U.S. Navy

An Ace in a day: Ted Crosby’s Air War in the Pacific

Lieutenant (j.g.) John “Ted” Crosby banked his Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat around, observing the life-and-death drama that was unfolding below him. Read more

U.S. Navy

Alex Vraciu: U.S. Navy Ace, Philippines Guerrilla

On June 23, 1944, Lieutenant (j.g.) Alex Vraciu posed for a photo with Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, commander of Task Force 58, aboard the aircraft carrier Lexington. Read more

U.S. Navy

A P-38 Pilot Describes the Attack on Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

When American air ace Major John Mitchell led 16 Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters on the longest combat mission yet flown (420 miles) on April 18, 1943, Mitchell’s target was Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese admiral considered the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. Read more

U.S. Navy

First Battle of Savo Island: The U.S. Navy’s Worst Defeat

A United States naval task force bearing the U.S. 1st Marine Division arrived off Guadalcanal, in the eastern Solomon Islands, on the morning of August 7, 1942, and launched the first American offensive operation of World War II. Read more

U.S. Navy

Operation Long Jump: The Nazi Assassination Attempt on the “Big Three”

In German it was called Operation Rösselsprung, which translates to “Long Jump.” Its goal was to kill or kidnap the Allies’ “Big Three” leaders––Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston S. Read more

U.S. Navy

Sub Hunters Over the Bay of Biscay

“Am over enemy submarine in position …”

Cut off in mid-transmission, this contact report came from a U.S. Read more

U.S. Navy

Max Horton: Leading the Charge Against the U-Boats

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who rode in a cavalry charge in the Sudan in 1898, escaped from the Boers in 1899 and served for six months as a troop leader in the Western Front trenches in 1915-1916, remarked during World War II, “The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.” Read more

U.S. Navy

Last Man In Hell: A Navy Beachmaster on Omaha Beach

The Landing Craft Mechanized (LCM) carrying Army engineers and Navy beachmasters hit a mine on its way into Omaha Beach. Read more

U.S. Navy

“John Ford’s Navy”: A Filmmaker in the OSS

With such award-winning films as Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, and How Green Was My Valley behind him, John Ford was one of Hollywood’s most respected directors by the time World War II broke out in 1939. Read more

U.S. Navy

Silver Salvage in Caballo Bay: Japan’s Sabotaged Treasure Hunt

Early in the morning of July 8, 1942, in the calm waters of Caballo Bay south of Corregidor Island in the Philippines, a casco, a 12-foot by 60-foot flat-bottomed wooden diving barge, bobbed placidly in the open water 120 feet above the ocean floor. Read more

U.S. Navy

Mission to Madagascar: British Assault on Diego Suarez Port

In early 1942 things could have hardly looked bleaker for the Allies. In Europe, Hitler’s war machine had steamrolled across the entire continent and was now battling before the gates of Moscow. Read more

U.S. Navy

Seaplane Destroyers in the Pacific

The Fletcher-class destroyer was one of the finest, most versatile warships of World War II. More than 170 of them were built, a figure that far exceeds the total of any other type of warship of the era. Read more

U.S. Navy

The Port Chicago Disaster: The Largest Mutiny Trial in U.S. History

After sundown on July 17, something happened at a small port town 40 miles northeast of San Francisco that has never been fully explained…

The 7,500-ton Liberty ship SS E.A. Read more

U.S. Navy

Prelude to Iwo Jima: The Japanese Assault On B-29 Base On Marianas

From an altitude of 30,000 feet, the swift Japanese reconnaissance aircraft flew high over Saipan and Tinian, photographing the brisk and extensive engineering effort under way on the American airfields far below. Read more

U.S. Navy

The USS Houston and the Battle of Sunda Strait

The heavy cruiser USS Houston ventured into the Sunda Strait off the coast of Java on the dark night of February 28, 1942, and was never heard from again. Read more

U.S. Navy

A Newspaper Headline Nearly Exposed the U.S. Navy’s Codebreaking Success Against Japan

Stanley Johnston, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune accredited to the Navy as a correspondent, had made two forays into the South Pacific aboard the aircraft carrier Lexington. Read more

U.S. Navy

The Pointe du Hoc Rangers: a Madman’s D-Day Mission

On the morning of June 6, 1944, the 2nd Ranger Battalion, commanded by Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder, began its ascent of a sheer 100-foot precipice called Pointe du Hoc. Read more

U.S. Navy

Torpedo Squadron 8: Their Heroic Flight at the Battle of Midway

The pilots of Bombing Squadron 6 could not believe what they were seeing on the morning of June 4, 1942. Read more

U.S. Navy

How the Men of the USS West Virginia Died During Pearl Harbor

When Nathan and Jane Olds of Stanton, ND; Ralph and Vera Endicott of Aberdeen, Wash.; and Effie Costin of Henryville, Ind., Read more

U.S. Navy

Donald R. Lobaugh: From Delinquent to Medal of Honor Recipient

Donald R. Lobaugh was a juvenile delinquent, a kid sent to reform school when he was 16 years old. Read more