U.S. Navy

Leonard J. Thom: JFK’s XO on PT-109

The name Leonard Jay Thom may not mean anything to a great many people today, and that is unfortunate. Read more

U.S. Navy

Oahu’s Museums and Memorials

There are few places on earth that have as many World War II museums, memorials, and monuments located in such a small area as the island of Oahu. Read more

U.S. Navy

From the Philippines to Borneo: A PT Boat Skipper’s Life

When the four members of the Japanese surrender delegation climbed aboard the deck of PT-375 on September 8, 1945, the boat’s skipper, Lieutenant Henry “Hank” Blake, directed the men to an open area on the forward deck where the Japanese could be closely watched for any signs of treachery. Read more

U.S. Navy

The Port Chicago Disaster

In the summer of 1944, with American forces battling their way ever closer to the Japanese home islands, the need for ammunition in the Pacific was hitting its peak. Read more

U.S. Navy

Marine Air Power in the Philippines

After the Japanese stopped resisting in the skies over Rabaul and pulled their aircraft out of the Solomons and Bismarcks battle area in mid-February 1944, it began to appear that U.S. Read more

U.S. Navy

The Airborne Defenders of Midway

Prologue: At the start of World War II, Midway Atoll was a key U.S. base in the central Pacific. Read more

U.S. Navy

The Curtiss SB2C Helldiver: An Unpopular and Flawed Allied War Machine

It sent Japanese warships to the bottom of the ocean. It pulverized fortifications on Japan’s home islands. Read more

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

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

“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