U.S. Navy

Mission Critical Overlord Weather

By Gene J. Pfeffer

Operation Overlord, the cross-Channel attack that hit the Nazi-occupied beaches of Normandy in 1944, was the culmination of a grand strategy adopted early in the war, followed sporadically during the years of conflict, and aimed at defeating Hitler’s Reich by striking directly at Germany by invasion. Read more

U.S. Navy

Hemingway Goes Sub Chasing

By Robert E. Cray, Jr.

“We are going to have Christ’s own bitter time to win it, if, when, and ever,” commented Ernest Hemingway to his friend and editor, Charles Scribner, at the start of World War II. Read more

USS Boise’s near destruction at Cape Esperance by an underwater shell hit had not been a fluke.

U.S. Navy

Japan’s “Diving Shells” in the Battle of Cape Esperance

By David Alan Johnson

The eight-inch shell that penetrated the cruiser’s hull and threatened to blow up her forward magazines was a Type 91 armor-piercing shell, which had been designed to continue through the water when it fell short of its target and penetrate the ship’s hull below the waterline. Read more

U.S. Navy

Hell on New Britain

By Adam Lynch

The American effort to neutralize the big Japanese air-sea base at Rabaul on the island of New Britain in the South Pacific was heating up, and 18-year-old aviation radioman John Kepchia was about to feel the heat. Read more

“Old Ironsides” was a young country’s first formidable weapon of war.

U.S. Navy

The USS Constitution

By John D. Gresham

Today restored to museum quality and lovingly cared for by a U.S. Navy crew, the USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides,” is the living symbol of America’s first generation of warships, built in response to external threats that a young United States would have preferred to ignore. Read more

U.S. Navy

Colonel Hiromishi Yahara’s Story at Okinawa

by John Walker

It was Colonel Hiromishi Yahara who designed and implemented the jiykusen, or the yard-by-yard battle of attrition that cost the American forces so many casualties in the three-month battle, and he was the highest ranking officer to survive the battle and make it back to Tokyo. Read more

U.S. Navy

Fire Control at the Battle of Surigao Strait

by David Alan Johnson

One of the main reasons for the success of the battleships West Virginia, Tennessee, and California at Surigao Strait was their Mk 8 fire control radar, which was used in conjunction with the Mk 8 rangekeeper computer. Read more

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