Naval History Blog

The nuclear-powered guided missile frigate USS BAINBRIDGE (DLGN 25) commissioned on 6 October 1962. Her first Mediterranean deployment began in February 1963, and included demonstrations of her long-range high speed dash capabilities and operations with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier ENTERPRISE (CVAN 65). BAINBRIDGE returned to the Mediterranean in May 1964, this time joining ENTERPRISE and the guided missile cruiser LONG BEACH (CGN 9) to form the first all-nuclear-powered task group. At the end of July the three ships began Operation Sea Orbit, a two-month unrefueled cruise around the world.

In October 1965 BAINBRIDGE again rounded the Cape of Good Hope, en route to the Western Pacific for the first of eleven Seventh Fleet cruises. Operating for much of this deployment off Vietnam, she screened aircraft carriers, served as a radar-picket ship, and performed search and rescue missions. In June the frigate crossed the Pacific to her new home port, Long Beach, California. Between 1966 and 1973 she conducted five additional Far Eastern tours, which involved additional Vietnam War combat operations as well as voyages to Australia and, beginning in 1970, the Indian Ocean. In 1967-1968 BAINBRIDGE underwent shipyard overhaul and her first nuclear refueling. The ship’s seventh trip to the Far East, beginning in November 1973, included a lengthy visit to the Arabian Sea, a locale that would become very familiar in the coming decades.

BAINBRIDGE received an extensive modernization and refueling between June 1974 and September 1976, with post-overhaul work lasting until April 1977. While in the shipyard, at the end of June 1975, she was reclassified from frigate to cruiser, receiving the new designation CGN 25. Her next Seventh Fleet deployment ran from January to August 1978 and included visits throughout the region, from Japan and Korea to Thailand and Singapore, with her homeward-bound voyage taking her to Australia and through the South Pacific. BAINBRIDGE made three more WestPac tours from 1979 to 1983, each of which involved extensive operations in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.

After receiving her final nuclear refueling overhaul in 1983-1985, BAINBRIDGE left the Pacific after two decades, transited the Panama Canal and rejoined the Atlantic Fleet. Her operations thereafter comprised counter-drug smuggling patrols in the Caribbean; several deployments to northern European waters; and four Mediterranean cruises, including combat operations off Libya in 1991-1992, a Red Sea and Arabian Gulf tour, and service as the flagship of the Standing Naval Forces, Atlantic, in 1994. Inactivated in October 1995, BAINBRIDGE decommissioned in September 1996.

Standing at attention during the playing of The Star Spangled Banner, saluting the national ensign, and reciting the “Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag” are all acts performed occasionally by most Americans and regularly by the men and women who wear the uniforms of the armed services. These acts have meaning because of the flag’s symbolic significance. The stars and stripes represent the nation’s independence, the sacrifices that established and have maintained our freedom, and our national values embodied in the Declaration of Independence. This is why the displaying of a large stars and stripes flag on a building opposite the site of the Twin Towers had such a powerfully emotional impact on 11 September 2001.

From the very beginnings of the United States, the flag has played a role in the careers of all naval personnel. Perhaps in no Sailor’s story, however, has the country’s flag figured more prominently than in that of the Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones. Jones is remembered for bringing America’s fight for liberty to the shores of the enemy—the Ranger’s capture of HMS Drake in the Irish Sea, the raid on Whitehaven, Scotland, and especially the Bonhomme Richard ’s capture of HMS Serapis in the Battle off Flamborough Head, within site of the English shore. As proud as he was of these accomplishments at the birth of the nation, John Paul Jones boasted as well of his association with the birth of the flag.

Even before the American colonies were independent or had adopted a national ensign to symbolize their rights as a free and equal people, John Paul Jones understood the power of a flag to embody the aspirations of a nation and to inspire loyalty. On 6 December 1775, as the Continental Navy ship Alfred’s newly commissioned first lieutenant, Jones hoisted the Grand Union flag of the thirteen united colonies. Recalling this event four years later, he wrote, “I hoisted with my own hands the flag of freedom the first time it was displayed on board the Alfred in the Delaware.”

On 4 July 1777, the first anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Captain John Paul Jones hoisted the stars and stripes flag on board his own command, the Continental Navy ship Ranger, then in Boston Harbor fitting out for a cruise against the enemies of the Scottish born Jones’s adopted country. Just a few weeks earlier, on 14 June 1777, meeting in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, the Continental Congress decreed the design for the new nation’s national ensign. Congress resolved “that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” Later that same day, Congress appointed Jones commander of the Ranger, the ship in which he would make the enemy taste the bitter draft of war in their home waters.

On 14 February 1778, seven months after first hoisting the stars and stripes aboard Ranger, Jones exchanged salutes with a French fleet’s flagship in Quiberon Bay, France. On 6 February the French king had secretly signed treaties of commerce and of alliance with the United States. The exchange of salutes in Quiberon Bay was the first official public act of recognition of the flag of the United States as an independent nation by another sovereign country.

On this Fourth of July, aware of the place of the flag in the career and in the heart of John Paul Jones, one of the founders of the Navy’s proud heritage, we might consider what the flag means to us.

Now Hear This – the GI Film Festival is coming to the Navy Memorial next week!

The GI Film Festival, the nation’s first and only military film festival, is coming to the Navy Memorial May 9-15, 2011. We have a week full of celebrity red carpet events, dazzling parties and inspirational films by and about our servicemembers and veterans.

Watch a preview here on NAVY TV – there’s also a highlight film of the 2010 Festival.

Buy your tickets for the GI Film Festival here and enter code “MIL11″ for a discount.  See you THERE!

 The St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959, allowing large ships to transit from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. That summer, the U.S. Navy launched Operation Inland Seas, a massive public relations tour of the lakes by ships from the Atlantic Fleet. This 1960 documentary, narrated by Glenn Ford, tells the story.

Source: Naval History and Heritage Command, Photographic Section, UM-23.

Tai Sing Loo was the official Navy photographer of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In this excerpt from Air Raid: Pearl Harbor edited by Paul Stillwell, Mr. Loo provided a unique account of his experiences that day.

Tai on his famous "put put" wearing his trademark helmet.

On the 6th of December, Saturday afternoon, I had made arrangement with [Platoon] Sergeant [Charles R.] Christenot to have all his Guard be at the Main Gate between 8:30 to 9:30 o’clock Sunday morning to have a group of picture taken in front of the new concrete entrance as a setting with the “Pearl Har­bor” for Christmas card to send home to their fam­ily.

Sunday morning I left my home for Pearl Harbor after 7:00 o’clock. I was waiting for my bus at corner Wilder Avenue and Metcalf Street.

The Army/Navy rivalry existed well before the first football game took place. Both schools would routinely challenge the other, but not being able to decide on which sport to compete in, the two schools didn’t meet until November 29th 1890. This first game took place in Westpoint with Navy taking home the win 24-0.

Navy football team of 1890

Bottom: Pearson, ’93; Laws, ’91; Althouse, ’91; Beuret, ’92.
Middle: Syminton, ’92; Emrich, ’91 (Team Captain); Johnson, ’93; Hartung, ’91.
Top: Macklin, ’92; Trench, ’93; Irwin, ’91; Lane, ’91; Ward, ’93; Smith, ’91

Opening Kick-off 1890

On November 20th 1933, LCDR Thomas G.W. Settle, USN and MAJ Chester I. Fordney, USMC set a world record balloon flight into the stratosphere at 62,237 ft.

LCDR Settle & MAJ Fordney

The Soviet Union had captured the imagination of the world by sending men higher than anyone had ever gone before. America’s response was made shortly afterward by a naval officer and a Marine officer. Their names were not Shepard and Glenn, and the time was not the Sixties, but the Thirties. In an all-but-forgotten flight, two American military men carried their country’s colors to a world altitude record and began the race for space …

From the article; “When the Race for Space Began” by J. Gordan Vaeth printed in Proceedings August, 1963

This 2012, Operation Sail and the US. Navy will once again bring the glory of tall ships to the American seaboard to celebrate the bicentennial of our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.

A parade of magnificent tall ships and warships, from over 25 nations, will sail to five historic ports:  New Orleans, Norfolk, Boston, Baltimore, and New York City and join America in commemoration of this national milestone.

Operation Sail, (OpSail), a national non-profit organization dedicated to promoting goodwill among nations, and the development of youth through sail training, was conceived in 1961 by Frank Braynard and Nils Hansell. Following the endorsement of President John F. Kennedy, OpSail came to life in 1964 by successfully bringing the remaining tall ships of the world to New York City in conjunction with the 64’ World’s Fair.

Since then, OpSail events have taken place in 1976 for the Bicentennial, 1986 for Lady Liberties 100th, 1992 for the Columbus 500^th, and 2000 for the Millennium—and each event has been larger than the last.