Naval History Blog

Cooperation with coalition partners in the protection of the sea lanes is nothing new to the Navy. We were practicing such cooperation from the early days of our history.

During 1823, for example, the United States Navy’s West Indies Squadron, under command of Commodore David Porter, and the Royal Navy squadron, under command of Sir Edward W. C. R. Owen, worked harmoniously together to put down piracies along the coast of the island of Cuba. The two squadrons exchanged recognition signals to prevent misidentifications and avoid unnecessary sea chases. They gave each other intelligence about pirate activity. They loaned each other medical supplies. During one particular antipiracy operation, the British commander politely declined the offer of a small U.S. detachment to place itself under his orders.

When sailors of the two nations cooperated in the salvaging of a pair of American merchantmen that had run aground, Sir Edward Owen reported, “the officers observed each others’ orders according to rank, and our respective crews went to the senior officer for orders and to make their reports while employed personally on board the wrecks or on shore.

The American commander invariably came to me before commencing any new service, for my sanction. They got their vessels under weigh to pick our boats up, let us make use of their pilots, and considered our squadrons as one.”

At the dawn of the 20^th Century, while the Navy fitted out its new warships with guns of greater caliber and sophistication, the methods used to employ them had not changed since the days of sail. As a result, the shots-fired to hits-registered ratio during the Spanish-American War was appalling.

Fortunately for the Americans, the Spanish gunnery was even more dismal.

In 1901 Lieut. William S. Sims met Capt. Percy Scott of the Royal Navy and learned of a new approach dubbed “continuous-aim” firing.

When Sims became Inspector of Target Practice within the Bureau of Navigation, he visited numerous wardrooms and found his presentations well-received. Embracing the new continuous-aim method, gunnery officers drilled their gun crews using a variety of training aids and bred a competitive spirit. Scores climbed as gun crews strove for perfection.

With his enthusiastic leadership, Sims injected a meaningful training regimen that instilled some fun into the ship’s routine and more importantly, contributed to the effectiveness of the U.S. Navy.

In preparation for the relocation to the new state-of-the-art museum facility, the old museum will be closing the doors to the World War II Quonset huts that it has called home since 1956 on September 30, 2010.

A display chronicling the history of the Seabees and Civil Engineer Corps since 1942 will… remain open Monday through Friday from 1000 – 1400. In addition, the museum store will remain will open for limited hours (Monday through Friday from 1000 – 1400) in order to provide service to Seabees and their families with base access. For more information about the museum store, including their on-line catalog, visit their website at www.seabeemuseumstore.org.

In an effort to share the excitement about the new building, the museum will open the new facility to the public three times a month. Beginning October 5, 2010, the new museum will be open the first and third Tuesday and first Saturday of each month from 1000 to 1400. These open house opportunities will provide visitors with a “sneak peek” of the new building and will give them a chance to see “behind-the-scenes” of a museum. Museum staff will be available to give tours and the museum store will be open.

This Army film entitled “The Big Picture:  Admiral Nimitz”  looks at the life and times of of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Thomas Edison did more than invent the light bulb, phonograph, and motion picture camera. He and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels were “fathers” of the Naval Research Laboratory and helped forge a fruitful collaboration between the Navy and academia.

In an interview published in the New York Times in May, 1915, Edison argued that to prepare for World War I the United States should enlist the help of “industry and science.” In particular, he advocated the creation of a government research laboratory, in which might be created “great guns, the minutiae of new explosives, all the technique of military and naval progression, without any vast expense.”

Daniels read the interview and acted immediately to enlist America’s greatest inventor to help form within the Navy a “department of invention and development,” to tap “the natural inventive genius of Americans.” Edison agreed and on 19 September the Naval Consulting Board, as the new organization was called, was born. Edison, his assistant, and 22 representatives of major national engineering societies comprised the board which was charged to advise the Navy on scientific matters and harness the powers of civilian scientists to solve the Navy’s technical problems.

Although the board remained active throughout the war, it never lived up to its promise of becoming an effective liaison between the Navy and civilian scientists and engineers with one exception: a plan to build a research laboratory and thus transform the way in which the Navy conducted its scientific research. With Edison’s backing, Daniels in 1916 was able to convince Congress to appropriate $1.5 million for the laboratory.

Delayed by disagreements about where it should be located and whether its director should be a naval officer or a civilian, it was not until 1923 that the Naval Research Laboratory complex was completed at the southernmost tip of the District of Columbia and the staff of 24 men began work under the direction of Rear Adm. William Strother Smith. Initially focusing on “sound” research, primarily the detection of submarines and improvement of radios, it slowly expanded its areas of activity so that by World War II the NRL began to assume the broad ranging capabilities that characterize it today.

Ironically, neither Daniels, whose tenure as Secretary ended in 1921, nor Edison, who resigned from the Board in a huff that same year, were involved in the opening of the NRL. Nonetheless, it was truly their creation and would not have existed without them.

Stay tuned for more updates from the field as the search for Bonhomme Richard continues!    

The Bonhomme Richard strafing decks with HMS Serapis. Courtesy of The Serapis Project.

On 15 September 1967, River assault boats of the Mobile Riverine Force (TF-117) fought one of their bloodiest engagements of the year against entrenched Viet Cong (VC) forces along the Rach Ba Rai Creek in the Dinh Tuong Province, Vietnam. On this day, a naval convoy transporting elements of the 9th U.S. Army Division was ambushed from both sides of the stream by Viet Cong in fortified bunkers. As recoilless rifle rounds and rockets slammed into minesweepers, monitors, and Armored Troop Carriers (ATC’s), Lieutenant Commander Francis E. “Dusty” Rhodes, the commander of the convoy’s 23 assault craft, issued a terse order by radio: “Fire all weapons.” Dozens of Navy guns responded, some at point blank range.

As the line of boats moved deeper into the ambush, the intensity of the fight grew. Some boats slowed while others sped up, but all poured fire from every operable gun. As fast as they could, the gunners fired, reloaded, and fired again. With only sporadic breaks, the battle continued. Round after round struck both troop carriers and monitors. Three minutes after the fight started monitor 111-2 took two rocket propelled grenade rounds. The boat captain managed to beach the monitor while crewmen worked frantically to repair the damage. The job done quickly, the 111-2 lunged again into midstream.

Around this same time, the command and communications boat took two anti-tank rockets on the port 40-mm. gun mount. The rounds caused no major damage, but a few minutes later, the command boat took another hit. This round knocked Commander Rhodes unconscious, but a few seconds later he was back on his feet, ordering his units to regroup and return downstream out of the enemy’s fortified area. After evacuating casualties and reassigning personnel so that all boats were manned, Lieutenant Commander Rhodes again took his task group up the river and was subjected once more to heavy enemy fire. Hard hit for a second time by a large number of casualties, he nevertheless successfully landed embarked army units ashore in the assigned objective area, and set up a naval blockade of the river. When the battle finally ended the next day, U.S. Army troops tallied 213 Viet Cong killed in action, 600 bunkers destroyed, and a large quantity munitions captured. Total U.S. losses stood at 7 killed and 123 wounded, and Navy losses included three dead and 66 wounded—the largest number of combat casualties suffered by the Navy to date in the Vietnam War.  For his leadership that day, Rhodes received the Navy Cross.

Early in the morning of 15 September 1944, Eugene B. Sledge and his buddies scrambled down the netting hung on the side of the troopship and into an amtrac. When all the men had boarded, the amtrac headed out into the open sea. As the vessel circled, awaiting the signal to head shoreward, long jets of red flame mixed with thick black smoke belched forth with the roar of a thunderclap from the muzzles of 16-inch guns on nearby battleships. The odors of diesel fuel and gunpowder tainted the smell of the salt air. Sledge broke into a cold sweat, his stomach knotted, and his knees nearly buckled with tension.

Suddenly the amtrac engine revved as the driver made for the beach. “We moved ahead, watching the frightful spectacle,” Sledge recalled. “Huge geysers of water rose around the amtracs ahead of us as they approached the reef. The beach was now marked along its length by a continuous sheet of flame backed by a thick wall of smoke. It seemed as though a huge volcano had erupted from the sea, and rather than heading for an island, we were being drawn into the vortex of a flaming abyss.”

“This is it, boys,” yelled the lieutenant as he passed around a half-pint of whiskey.

Sledge refused the offer, afraid he would pass out. At that moment a large shell exploded, barely missing the amtrac. The engine stalled and the amtrac lurched to the left and slammed into the rear of another amtrac. With shells raining down around them, the driver restarted the engine and the amtrac moved forward again. Soon the amtrac came ashore and moved a few yards up the gently sloping sand.

“Hit the beach!” yelled a sergeant.

Sledge and the others piled over the sides as fast as they could. A burst of machine gun fire with white hot tracers snapped through the air at eye level, barely missing Sledge’s head. Sledge tumbled forward onto the island of Peleliu. With shells and bullets tearing at the air above and behind him, Sledge scuttled forward. “The world was a nightmare of flashes, violent explosions, and snapping bullets,” he recalled. “Most of what I saw blurred. My mind was benumbed by the shock of it.”

Amtracs were burning all along the beach. Japanese bullets made long splashes on the water as though flaying it with giant whips. Marines fell as bullets ripped through them. “I shuddered and choked,” Sledge recalled. “A wild desperate feeling of anger, frustration, and pity gripped me.”

Sledge got up, crouched low, and raced forward, meeting up with several buddies. Together, they moved inland. Soon he came across the first enemy dead he had ever seen, a Japanese corpsman and two riflemen. The corpsman lay on his back, his medical kit strewn about him, his abdominal cavity laid open, the glistening viscera bespecked with fine coral dust. A couple of Marine veterans came up and stripped the bodies of souvenirs. The spectacle shocked Sledge. Would he, too, become so callous toward death? He continued advancing.

U.S. Marines have always been considered “naval” infantry, although they would be loath to admit it. Nevertheless, Marines’ experiences have been intimately related to those of sailors, as many Naval Academy graduates choose to become Marine officers, sailors drive the landing craft that put marines ashore, and Navy Corpsmen, Chaplains, and Seabees routinely serve with marines.

World War II provided the Marine Corps with the greatest role in all of its history as the Marines put into action the amphibious doctrine their leadership had been developing since World War I. Sledge, who had enlisted in the Corps on 3 December 1942 and shipped out to the Pacific with the 5^th Marine Regiment, First Marine Division after more than a year of training, symbolizes World War II “island hopping.”

How was Sledge able to press on through the horror of his baptism of fire and muster the courage to fight on at Peleliu and later at Okinawa? A friend of John McCain who had received the Medal of Honor explained that it was “a kind of madness” that came over him, enabling him to fight for his own life and the lives of his buddies. It was rage that sustained Sledge in face to face combat with the enemy. But he also needed the kind of courage that infantrymen from time immemorial have had to muster—the courage simply to lift their exhausted bodies from wet foxholes, to put one foot after the other, to endure one more day. Sledge’s courage demonstrates that no matter what kind of ships and aircraft are available to support them, infantrymen experience a kind of combat that most sailors never experience—crawling through muck and filth and fighting the enemy hand to hand.