Welcome to MSW’s Scuttlebutt! Here’s the news for the day.



USN PT Boats in Color Video

Today’s website is a video of USN PT Boats in Color. This vintage three part film was shot during World War II. Enjoy.
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This Day in U.S. Naval History

1798 - Congress establishes Department of the Navy.
1975 - Saigon falls to North Vietnamese forces.


Money for workers at Northern Fleet shipyards
Source: The Barents Observer

The Russian Ministry of Defence has allocated 42 million RUB ($1257000) to The Northern Fleet as payment for earlier fulfilled orders by the fleet’s shipyards.

The money will be used to pay shipyard workers, of which many have not received wages in months. A letter informing about the allocation was sent from the ministry to Governor Dmitry Dmitriyenko on Wednesday last week, a press release from the regional government reads.

The transfer was made only two days before a planned protest meeting in Murmansk. Several hundred workers gathered at the meeting, where a resolution demanding that all salary dept should be repaid within 15 days was made. According to the trade union for workers in the Northern Fleet, the workers on the eight enterprises belonging to the fleet have a total of 150 million RUB in outstanding wages, Lenta.ru reports.

120 workers at the military shipyard in Roslaykovo outside Severomorsk laid down their work at the beginning of the month.


Swedish Anti-Piracy Mission
Source: Source: Kockums AB

The Swedish Navy will be participating in the EU mission to secure seaborne food supplies to Somalia, with a view to preventing pirate attacks off the Somali coast. The Swedish mission will involve the Swedish Navy corvettes HMS Stockholm and HMS Malmö, accompanied by the support vessel HMS Trossö.

Kockums has refitted the vessels for this international operation. For Kockums, this also means organizing a rapid-response capability, in case of a serious breakdown. The mission also demands support and maintenance services.

Swedish Navy corvettes HMS Stockholm and HMS Malmö, with the support vessel HMS Trossö, are already en route to Somalia. Navy base personnel have loaded the vessels aboard the heavy-lift semi-submersible M/v Eide Trader, which may be described as a ‘self-propelled floating dock’. Loading and lifting was conducted in the Karlskrona archipelago, west of the island of Tjurkö.

Once loading was completed, M/v Eide Trader re-docked at the Kockums wharf, where the naval vessels were welded into position and additional cargo was loaded, including several containers with stores and spares.

The vessels and their crews will provide naval protection for the UN’s seaborne food supplies to Somalia. This mission is of vital importance. The Swedish task force will start its mission off Somalia on May 15th, with the deployment scheduled to terminate on September15th. Kockums personnel will be on station to meet the vessels on arrival, to assist with unloading and to provide maintenance support.


Photo of the Day



The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer JDS Kurama (DDH 144) pulls alongside amphibious command ship USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) during Exercise Malabar 2009, an annual exercise led by the Indian Navy.

Gator