U.S. Navy

The Battle-Ax

By William McPeak

The shafted ax has been around since 6000 bc, in both peaceful and warlike uses. The so-called battle-ax cultures (3200 to 1800 bc) extended over much of northern Europe from the late Stone Age through the early Bronze Age. Read more

U.S. Navy

The Battle of Iwo Jima: Red Sun, Black Sand

By John Walker

No foreign army in the 5,000-year history of Japan had ever successfully conquered Japanese territory. In late 1944, American war planners were about to challenge that statistic on the tiny Pacific island of Iwo Jima. Read more

An American Army officer fires his Colt 1892 revolver at charging Filipino insurgents in this painting by Frederick Remington.

U.S. Navy

Savage Model 1907: Rival of the Colt M1911

By Steve Lilley

In the 1939 movie The Real Glory, elite U.S. Army officers arrive in the southern Philippines to mold the Filipinos into a military force to defend their villages against marauding Moro tribesmen. Read more

Three crews were lost during tests of the Horace L. Hunley, shown in a painting by Conrad Wise Chapman.

U.S. Navy

Evolution of the Submarine

By John Protasio

The concept of a ship that could submerge beneath the water and then resurface dates back as far as the late 1400s, when Italian Renaissance artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci claimed to have found a method for a ship to remain submerged for a protracted period of time. Read more

U.S. Navy

Profiles: ROTC Success

By Bruce Petty

More than 16 million Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II, but as fluid as the situation was in the Pacific, and considering the priority given to the European Theater, it is difficult to obtain an accurate count of how many served in the Pacific at any one time during World War II. Read more

The USS Wolverine and USS Sable never saw battle, but provided training sites for many American Navy and Marine Corps aviators during World War II.

U.S. Navy

The USS Wolverine and Sable in World War II

by Robert Haymes

In August 1942, the U.S. Navy acquired the 1913 USS Seeandbee (using the initials of its parent company, the Cleveland and Buffalo Transit Company), the world’s largest side-wheel passenger steamer, and began converting it into a training carrier. Read more

U.S. Navy

Sinking the USS Reuben James

By Joseph Connor, Jr.

When the destroyer USS Reuben James (DD-245) was assigned to convoy duty in the North Atlantic in the autumn of 1941, its crew had a sense of foreboding and feared the worst. Read more

U.S. Navy

The First Victory

By David H. Lippman

Both sides needed reinforcements.For the Japanese and the Americans in October 1942, the battle for Guadalcanal was turning into a bottomless pit, demanding more and more scarce resources—in the air and at sea  and, most importantly, on the ground. Read more

Despite numerous attempts to deescalate the situation on both sides, Fort Sumter was fired upon in April 1861, marking the start of the American Civil War.

U.S. Navy

American Civil War Timeline: the Road to War

by William Welsh

One of the catalysts for a major rebellion in the United States were irregular warfare in “Bleeding Kansas” from 1854 to 1861 between anti-slavery Free Staters and pro-slavery border ruffians. Read more

U.S. Navy

Against the Odds: Jeanette Rankin

By Martin K.A. Morgan

An Associated Press report described “a chorus of hisses and boos” that echoed through the chamber when the Congresswoman from Montana cast her vote. Read more

U.S. Navy

Sen Toku: Japan’s Underwater Aircraft Carriers

By Steven D. Lutz

As soon as Colonel James Doolittle’s  B-25 raid struck Japan in April 1942, Japan sought to wreak revenge on the United States, but by 1944 devastating aerial bombings on Japan by the Americans had become all too regular. Read more