This month, a nice portrait shot of US submarine chaser SC 164, during the post-war operations clearing the North Sea minefields, 1919.
The role of the chasers was to follow the minesweepers and shoot and sink with rifle fire any mines that floated to the surface. It was reported that it could take up to ten hits to sink a mine. While the chasers were supposed to stay well back, hitting a mine from a boat rolling on the waves required getting fairly close.
This brought with it not only the danger of striking an unexploded mine, which would be catastrophic, but the danger of a mine exploding nearby instead of sinking. A shot through the mine casing wouldn't cause an explosion unless it triggered the detonation mechanism, but sometimes they exploded, either unexpectedly while being fired on or by other mine explosions during sweeps causing a chain reaction.
No chasers were lost on the minefields, but some were damaged, including incidents of nearby explosions throwing the engines off their mounts and spitting the hull open.
I this shot we can see that the wartime devices including the depth charge launcher and racks and the bearing indicator have been removed.
Photo from the collection of Ellis J. Thompson, who served on SC 40.
--Todd Woofenden, editor