Perry Breaks the Line, by marine artist Peter Rindlisbacher, shows Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry maneuvering the brig USS Niagara to fire across the the bow of the HMS Detroit, which has just become befouled with the rigging of the HMS Charlotte, rendering both ships immobile.

naval warfare

Blood on the Lake

By Joshua Shepherd

As the first streaks of dawn painted the horizon, all was quiet in the American squadron anchored at Put-in-Bay. Read more

naval warfare

Gauntlet of Steel at Okinawa

By John Wukovits

Edward T. Higgins had witnessed few spectacles to match the one that unfolded all about him in the waters surrounding Okinawa, an island 400 miles southwest of the Japanese Home Island of Kyushu. Read more

Admiral Yi Sun Shin was not only a highly skilled militarist; he was also a writer. He wrote a war diary and composed poems. Here he is seen writing in a quiet and secluded moment.

naval warfare

The Imjin War: The Japanese Invasion of Korea

by Eric Niderost

It was May 1, 1592, mere weeks before the start of the Imjin War. Admiral Yi Sun Shin summoned a conference of high-ranking military officers and civil magistrates to his headquarters at Yosu, a port on the southern coast of Korea. Read more

naval warfare

Greek Fire

By Robert Heege

The year was ad 678, 46 years after the death of the prophet Mohammed. Now the Mohammedans, determined to bring the light of Islam to Arabia and beyond, were streaking across the whole of the Middle East like a comet. Read more

Created solely from the artist’s imagination, this chromolithograph was issued to meet the Ameri- can public’s demand for revenge against Spain for the destruction of the USS Maine.

naval warfare

The USS Maine

By VanLoan Naisawald

Darkness had settled over the harbor, the lights along the shoreline casting a faint glow on the murky harbor water. Read more

naval warfare

Q-Ships in World War II

By William H. Langenberg

As an effective naval weapon, submarines were in their infancy when World War I began in August 1914. Read more

naval warfare

The United States Naval Academy Museum

By Blaine Taylor

The United States Naval Academy Museum at Annapolis, Maryland, is “an educational and inspirational resource for the Naval Academy Brigade of Midshipmen, other students of American naval history and thousands of visitors each year,” according to Shayne Sewell, assistant media relations director at the USNA Public Affairs Office. Read more

American sailors crowd the deck of the Japanese submarine I-14, tied up to the submarine tender USS Proteus. The object of their curiosity is the Japanese submarine I-400, which surrendered in Tokyo Bay in September 1945. Type B-1 submarines like the I-35 were the first Japanese cruisers with a surface range of 16,000 miles. The I-400 class, with a range of 43,123 miles, were the largest conventional submarines ever built. They were not eclipsed in size until the introduction of nuclear ballistic missile submarines in the 1960s.

naval warfare

The Sinking of I-35

By Peter McQuarrie

In the autumn of 1943, the U.S. Navy had regained strength after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and plans were made for a big offensive in the Pacific. Read more

This painting of the nocturnal Battle of the Java Sea shows the torpedoed Dutch light cruiser De Ruyter burning as the cruiser HMAS Perth turns to avoid a collision on February 27, 1942. One night later, the Perth, along with the USS Houston would go down in the Battle of the Sunda Strait.

naval warfare

Slaughter in the Sunda Strait

By David H. Lippman

It was nearly over. Since Singapore had fallen to the Japanese on February 14, 1942, the Allied forces defending the Dutch East Indies had battled against a Japanese pincer-like movement, which consisted of aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, aircraft, and well-trained “Special Naval Landing Forces”—Japan’s version of American and British Marines. Read more

naval warfare

The Fight of USS California

by John J. Domagalski

The first rays of sunlight on December 7, 1941, marked a typical Sunday morning for the sailors aboard the battleship USS California at Pearl Harbor. Read more

naval warfare

Battle of the Java Sea: Desperate Delaying Action

By David Lippman 

The ships left just before sunset on February 26, 1942, passing out of a harbor jammed with wreckage, battered docks, fires, the stench of burning oil, and Dutch women, children, and old men—most of them relatives of the crews heading out—waving their men goodbye and good luck. Read more

naval warfare

Ironclad Clash at Lissa

By David A. Norris

Narrrowly avoiding a fatal blow from the Italian ironclad ram Affondatore, Commodore Anton von Petz, commander of Austrian wooden-hulled ship of the line Kaiser, came under fire from the heavy rifled guns of another enemy ironclad, the Re di Portogallo, on July 20, 1866, near the Dalmatian island of Lissa in the Adriatic Sea. Read more

naval warfare

Naval Carnage at Navarino

By Victor Kamenir

At 2 PM on October 20, 1827, Allied squadrons sailed into the Bay of Navarino on the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula. Read more

naval warfare

Seek…Attack…Destroy

By Patrick. J. Chaisson

Admiral Soemu Toyoda needed answers. The newly appointed commander in chief of Japan’s Combined Fleet, Toyoda found himself facing several unpleasant facts. Read more

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    Military History

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