U.S. Navy

The Concrete Fleet of WWII

By Brandt Heatherington

It is a fact that war has sparked some amazing innovations. It has at the same time spawned incredible desperation. Read more

U.S. Navy

USS Midway: Floating Museum in San Diego Harbor

By Christopher Miskimon

A boat trip through San Diego harbor provides visitors with tangible proof of America’s military might. San Diego is one of the U.S. Read more

U.S. Navy

Wake Island: Alamo in the Pacific

By Kelly Bell

It was already December 8, 1941, on Wake Island’s side of the international date line. The Americans on the tiny specks of land in the western Pacific Ocean roused themselves at 6 am. Read more

U.S. Navy

Confident Carrier Admiral Marc “Pete” Mitscher

By Michael D. Hull

He was a seagoing J.E.B. Stuart who hid beneath weather fronts to make his attacks, and he fought more naval engagements than John Paul Jones and David Farragut combined. Read more

U.S. Navy

The Magnificent Jeep

By Michael D. Hull

General of the Army George C. Marshall called it America’s greatest contribution to modern warfare. General Dwight D. Read more

U.S. Navy

Fiasco at the Bay of Pigs

By Peter Kross

On the morning of April 18, 1961, readers of the New York Times awoke to a startling headline: “Anti-Castro Units Land in Cuba; Report Fighting at Beachhead; Rusk Says U.S. Read more

U.S. Navy

The “Pueblo Incident”: The U.S. Navy’s Grave Miscalculation

By John Walker

The humiliating seizure of the American spy ship Pueblo on January 23, 1968, by North Korean gunboats proved both an enormous intelligence setback and a searing indictment of America’s Cold War policy. Read more

U.S. Navy

Clash at Surigao Strait: The Last Battle Line

By David Lippman

In the distance, they could see the jagged flashes of lightning, an incoming squall in the dark. Just before the rain arrived, so did St. Read more

U.S. Navy

From Pearl Harbor to Bikini: The USS Curtiss in Action

By Glenn Barnett

Gene Verge was born in Pasadena, California, in 1918. As a young man in 1941 he faced the probability of being drafted. Read more

U.S. Navy

Means of Grace, Hope of Glory

By Robert Barr Smith

They carried no weapons, only holy books and rudimentary vestments, a crucifix or a Star of David and sometimes a little Communion kit. Read more

U.S. Navy

Soviet Invasion of Manchuria: Catching Japan Unawares

By John Walker

At 11:02 am on August 9, 1945, an American warplane dropped an atomic device nicknamed “Fat Man” onto the city of Nagasaki, Japan. Read more

U.S. Navy

Hedy Lamarr: Allied Inventor and Actress

By Eric Niderost

Hedy Lamarr was the most beautiful actress of her generation, a celluloid diva who was the epitome of Hollywood glamour, sensuality, and sophistication. Read more

U.S. Navy

George C. Marshall: Architect of Victory

By Michael D. Hull

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was disturbed in the autumn of 1938 by the Munich agreement, at which the rights of Czechoslovakia were signed away, and by reports of mounting air strength in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Read more

U.S. Navy

WWII Vehicles: The Island-Hopping LVT

By R.J. Seese

While making business calls in Tampa, Florida, during the summer of 1980, I spotted a strange looking tracked contraption atop an overgrown pedestal in front of the U.S. Read more

U.S. Navy

Operation Plunder: Crossing the Rhine

By David Lippman

“I am busy getting ready for the next battle,” Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery wrote his son David in early March 1945. Read more

U.S. Navy

The Battle of the Coral Sea

By John Wukovits

World War II was less than six months old when the American public, already stunned by the debacles at Pearl Harbor and Guam, faced one of its darkest moments. Read more

U.S. Navy

Perilous Rescue of the SS Cape San Juan

By Eric Niderost

The giant Martin PBM-3R “Mariner” landed with a kind of swanlike grace, its stubby bow parting the waters, transforming them into a series of white and foamy ripples that radiated from the seaplane’s wake. Read more

U.S. Navy

U.S. Forces in the Philippines: Too Little, Too Late

by Sam McGowan

In the popular history of World War II, the assertion that the United States was caught unprepared in Hawaii and the Philippines has become widely accepted as fact. Read more

U.S. Navy

The U-505: WWII To Today

by David Alan Johnson

After its capture, U-505 became USS Nemo and was manned by a U.S. Navy crew. The submarine’s main duty was to sell war bonds, and the former enemy vessel visited seaports up and down the Atlantic coast during her bond tour. Read more

U.S. Navy

Sunken U-boat Found After a 7 Year Search

By Nicholas Varangis

When most people think of World War II battle sites, North America seldom comes to mind. But the recent find of a German U-boat 30 miles off Cape Hatteras on the Carolina coast serves as a reminder of the naval combat that took place just off the shores of the United States. Read more