, and the ship had not yet been fatally damaged. She remained able to steam at 25 knots despite the increased drag.
Two minutes after the first torpedo hit, the second and third torpedoes struck the ship in quick succession, much lower in the hull than the first had hit, as much as below the waterline. This was below where the ship's belt armor might have reduced the scale of damage inflicted. These hit further aft in the machinery spaces, breaking the keel, flooding the forward engine and boiler rooms, and breaching bulkheads that allowed water into the aft engine room. The flooding disabled the ship's engines and left her immobilized and without electrical power. Another gaping hole had been blasted into the hull, which exacerbated the flooding caused by the first hit. It quickly became clear that "Helena" would not be able to survive these hits, and two minutes after the third hit, Cecil gave the order to abandon ship. He remained on the bridge with a signalman who attempted to flash a distress message with a signal lamp to no avail. Cecil then ordered another man to dump classified documents overboard before he ordered those still on the bridge to evacuate as well.
With the keel having been broken by the second and third hit, the girders that supported the hull structure began to buckle, collapsing the entire structure amidships and breaking the hull in half. The center third of the ship quickly sank but the bow and stern remained afloat for some time before flooding caused them both to point upward as they filled with water. Ainsworth and the other vessels' captains were not immediately aware that "Helena" had been disabled owing to the course change, the general confusion that resulted from heavy smoke and gunfire during the battle, and the fact that most attention was directed at the oncoming second group of Japanese destroyers. In the ensuing action, several of the Japanese destroyers were hit and forced to disengage, after which Ainsworth attempted to reorganize his force at around 02:30. He quickly realized that "Helena" was not responding to radio messages and ordered his ships to begin searching for the missing cruiser. At 03:13, "Radford"s radar picked up a contact some away. The destroyer closed with it and confirmed it was "Helena"s bow pointing up, out of the water.
Survivors.
Ainsworth ordered "Radford" to immediately begin the search for survivors and shortly thereafter instructed "Nicholas" to join the rescue operation. Ainsworth ordered the destroyers to proceed to the Russell Islands by dawn to avoid being attacked by Japanese aircraft. The remaining pair of destroyers screened "Honolulu" and "St. Louis" as they withdrew to avoid the possibility of a retaliatory Japanese air attack. Nearly a thousand men were in the water, clinging to life rafts and waiting to be picked up by the destroyers, which reached the men at 03:41. Some men had brought flashlights when they abandoned "Helena" to signal their position to the destroyers. As the destroyers moved into position, their crews hung nets over the sides for survivors to climb. But shortly after the rescue effort began, "Nicholas" radar operators detected a contact approaching at high speed; both she and "Radford" broke off the rescue operation to prepare to engage "Suzukaze" and "Tanikaze", both of which had turned northwest to reload their tubes after torpedoing "Helena". They had returned southeast to search for "Niizuki" but after failing to locate her, they withdrew, having come within of "Nicholas".
With the Japanese destroyers having departed, "Nicholas" and "Radford" returned to resume rescue operations at 04:15. The destroyers lowered their whaleboats to assist with the search for survivors. At 05:15, the destroyers' radar sets picked up "Amagiri" approaching; the latter was also searching for "Niizuki" when lookouts spotted the two American destroyers. "Amagiri" turned to engage as "Nicholas" and "Radford" did the same. "Nicholas" and "Amagiri" launched torpedoes at each other before closing and engaging with guns before "Amagiri" broke off and disengaged to the west. During the short engagement, the whaleboats continued to search for "Helena" survivors. At around 06:00, the destroyers had returned, but another radar contact—"Mochizuki"—again prompted their departure. A short skirmish at long range produced no results apart from further delaying rescue operations. In light of Ainsworth's order to avoid being caught by Japanese aircraft and with daylight fast approaching, "Nicholas" and "Radford" withdrew, leaving four of their whaleboats behind to help ferry men to American positions on New Georgia. In the course of the night's operations, "Nicholas" had picked up 291 while "Radford" had rescued 444.
Cecil, who had survived the sinking and refused to be pulled aboard one of the destroyers, instead took command of the whaleboats that remained behind. He supervised the loading of three of the boats (the fourth had broken its rudder and was of little use) to ensure that none became overloaded and capsized, and directed their route out of the gulf. Each whaleboat pulled a raft. Cecil sought to bring the flotilla away from Japanese-occupied Kolombangara to avoid drawing enemy fire. After sailing for much of the day, the boats finally reached a beach thought to be near American lines, so the boats got as close to shore as they could and the men waded ashore. They had landed at Menakasapa, a small peninsula on the northwestern side of New Georgia, some seven miles north of American lines. The men remained there overnight, as it was too late to try to pass through the dense jungle. In the meantime, another pair of destroyers, and arrived in Kula Gulf to search for survivors from "Helena" early on the morning of 6 July. They combed the waters at the mouth of the gulf before observers aboard the destroyers spotted the men on the beach. "Gwin" sailed as close to the beach as she could get at 07:45, while "Woodworth" covered her approach. After setting fire to the whaleboats, the "Helena" survivors—88 men in total—were picked up by "Gwin" and arrived back in Tulagi at 15:20 that day.
A significant number of men were still in the water; some life rafts remained in the area, while a number of men had climbed onto the still-floating bow or clung to pieces of floating wreckage. A B-24 Liberator heavy bomber passed the area at low altitude to search for survivors and its pilot reported seeing the men who had climbed aboard the floating bow along with other groups in the water. The bomber also dropped three life rafts, one of which sank. The survivors were subjected to brutal conditions while at sea: few provisions, no shelter from the sun, and no warmth at night when temperatures plummeted. As the day wore on, a group of about 50 men took two rafts in an attempt to reach Kolombangara, but the current proved to be too strong for them to overcome. As the day wore on, the groups of men began to drift apart; the men in one of the rafts rigged an improvised sail in an attempt to reach Vella Lavella, the next island to the west of Kolombangara. Other groups of men were pulled there by the current; as the men reached the coral reef that surrounded the island on 8 July, they were met by locals who helped pull the men to shore and put them in contact with the coastwatcher station.
The coastwatchers organized a relief effort to bring the men inland to avoid the Japanese garrison and the patrols that routinely swept the coastal areas. The Solomon Islanders gathered the groups of men as they made landfall over the course of late 7 to early 8 July and took some of them—104 in total—to the house of a Chinese merchant in the interior of the island. Others were collected at two different points on the island to hide the men from the Japanese; these two groups numbered 50 and 11, respectively. The coastwatchers contacted their superior on Guadalcanal and informed him of the situation on the island. Turner's staff there immediately began making plans to launch a rescue operation, though the number of men to be retrieved from an enemy-occupied island complicated the effort, as the typical methods, via submarine or PT boat, would not be able to accommodate the 165 men on Vella Lavella. They settled on using a pair of destroyer transports to evacuate the men, escorted by eight destroyers. Allied naval forces had not yet penetrated as far as Vella Lavella during the campaign, which brought them dangerously close to strong Japanese naval and air forces.
The plan called for the two smaller groups, both of which were located further north than the main group, to meet inland and proceed to the coast where they would signal the waiting transports. The main group of survivors would proceed to a different evacuation point. The operation was initially planned for 12 July, but reports that Japanese vessels were operating in the area forced a postponement until the night of 15 July (and led to the Second Battle of Kula Gulf). Four destroyers took up a defensive position to the northwest to block a possible attack by Japanese forces while the rest of the force steamed to the south of Kolombangara and then north through the Vella Gulf. At 01:55 on 16 July, the men flashed the recognition signal to the waiting transports, which lowered three Higgins boats to ferry the men to the vessels. Along with the "Helena" survivors, the boats evacuated a downed American pilot and a captured Japanese pilot before the units moved south to the other evacuation point. Again the Higgins boats ferried the group to the transports, along with several Chinese merchants and their families. The flotilla arrived back in Tulagi that afternoon and disembarked the survivors, who were then transferred to the French colony of New Caledonia, where they met the men who had been pulled from the water on the night of the sinking. Out of a crew of almost 1,200, 168 men were killed, either during the battle or while the men were adrift.
Aftermath.
A memorial was erected in Helena, Montana to commemorate both cruisers named "Helena", CL-50 and , including artifacts from both vessels.
The wreck was discovered on 11 April 2018 by the research ship , operated by Paul Allen during an expedition to the Solomons to search for the wrecks of warships sunk during the fighting there. Allen confirmed the identity of the wreck through the hull number still visible on the stern. The wreck lies at a depth of about .


Al-Adil II

Al-Malik al-ʿĀdil Sayf ad-Dīn Abū Bakr ibn Nāṣir ad-Dīn Muḥammad (, better known as al-Adil II) (c. 1221 – 9 February 1248) was the Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt from 1238 to 1240.
When his father al-Kamil, nephew of Saladin, died in 1238, al-Adil II followed him somewhat unprepared. When the country plunged into anarchy, his exiled half-brother, as-Salih Ayyub, seized the opportunity and deposed him. Al-Adil died in prison eight years later.


Wilhelm Solf

Wilhelm Heinrich Solf (5 October 1862 – 6 February 1936) was a German scholar, diplomat, jurist and statesman.
Early life.
Wilhelm Solf was born into a wealthy and liberal family in Berlin. He attended secondary schools in Anklam in western Pomerania and in Mannheim. He took up the study of Oriental languages, in particular Sanskrit at universities in Berlin, Göttingen and Halle, earning a doctorate in philology in the winter of 1885. Under the supervision of the well-known Indologist Richard Pischel, he wrote an elementary grammar of Sanskrit.
He then found a position at the library of the University of Kiel. While residing there he was drafted into the Imperial Navy to serve his military obligation. However, he was deemed medically unfit for military service and discharged.
Early diplomatic career.
Solf joined the German Foreign Office (Consular Service) on 12 December 1888 and was assigned to the Imperial German Consulate General in Calcutta on 1 January 1889. However, he resigned from the consular service after three years to study law at the University of Jena where he obtained his doctorate in law ("Doktor juris") in September 1896. His advanced degrees qualified Solf for higher positions in the diplomatic service. He joined the Colonial Department of the Foreign Office ("Kolonialabteilung des Auswärtigen Amtes") and in 1898 was assigned as district judge in Dar es Salaam in German East Africa for a short period. In 1899 he was posted to the Samoan Islands, where he served as council chairman in the provisional government of the municipality of Apia, Samoa.
Governor of Samoa.
The division of the Samoan Islands as a result of the Tripartite Convention of 1899 assigned the western islands to Germany (independent Samoa today) and Eastern Samoa to the United States (American Samoa today). Wilhelm Solf, at age 38, became the first Governor of German Samoa on 1 March 1900. "Solf was a man of quite unusual talent, clear-thinking, sensitive to the nuances of Samoan attitudes and opinion." He was known as a liberal, painstaking and competent administrator. Solf included Samoan traditions in his government programs, but never hesitated to step in assertively, including banishment from Samoa in severe cases, when his position as the "Kaiser's" deputy was challenged. Under Solf's direction, plantation agriculture was further encouraged; in his judgment it provided the soundest basis for the colony's economic development. In turn, tax revenues were enhanced, making the establishment of a public school system, the construction and staffing of a hospital (including the training of Samoan nurses) major successes. Road and harbor facilities construction was accelerated. In all, the Samoan colony was on its way to self-sufficiency and actually reached that achievement just before Solf was called to Berlin and was succeeded by Erich Schultz as Governor of German Samoa.
Later career.
After his return from Samoa, Solf became (1911) Secretary ("Staatssekretär") of the German Colonial Office ("Reichskolonialamt") to 1918, travelling extensively to the German protectorates in West and East Africa in 1912 and 1913. In the spring of 1914 Solf designed coats of arms for the various German colonies, a project which found enthusiastic favour with Wilhelm II, but his efforts were foiled by the outbreak of World War I a few months later, and the arms were never officially used. The outbreak of World War I caused Germany's colonial possessions to be invaded by Britain (including Dominions), Belgium, France and Japan.
Solf lobbied for a negotiated peace settlement in 1917 and 1918. He opposed the implementation of unrestricted submarine warfare, a policy which eventually contributed to the entry of the United States into the war in 1917.
With the defeat of Germany imminent and the likelihood of revolution growing he was appointed as what turned out to be the last of the Imperial Foreign Ministers in October 1918. In this capacity he undertook negotiations for the armistice that took effect on 11 November 1918.
He resigned his post as Foreign Minister on 13 December 1918 with the onset of the German revolution after news about the payment of about 1 million Mark and a 10.5 million Russian ruble mandate for a bank account at Mendelssohn & Co by the Russian ambassador to Germany, Adolph Joffe, to Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany-politician Oskar Cohn became public. Solf refused a further cooperation with the USPD.
Between then and 1920 he served as Vice President of the "Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft". From 1920 to 1928 he served as the German chargé d'affaires and then ambassador to Japan; his tenure proved to be fruitful, as he was instrumental in restoring good relations between the two World War I enemies, culminating in the signing of the German-Japanese treaty of 1927. On Solf's return to Germany and retirement from government service he became the Chairman of the Board of the based in Stuttgart.
Solf held centrist political views; he joined the German Democratic Party ("Deutsche Demokratische Partei"). However, with its dissolution in 1933 he planned with others to form a new moderate party. With the National Socialist (Nazi) reality of that time it was unsuccessful, if not impossible. In 1932 he supported the election of retired Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg as German President.
Solf wrote "Weltpolitik und Kolonialpolitik" (Foreign policy and colonial policy, 1918) and "Kolonialpolitik, Mein politisches Vermächtniss" (Colonial policy, my political legacy, 1919).
Personal life.
In 1908 Wilhelm Solf married Johanna Dotti; their children were:
Solf's widow Johanna (Hanna) and his daughter Lagi hosted the anti-Nazi Frau Solf Tea Party get-togethers.


Whiplash (TV series)

Whiplash was a British/Australian television series in the Australian Western genre produced by the Seven Network, ATV, and ITC Entertainment, starring Peter Graves. Filmed in 1959-60, the series was first broadcast in September 1960 in the United Kingdom and in Australia in February 1961.
Series outline.
Set during the Australian gold rushes of the 1850s, the series was inspired by the life of Freeman Cobb, founder of the iconic Australian stagecoach line, Cobb and Co. However the characters and events in the series bore no resemblance to the real Freeman Cobb or his company. Freeman Cobb did not carry a pistol or use a stockwhip to settle disputes.
The series was created by Michael Noonan and Michael Plant, and produced by Maurice Geraghty and Ben Fox at the Artransas Studios (owned by ATV), Sydney Australia. Post-production was completed in the United Kingdom.
Cast and characters.
Leading player Peter Graves was best known at the time for the TV Western Fury.
Australian actors who guest starred included Leonard Teale, Terry McDermott, Chips Rafferty, Peter Aanesen and Indigenous actors Robert Tudawali and Henry Murdoch.
Other actors with memorable appearances and not included in episode list (below) included comedian George Wallace Jnr and Chuck Faulkner.
In his autobiography, Associate Producer and Director of many episodes John Meredyth Lucas commented on the difficulty faced in casting the series. He wrote that actors with radio experience were generally used, because of concerns with the broad Australian accents of some performers. On his return to the US in October 1960, Graves also commented on the difficulty in finding actors. "Those we got were very good, but there just wasn't enough of them," he said.
Development.
Michael Noonan had created and written a British TV series shot in Australia called "The Flying Doctor". "Whiplash" was a similar international production. The show was mostly financed by Lew Grade's ITC productions, but was aimed at the international market, leading to many Americans being in key creative roles. Post production was done in the UK.
Co-producing partners included Australia's Artransa Park Studios and Britain's ATV.
Production.
Filming started in October 1959 at Artransa Park Studios in French's Forest, Sydney, with location work at Scone, New South Wales and other locations.
Graves told the "Sydney Morning Herald" that
Nearly all the American Westerns are shot within 30 miles of Hollywood and a lot of that scenery is becoming mighty familiar to TV viewers. Now this scenery here is refreshing — something entirely new to folks overseas. We're trying to keep right away from that word 'Western' by labelling the series a romantic adventure.
In his memoirs, Lucas commented on the difficulties faced because of the sometimes inexperienced Australian crew. Production was also initially difficult because of the competing expectations of production partners from three different countries. The production team was restructured from episode six onwards, after which Ben Fox was appointed producer with Leslie Harris as executive producer.
Filming recommenced on 4 March 1960. The budget of the series was a reported £650,000.
In May 1960 it was reported the unit of 22 actors and crew had left Sydney for Alice Springs to film sequences over ten days including scenes at Ayers Rock, the Macdonnell Ranges and the Ormiston Gorge. By this stage ten episodes had been shot and the series sold to ATN Channel 7. Fox announced that both American and British television groups were "likely to be very interested in buying the series."
Music.
Theme Music: Words and Music by Edwin Astley, Sung by Frank Ifield.
Incidental music.
Edwin Astley, Albert Elms
Episode list.
Airdate is for ATV London. ITV regions varied date and order.
Production number here refers to the order in the Network DVD booklet.
Release.
In 1961, it became one of the original twelve programs aired by the new CTV network in Canada (and the only one produced in Australia).
DVD releases.
Network released a Region 2 five-DVD set on 7 December 2009.
On 18 September 2012, Timeless Media Group released "Whiplash - The Complete Series" on DVD in Region 1. The 4-disc set features all 34 episodes of the series.


Operation Yevusi

Operation Yevusi () (Eng. Jebusite), also known as the second "Battle of Nebi Samwil," was a Palmach military operation carried out during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War to assert Jewish control over Jerusalem. The operation, commanded by Yitzhak Sadeh, lasted two weeks, from 22 April 1948 to 3 May 1948. Not all objectives were achieved before the British enforced a ceasefire.
History.
Operation Yevusi was mounted in the wake of the Battle for Jerusalem. The operation had four objectives: Control of Nabi Samuel, an Arab village northwest of Jerusalem and the highest point in the area; Sheikh Jarrah, an Arab residential quarter north of the city wall controlling the road to Mount Scopus; Katamon, a middle class, mainly Arab Christian suburb of southwest Jerusalem; and Augusta Victoria east of the Old City.
Nabi Samuel and Sheikh Jarrah.
The Harel Brigade arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday 21 April. Their convoy had taken eight hours under fire to reach the city. The following day they started attacking the ridge of Nabi Samuel, but on the 23rd a company from Harel was ambushed and forced to retreat, losing 30-40 men. On the night of 24/25 April, Sadeh occupied Sheikh Jarrah, where 40 Arabs were killed and 20 homes were blown up.
General Macmillan, commander of the British forces in Palestine, called on the Jewish forces to retreat because British forces used this road to reach the north of the country. MacMillan promised to prevent the return of the Arabs. After the British Army opened fire, the Palmach withdrew. The British declared Sheikh Jarrah a demilitarized zone which armed troops from either side could not enter.
Katamon.
On 29 April, one week after the start of the operation, Sadeh switched the attack to Katamon. The main target was the Greek Orthodox San Simon monastery, which was held by local Arab fighters with a contingent of volunteers from Iraq. There was also a unit from the Arab Legion guarding the empty Iraqi Consulate. John Bagot Glubb ordered them to withdraw after the surrounding buildings had been taken. The attack began with a mortar and machine gun barrage, before members of Harel's 4th and 5th Battalions, aided by Etzion's 4th Battalion and totaling 120 men, struck south and eastwards from Neve Shaanan. The battle for the monastery lasted all day, with the number of Jewish fighters killed given by one source as forty, though other estimates are much lower. Another source states eighty Arabs were killed. During the evening of 30 April the area was shaken by two large explosions. By the following day, 1 May, the Jews had complete control of the area. Once again the British intervened and demanded a ceasefire. But this time the Jews remained in control of the area taken. While the attack on Katamon was taking place Arabs in the Old City fired on Jewish positions in Yemin Moshe and only stopped after action by the British Army.
Aftermath.
With the operation only partially successful, Sadeh left Jerusalem. Dov Joseph, the military governor of Jerusalem, ordered teams of men into Katamon to requisition all food they could find to alleviate the severe food shortages caused by the Arab blockade which led to draconian rationing in March 1948. The district was then looted. By the end of the war Israel had control of 12 of Jerusalem's 15 Arab residential quarters. An estimated minimum of 30,000 people had become refugees. About 750 non-Jews remained in the occupied Arab neighbourhoods; many of them Greeks living in the Greek Colony.


Ushguli church of the Mother of God

The Ushguli church of the Mother of God (), popularly known as the Lamaria church of Ushguli (უშგულის ლამარია, "ushgulis lamaria"), is a medieval Georgian Orthodox church in the highland northwestern Georgian province of Upper Svaneti, now part of the Mestia Municipality, Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region. It is a simple hall church, with a projecting apse and an ambulatory. The interior contains two layers of medieval frescoes, in a state of deterioration. The church is inscribed on the list of the Immovable Cultural Monuments of National Significance of Georgia.
Location.
The Lamaria church is situated at the northern outskirts of the highland village of Zhibiani, part of the Ushguli territorial unit, Mestia Municipality. Zhibiani is one of the highest permanently inhabited places in Europe, located at 2,100 above sea level. The building tops a hill above the village, set against the backdrop of the 5,193 metre-high summit of Shkhara. It is surrounded by low stone wall and defended by a Svan tower standing on its west end.
History.
The Lamaria church does not appear in historical records. Judging by its architectural features, Lamaria is dated to the 9th or 10th century. It is dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God. "Lamaria" is a name applied by the Svan mountaineers to Mary, mother of Jesus, whose veneration became superimposed on the ancient, pre-Christian cult of Lamaria, a female deity of motherhood and fertility.
According to a local legend, the Lamaria church was the scene of the murder of the nobleman Puta Dachkelani, a Dadeshkeliani, who sought to impose his rule on the free people of Ushguli. The legend has it that the entire village helped pull a cord attached to the trigger of a musket, thus dividing equally the responsibility for killing the man. Puta's garments are said to have been preserved at the church for a long time.
Lamaria housed a collection of dozens of church items—manuscripts, icons, crosses, and various utensils—which were catalogued by the scholar Ekvtime Taqaishvili during his expedition to Svaneti in 1910. The church is functional and currently serves as the seat of a Georgian Orthodox bishop of Mestia and Zemo Svaneti.
Layout.
Lamaria is a hall church, with a prominently projecting triangular apse and a relatively large ambulatory enveloping the church on the south and west. The church is built of neatly hewn limestone blocks. The ambulatory has tow doors: one is a low arched door cut in its south segment; the other, in its west portion, leads to the nave. The latter is an oblong rectangular hall which ends in a relatively shallow semicircular apse, placed three small steps above the floor level. The apse is separated from the nave by an original three-arched stone iconostasis. The vault is divided into two equal parts by a supporting arch.
The church is sparsely lit by two windows, one each in the apse and west wall. Both the internal walls and iconostasis are covered with two layers of now faded frescoes, the earlier dated to the 10th century and the second layer painted over in the 13th century. The ambulatory was also frescoed, but only fragments of its 13th-century paintings survive. The exterior bears scarce decorative stonework. The west façade has a cross, sculpted in relief, and a slab with a four-line Georgian inscription, in a mixed "khutsuri"-"mkhedruli" script, paleographically dated to the 11th century and mentioning a female donor, named Gurandukht. The church also contains several scratched graffiti, dated from the 10th century into the 18th.


Wellington Province

The Wellington Province was a province of New Zealand from 1853 until the abolition of provincial government in 1876.
Area.
The province governed much of the southern half of the North Island, roughly the same area now known as the Manawatū-Whanganui and Wellington regions.
In the centre of the island the Wellington Province shared a boundary with the Auckland Province at latitude 39° south. To the west, just beyond the town of Waverley was the southern border of Taranaki Province.
East of the main divide, the boundary with Hawke's Bay Province lay just south of Woodville. This province was separated from Wellington Province on 1 November 1858.
Wellington's former provincial boundaries include four of New Zealand's main urban areas: Wellington, Palmerston North, Wanganui and Kapiti. Other large towns are Feilding, Levin and Masterton. According to Statistics New Zealand figures at the 2001 census 626,000 people lived within the old provincial boundaries.
European settlement.
In the area that was to become the Wellington Province, European settlement started at Port Nicholson (now called Wellington Harbour) and at the mouth of the Whanganui River. Settlement in the Hawke's Bay area started a decade later around 1850.
Anniversary Day.
New Zealand law provides an anniversary day for each province. Wellington Anniversary Day is the Monday that falls closest to 22 January and is observed as a public holiday within the old provincial boundaries.
Superintendents.
The Wellington Province had two Superintendents:
Legislation.
The only two acts of the provincial assembly still in effect are the Manawatu Racecourse Act 1869 and the Wanganui And Rangitikei Racecourses Act 1862.