Naval History Blog

Interested in reading any of these books?  Come visit the Navy Department Library at the Washington Navy Yard. 

America in Vietnam : the war that couldn’t be won / by Herbert Y. Schandler

America’s captives : treatment of POWs from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror / by Paul J. Springer

The blocking of Zeebrugge : Operation Z.O. 1918 / by Stephen Prince

Blood on the snow : the Carpathian winter war of 1915 / by Graydon A. Tunstall

British aircraft carriers 1939-45 / by Angus Konstam ; illustrated by Tony Bryan

The Cambridge companion to the Roman historians / edited by Andrew Feldherr

The Cambridge history of the Cold War / edited by Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad

Cataclysm : General Hap Arnold and the defeat of Japan / by Herman S. Wolk

The Cockleshell raid : Bordeaux 1942 / by Ken Ford ; illustrated by Howard Gerrard

The complete Victoria Cross : a full chronological record of all holders of Britain’s highest award for gallantry / by Kevin Brazier

Conceiving the empire : China and Rome compared / edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler, Achim Mittag

The Coral Sea 1942 : the first carrier battle / by Mark Stille ; illustrated by John White

The empire project : the rise and fall of the British world-system, 1830-1970 / by John Darwin

The forts of New France : the Great Lakes, the Plains and the Gulf Coast, 1600-1763 / by René Chartrand ; illustrated by Brian Delf ; series editor Marcus Cowper

German battleships 1914-18 (2) : Kaiser, König and Bayern classes / by Gary Staff ; illustrated by Paul Wright

German commerce raider vs. British cruiser : the Atlantic & the Pacific 1941 / by Robert Forczyk

Hell in An Loc : the 1972 Easter Invasion and the battle that saved South Viet Nam / by Lam Quang Thi

Israel’s lightning strike : the raid on Entebbe, 1976 / by Simon Dunstan

Italian Blackshirt, 1935-45 / by P. Crociani & P. P. Battistelli ; illustrated by G. Rava

Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940 : truth, Justice and memory / by by George Sanford

Lincoln and the decision for war : the northern response to secession / by Russell McClintock

Regia Aeronautica : the Italian Air Force 1923-1945: an operational history / by Chris Dunning

Rommel’s desert war : waging World War II in North Africa, 1941-1943 / by Martin Kitchen

The Soviet counterinsurgency in the western borderlands / by Alexander Statiev

USN cruiser vs IJN cruiser : Guadalcanal 1942 / by Mark Stille

Violence and social orders : a conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history / by Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, Barry R. Weingast

The war for Korea, 1950-1951 : they came from the north / by Allan R. Millett

Who dares wins : the SAS and the Iranian Embassy Siege 1980 / by Gregory Fremont-Barnes

This color film of the Japanese Surrender was taken on 2 September 1945 by Commander George F. Kosco, USN. In 2010, the Kosco family restored the film and kindly presented the NHHC with a copy of the film.  Original film is silent.

On 11 September 1942, Pharmacist’s Mate First Class (PhM1/c) Wheeler B. Lipes agonized over the most difficult decision of his life. He had just diagnosed his shipmate, Seaman First Class Darrel D. Rector, with acute appendicitis. With their submarine Seadragon (SS-194) cruising in enemy waters, there was no way to get Rector to port in time. World War II submarines always carried a well trained corpsman, but their small, 55-man complement did not rate a doctor. Lipes could attempt an appendectomy, but the operation might kill his shipmate.

After joining the Navy in 1936, Lipes had received his medical training in the Navy hospital course in San Diego and had served at the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia and at the Naval Hospital in Canacao near Manila before entering the submarine service in 1941. Classified as an electro cardiographer, he had assisted Navy doctors during many operations, including several appendectomies.

On 8 September 1942, the Seadragon was several days and thousands of miles out from Fremantle, Australia, on her fourth war patrol, cruising off the Indonesian coast, when Rector first came to Lipes complaining of nausea and abdominal pain. Lipes told him to get to his bunk and rest. At first the corpsman thought something might be wrong with Rector’s gall bladder, but Rector soon began to display the classic symptoms of appendicitis: fever, rigid abdominal muscles, abdominal tenderness, and acute, localized pain. Lipes kept Rector in his bunk, packed his abdomen with ice, and restricted him to a liquid diet.

Nevertheless, Rector’s condition worsened. On the morning of 11 September, Lipes reported the situation to the commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander William E. Ferrall. Lipes said that unless Rector received an emergency appendectomy almost immediately, the 19-year-old seaman would die. The skipper asked the pharmacist’s mate what he intended to do. “Nothing,” said Lipes. Ferrall lectured him that everyone had to do the best they could and asked the 23-year-old pharmacist’s mate whether he thought he could do the surgery. “Yes sir, I can do it,” said Lipes, but “everything is against us. Our chances are slim.” The skipper explained the situation to Rector. Would the seaman allow the pharmacist’s mate to operate? “Whatever the doc feels has to be done is okay with me,” said Rector. Ferrall ordered Lipes to perform the surgery.

The skipper took the boat into relatively safe water and submerged to 120 feet to provide a stable platform. Every member of the crew, from the box-plane man to the galley cook, participated in the operation. Lipes boned up on the appendix from a medical book. The ship’s medical kit provided a few basics, including sulfa tablets, twelve hemostats, a packet of scalpel blades, catgut for sutures, and a limited quantity of ether. The rest of the instruments had to be improvised. A hemostat became a scalpel handle. Five tablespoons with the handles bent back served as retractors. Commercially-sterilized “Handi-pads” substituted for gauze sponges. A tea strainer covered with gauze served as a mask for administering the ether. Boiling water and torpedo alcohol provided sterilization. The operation would be performed on the wardroom table, barely long enough for the patient to stretch out on without his head or feet hanging over.

Lipes didn’t know how long the operation would last and whether there was enough ether. He had no way to do a blood count or urinalysis or to monitor the patient’s blood pressure, nor was there any intravenous fluid.

Nevertheless, with everyone at his assigned station, the operation began. Lipes began administering the anesthesia at 1046. Thereafter Lieutenant Franz Hoskins, the Communications Officer, served as anesthetist. With the skipper making and recording detailed observations at four to seven minute intervals, Lipes made the incision at 1107. At first he had difficulty finding Rector’s appendix. But then he slipped his fingers down behind the caecum, and there it was. The distal tip was black and gangrenous.

Lipes detached the appendix, tied it off, removed it, and preserved it in a jar of torpedo alcohol. He cauterized the stump with carbolic acid. He took sulfa, ground from tablets into powder and baked in the ship’s oven to kill off spores, and sprinkled it into the peritoneal cavity. Lipes finished suturing at 1322. Rector regained consciousness less than half an hour later.

The seaman’s three-inch incision healed nicely and he was back on duty in a few days. The Seadragon returned to port six weeks after the operation. The medical officer of the submarine squadron pronounced Rector okay. After examining the appendix, the medical officer concluded that Lipes and his shipmates had indeed saved Rector’s life. When the story broke in the press, Lipes became a national hero.

At bottom, it was training and leadership that saved the seaman’s life. The training Lipes had received had given him the know-how and confidence to perform at a level well above the normal expectations of his rating. The skipper’s decision to order Lipes to perform the surgery reflected his own confidence in the pharmacist’s mate’s training. And it was Lieutenant Commander Ferrall’s leadership that inspired Lipes to go above and beyond the call of duty and enabled him to organize the crew for an operation totally outside the realm of their experience.

On September 2, 1944 Lieutenant Junior Grade George Herbert Walker Bush, then a pilot with Torpedo Squadron Fifty-One (VT-51 ) assigned to the USS San Jacinto (CVL-30) , flew a bombing mission against a Japanese radio station on Chichi Jima.  Despite his TBM Avenger being struck by heavy anti-aircraft fire before reaching the target, Lt.(jg) Bush pressed onward to deliver his payload of four 500-lb. bombs.  This dedication to the completion of his mission earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross. 

Shortly thereafter, clouds of smoke enveloped the cockpit and Bush evacuated the aircraft 1,500 feet above the ocean.  Radioman Second Class John Delaney and gunner Lieutenant Junior Grade William White were not so fortunate.  One of them died when his parachute failed to open and the other went down with the aircraft.  Lieutenant Doug West, an Avenger pilot from VT-51, strafed a Japanese boat that attempted to capture Bush as he as paddled his inflatable life raft out to sea. 

Fighter planes in the area then transmitted his position to the submarine Finback (SS-230) patrolling nearby waters to rescue downed aviators.  A few hours later the submarine sighted him, but being plucked from the ocean did not completely put an end to the danger.  Bush, along with four other pilots, stayed with the submarine for the next thirty days, the remainder of her patrol.  During this time period, Finback sank two small freighters and endured attacks by bombs and depth charges.  The pilots also stood watch searching for enemy planes and vessels. 

After the submarine disembarked the aviators at Midway, Bush was taken to Hawaii for a period of rest and relaxation.  However, concerned about the fate of his crew, Bush boarded a plane to Guam and made his way back to San Jacinto.

Today is the 85^th anniversary of the day in 1925 when the first intended flight from California to Hawaii stopped being a flight and became a sea voyage.  CDR John Rodgers and a crew of four left San Pedro on 31 August but developed fuel problems and landed their PN-9 seaplane on the water.  While Navy ships searched for the plane, Rodgers and his crew rigged a sail from the aircraft’s wing fabric and sailed for nine days to within fifteen miles of Kauai before being met by the submarine R-4, which towed the airplane into port.  CDR Rodgers was killed the next year in a plane crash.

The invasion of South Korea in 1950 nearly resulted in a Communist victory. UN forces were driven into a perimeter around the southeastern port of Pusan when General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, commanding U.S. and UN forces in Korea, decided to launch an amphibious landing against the North Korean flank at Inchon. A successful assault at Inchon and an advance to the nearby South Korean capital of Seoul would sever the main communist supply lines. An attack launched from Pusan would then batter the now cut-off North Korean forces. It was a bold plan.

The Navy knew little of the dangerous waters around Inchon despite the fact that the U.S. had occupied Korea south of the 38th parallel for four years. With a tidal range of over 30 feet, accurate intelligence of Inchon and its water approaches was vital to the success of the landing. No one did more to provide that information than the daring and resourceful Lieutenant Eugene F. Clark, USN, a geographic specialist on MacArthur’s intelligence staff. Clark had enlisted in the Navy in 1934, became a chief yeoman and earned a commission in World War II. He commanded an LST and a transport, and participated in several clandestine operations with the Nationalist Chinese against the communists after the war. Invasion planners needed detailed information about the harbor, the approaches and enemy defenses so they dispatched a reconnaissance team under Lieutenant Clark to get the answers. His small team included two South Korean officers who had fought in World War II and possessed sufficient arms to equip a small irregular force.

Clark’s team landed on Yonghung Do, an island only 14 miles from Inchon, on 1 September 1950. They quickly organized a force of local men and boys to watch the nearby enemy held island of Taebu Do. On the advice of his Korean officers, Clark had brought in rice and dried fish for the islanders, which brought much good will. Clark also equipped Yonghung Do’s one motorized sampan with a .50-caliber machine gun and armed his men with carbines and submachine guns. To acquire intelligence about the enemy, the team seized local fishing sampans-interrogating crewmen who generally professed loyalty to South Korea-and explored Inchon harbor. Clark’s young Korean operatives also infiltrated Inchon, Kimpo air base and even Seoul and returned with valuable information. Clark told the planners that the Japanese-prepared tide tables were accurate, that the mud flats fronting Inchon would support no weight and that the harbor’s sea walls were higher than estimated. Clark also reported that Wolmi Do, an island in Inchon harbor, was fortified with Soviet-made artillery.

The North Koreans, aware of Clark’s presence on Yonghung Do, sent only small parties to the island to investigate his hideaway. On 7 September, however, they sent one motorized and three sailing sampans loaded with troops. South Korean lookouts spotted the approaching boats, enabling Clark and his men to get their “flagship” underway. As Clark closed the enemy, a 37- mm anti-tank gun mounted in the bow of the Communist motorized craft opened up. A shell splashed well in front of Clark’s sampan. Undeterred by their poor shooting, Clark directed his flagship to within 100 yards of the enemy squadron. His .50 caliber machine gun raked two of the North Korean vessels, sinking one and demolishing another. Witnessing this slaughter, the two remaining boats fled the scene. After Clark reported that battle to headquarters, the destroyer Hanson (DD 832) arrived to take off the team. Clark, who had not asked to be extracted, instead requested Hanson’s skipper to pound Taebu Do. Hanson blasted the island with 212 5-inch rounds, covered by Marine Corsairs that bombed and strafed the North Korean positions.

The team stayed on the island and continued their mission. Clark scouted Palmi Do, an island centrally located in the approaches to Inchon, and reported that Canadian raiders had only damaged the lighthouse beacon. Clark was ordered to relight the lamp at midnight on the 15th. On 14 September, Clark’s team moved to Palmi Do and repaired the light. Meanwhile, the North Koreans sent a second contingent to wipe out the force on Yonghung Do that overwhelmed the defenders and executed over 50 men, women and children. Clark avenged their sacrifice when he activated the beacon atop the lighthouse at the appointed time on 15 September. With this light to guide them, the ships of the landing force safely threaded their way through the treacherous approach to Inchon. The Inchon landing was an incredible success and UN forces soon drove the remnants of the North Korean army across the 38th parallel.

In recognition of his heroic work, the Navy awarded Lieutenant Clark the Silver Star and the Army presented him with the Legion of Merit. Clark participated in several other special operations off Korea, earning a Navy Cross and an oak leaf cluster for the Silver Star. Commander Clark retired from the Navy in 1966 and died in 1998.

Heroism is not confined to the battlefield, and opportunities to demonstrate it occur as naval aviators train to be ready for war in time of peace.

On 31 August 1939, the day before war would begin in Europe that would eventually become a global conflict, it was business as usual for naval aviators at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

That morning, 27-year old ENS James H. Eoff, A-V(N), USNR, of Bombing Squadron Four, attached to the Ranger (CV-4) Air Group, took off in a Vought SB2U-1 [Vindicator] from NAS Hampton Roads, on what was slated to be a routine navigation and radio training flight.  Radioman 3d Class Joseph T. George rode in the after cockpit as his passenger.

At about 1022, a witness on the ground heard the sound of an engine cutting out. Eoff, apparently realizing that the plane was in extremis and the terrain below would not permit a forced landing, ordered his passenger to bail out.

Tragically, Radioman 3d Class George’s parachute became fouled on a part of the plane, for he seemed to be dangling some 15 feet behind and below it. Eyewitnesses then saw the SB2U-1 sway from side to side, as if Eoff was trying to dislodge his trapped passenger. In staying at the controls, however, the young pilot sacrificed his own chance to jump clear of the plane in its terminal dive as it plunged to earth in a near-vertical attitude near Stony Creek, Virginia, and crashed, killing both men instantly.

For his courageously remaining with his doomed plane in an attempt to save his passenger’s life, ENS Eoff was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, posthumously.