This is a look at how Mosin-Nagant rifles, the USSR’s main longarm of WWII, came commercially into the United States at the height of anti-communist sentiment.
(Soviet soldiers with Mosin-Nagant rifles during WWII.)
(A “sign of the times”; a typical 1950s disclaimer for Mosin-Nagants being sold commercially in the United States)
On 1 October 2025 the Royal Thai Navy decommissioned HTMS Pin Klao, the former USS Hemminger (DE-746). It was the last Cannon class in service, the final WWII DE (destroyer-escort) of any type still in service, and one of a small number of WWII warships of any type or nation still in use during the 2020s.
(USS Hemminger (DE-746) during WWII.)
(The final crew of HTMS Pin Klao, the ex-USS Hemminger, during 2025.)
I wish to thank all readers over the past ten years. This is a mixture of topics I have had in my head probably not big enough for study on their own.
To start, I have never explained the image I used as the cover photo for wwiiafterwwii.
The cover photo and the color photo above were taken at Elizabeth City, NC on 17 February 1960. It shows the last PB-1G (USCG nomenclature for the B-17 Flying Fortress) still in US Coast Guard service; also the very last Flying Fortress of any version left in any of the five armed forces; alongside the USCG’s first SC-130B Hercules.
This particular Flying Fortress, serial #77254, had been a stock B-17 during WWII. It was one of eighteen bombers transferred to the US Coast Guard from the US Army after WWII for conversion into unarmed lifeboat-droppers. After two years in that role, this particular plane was modified again for a Coast & Geodetic Survey project, with a panoramic high-detail camera.
(The camera cost $1.5 million ($19.99 million in 2025 dollars) and was for aerial mapping. It was worth more than the Flying Fortress itself.) (official US Coast Guard photo)
This plane had all WWII guns deleted, and was fitted with a radar and LORAN receiver. The WWII Norden bombsight in the nose was retained as it was helpful to line up camera runs.
Besides the mapping project this PB-1G also did International Ice Patrol flights. It ceased active use in October 1959 and was discarded in 1960, on the same day as the photo.
The Nevada National Security Site, the nuclear test site north of Las Vegas, is closed to the public. Deep within this desert facility remains a most improbable thing, a turret off a WWII US Navy cruiser.
(The WWII cruiser turret at the NNSS.) (US Dept. of Energy photo)
(The “B” (upper forward) turret of USS Louisville (CA-28) prior to WWII.)
(A nuclear test to the north turns night into day on Fremont St.)
From WWII’s end in 1945 until 1949, pro-independence Indonesians in the Dutch East Indies and the Netherlands military fought a conflict which saw a huge variety of WWII weapons, both Japanese and Allied, in further use.
(A WWII Dutch M.95 rifle rechambered to .303 British by Indonesia during the 1950s.)
(Kawasaki Ki-48 “Lily” bomber of the Indonesian air force during the late 1940s.)
(Indonesian troops with Arisaka Type 99 rifles during 1949.)
Depending where a person might be reading this, the 1969 conflict between El Salvador and Honduras is called Guerra de las Cien Horas (100 Hours War), the Fútbol War, or the Soccer War.
Beyond the (often incorrect) cause cited, this war is famous for the dogfights between Mustangs and Corsairs. A quarter-century after WWII ended, this would be the final time that WWII fighter planes would ever meet in the skies anywhere.
(Honduran Corsair)
(Salvadoran Mustang)
By now the air aspect of the conflict is beaten to death; indeed there are entire books covering it. On the other hand little is usually said about the war’s ground fighting, which included WWII-vintage M3 Stuart tanks.
(Salvadoran M3A1 Stuart tank parading a captured Honduran flag during 1969.)
Many Americans of a certain age consider Panama only as the bisected nation on either side of the now-defunct Panama Canal Zone, while a younger generation only recalls it as one of the USA’s “regime change” operations.
Panama, the independent nation, once had its own small army which used WWII arms long after WWII.
(Panamanian soldier with WWII M1 pot helmet and M1 Garand rifle, in tear gas mask during a 1968 coup.) (photo via Bettmann images)
(Within this mountain of Panamanian weapons captured during 1989, is a WWII M1 carbine and M1928 Thompson submachine gun.)
(WWII American M1 pot helmet of the Panama Defense Force’s (PDF) military police captured in 1989. During the 1980s the PDF had reconditioned some of these old helmets with new suspensions, even as kevlar helmets entered the army.)
The nation of Libya has seen a great deal of conflict, starting with WWII, then the 1980s skirmishes against the United States, and finally the terrible 10-year civil conflict of the 21st century.
(Field Marshall Erwin Rommel in Libya during WWII; and Libyan dictator Muammar Quadaffi presenting a WWII Italian Carcano Modello 91 rifle to the Italian prime minister in 2002.)
Almost forgotten now is that the nation had a two-decade interlude as a pro-western kingdom and was host to a major American military base. The Libyan army of this era was equipped with WWII-surplus weaponry.
(Soldiers of King Idris’s small army march with Enfield No.4 Mk.I rifles during the 1950s. This WWII British rifle became Libya’s first standard longarm after it achieved independence. During 2011, the old 1950s flag seen here was again made Libya’s official flag.)
WWII weapons would again play a small role during the fighting between 2011 – 2020.
(A WWII American M1919A6 machine gun in action near a burned-out T-62 during the overthrow of Quadaffi.)
(A WWII Soviet DP-28 light machine gun in use during the Libyan Civil War of the 2010s.)
(A young Libyan irregular poses with a Carcano Moschetto da Cavalleria M-91 during 2011. He told the photographer that he believed it was “an old American gun” but none the less knew how to properly use it. This WWII Italian carbine was surprisingly represented during the 2010s civil war in Libya.) (photo via NPR)
Military history of Liberia is often covered only in the context of the civil wars fought between 1990 – 1997 and 1999 – 2003. Before those tragic conflicts, Liberia had an odd and unique army, mirroring the unusual story of the nation as a whole.
(US Army soldiers in Liberia during WWII. They are armed with M1903 Springfields and a M1917, both of which would be used by the Liberian army after WWII.)
(Liberian soldiers loading M1 Garands during the 1980 coup.)
(A modified M1917A1 guarding a roadblock near Monrovia during 1992.)
(A guerilla loyal to the warlord Charles Taylor during the 1990s, armed with a WWII Soviet PPS-43. Child soldiers were used by Taylor in outrageous numbers; at points more than half his force was under the international military age of 17.)
For readers of wwiiafterwwii in the United States, I would like to extend wishes for a happy July 4th, our nation’s 246th birthday.
Below is a quite unusual Independence Day scene, taken in Berlin on 4 July 1945 – the first Independence Day after the European part of WWII ended and while combat in the Pacific was still underway.
The damaged building which both the Stars & Stripes and Hammer & Sickle are flying above, was the WWII headquarters of the 1st Waffen-SS Panzer Division, the LSSAH (Liebstandarte SS Adolf Hitler) as can be seen on the cornice of the building atop the four columns.
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