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.)
Fifty years ago this May, ships of the South Vietnamese navy fled to the Philippines as Saigon was overrun.
Recently media outlets have covered this story, often as “…how America stole a whole navy in 1975!” which is not correct. Meanwhile many naval observers worldwide are aware that the Philippines later received these WWII-era warships, but not really aware of the steps to make that happen.
This will be less technical data and more a look at the behind-the-scenes hoops that the USA jumped through to transplant a fallen ally’s WWII-era warships into another ally’s fleet.
(The escape: Overloaded with refugees, HQVN Lam Giang arrives at Côn Son as Saigon falls in 1975. It had been LSM-226 during WWII.)
(The payoff: BRP Miguel Malvar, formerly South Vietnam’s HQVN Ngoc Hoi and the WWII US Navy’s USS Brattleboro, serving the Philippines in the 21st century.)
The WWII American M8 Greyhound armored car has had an incredibly long run in Mexico, still being upgraded in the 21st century. Beyond these vehicles themselves, it is a chance to look at Mexico during and after WWII. At least in English-language sources, Mexico – considering its size and population – is often given scant attention.
(US Army M8 Greyhound during WWII.)
(The Mexican army’s M8 Modificado II, still in service almost 80 years after WWII ended.)
The fuel lighters Rimfaxe and Skinfaxe, formerly WWII American 174′ YOs, had a long and successful career in the Danish fleet. Looking at these two ships is also an opportunity to examine the US Navy’s remarkable Yard & District Craft program of WWII, which now eight decades after the war has been all but forgotten by the general public.
(A 174′ YO-65 class lighter of the Yard & District Craft program running trials on Lake Michigan during WWII.) (photo via navsource website)
Some years ago I wrote on ARM Netzahualcoyotl, the last WWII Gearing class in service worldwide. Mexico also was the very last user of the WWII Fletcher class, however unlike Mexico’s FRAM-modernized Gearing, in 2001 ARM Cuitláhuac remained “frozen in time” to a WWII technology level.
(USS John Rodgers (DD-574) during WWII.)
(ARM Cuitláhuac, the former USS John Rodgers, in 2000. It was the last Fletcher still in service anywhere in the world.)
The USSR’s most-produced tank of WWII, and most successful during that war, was the T-34. After WWII many nations received this tank, one of the more obscure ones being Laos.
(Soviet soldiers with a T-34 during WWII.)
(Lao T-34 during the 2010s.)
(Ex-Lao T-34s in the Russian Federation during 2020.)
The path by which these T-34s came to Laos and then “returned” to Russia is quite winding and interesting.
For starters, they didn’t really “return home”, at least not in the strictest sense of the words. They are all Czechoslovak post-WWII production, having first gone through Vietnam.
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.)
During the 1982 Falklands War, Argentina’s ARA Alférez Sobral, formerly the WWII US Navy’s USS Salish (ATA-187), made a remarkable voyage of determined sailors surviving at sea.
(USS Salish (ATA-187) in US Navy service.)
(The heavily-damaged ARA Alférez Sobral, the former USS Salish, returning to Argentina in May 1982 after taking multiple British missile hits.)
With 4,000,000+ being made, the Enfield No.4 Mk.I is often considered the classical WWII British rifle. In the nation of Burma (today called Myanmar) it continues in use in the 2020s.
(British soldier in Bahe, Burma with Enfield No.4 rifle during WWII.)
(Myanmar National Police member with an Enfield No.4 rifle during 2016.)
In 21st century military slang “maginot mentality” is a derogatory description of outdated strategies, particularly those centered on fixed fortifications. The term comes from France’s Maginot Line which during WWII, failed spectacularly to stop Germany from overrunning France.
Histories of the Maginot Line usually conclude with the French capitulation in 1940. However the Maginot Line actually came close to being partially reactivated after WWII, and still later some of the emplacements served on in secondary or repurposed roles, in one case into the new millennium.
(The Maginot Line ouvrage at Hochwald, during WWII and during the early 21st century.)
(A bloc of the Rochonvillers installation of the Maginot Line being “nuclear hardened” by new construction during 1982.) (photo via marblehome.com website)
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