Naval History Blog

        In November 1957, Proceedings published an article by Commander J. Davis Scott of the U.S. Naval Reserve, about a rescued aviator’s extraordinary experience aboard a destroyer during an attack by Japanese planes.  The article, which was written on the USS Bennington while it was a member of Task Force 58 off Okinawa, is prefaced with the following note:       

        For more than ten years this has been an untold story.  Written aboard the USS Bennington (CV-20)—a member of Task Force 58—during the weeks when the Bennington was a vital part of the “Fleet That Came to Stay” off Okinawa in 1945, the article was withheld from publication by Commander-in-Chief Pacific Ocean Area because it told too much about the success of the dreaded Japanese kamikaze.  It has now been released by the Department of Defense.  Few personal tales in World War II can compare with that experienced by Marine Lieutenant Junie B. Lohan during the height of the kamikaze attacks. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

The Bolshevik seizure of power following the 1917 October Revolution plunged Russia into a protracted and bloody civil war. The Civil War’s destabilizing affects led to an international intervention. Among this international group were Great Britain, France, Japan, China, and the United States. Between 1918 and 1920, the allied powers deployed military expeditions to major Russian ports to protect allied citizens and support anti-communist forces.

One place where the United States Navy and Marine Corps participated in this effort was the Siberian port of Vladivostok, where U.S.S. Brooklyn under Rear Admiral Austin M. Knight was stationed in order to protect U.S. interests. During the spring and summer of 1918 the Czech Legion, a Czechoslovakian military force that had fought with the Russian Tsar’s army, found itself in open conflict with the Bolsheviks. The Czech forces subsequently seized a number of cities across Siberia. On June 29th, the Legion took control of Vladivostok and arrested the Bolsheviks in the city. That day, Admiral Knight deployed a detachment of 31 Marines under the command of 2nd Lieutenant Conrad S. Grove to guard the American consulate and maintain security. On July 6th, Admiral Knight, together with representatives from British and Chinese forces, issued a statement that the city would be taken under the protection of the Allied Powers, which would use all means necessary, “for its defense against dangers both external and internal.” The Consulate Guard remained until August 10th and a Marine Corps patrol was maintained at the Russian Navy Yard between August 4th and August 24th.

Between 1918 and 1922, Vladivostok became an important center for Russians fleeing the Bolshevik regime. Many came to the city on their way to safety in countries such as China, Australia, and the United States. During this period, U.S. Marines would make two more landings. On July 30, 1919, 31 Marines under 1st Lieutenant Leland S. Swindler disembarked from the New Orleans for two days to protect American interests in the nearby town of Tyutuke Bay. The next year, Marines were deployed to guard a U.S. backed radio station on Rusky Island, in Vladivostok Bay. The guard remained on the island until November 1922.

Throughout this period in Vladivostok, Marines and sailors worked together to protect American and international interests, maintain order, and protect individuals fleeing the Bolshevik regime during a period of great instability and uncertainty.

Ten years ago, Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig reflected on the terrorist attack on the USS Cole. Today we remember and honor the crew with his words, written in his Proceedings magazine article, “America Loves Its Citizens”:

“Mr. Secretary, we will save this ship. We will repair this ship. We will take this ship home, and we will sail this ship again to sea.”

One of the reasons that I love America is because it loves its citizens. In other times, and on this very day in other places, people are regarded as means and not ends, as fodder, stepping-stones, dispensable assets. Because we are not like that, we grieve today. We see in the 17 people who died on October 12th 17 wonders, 17 sons and daughters. We mourn brothers and sisters, mothers, fathers, and those who will never be mothers and fathers. Seventeen unique people. We cherish them. We grieve because we could not protect them. Instead, they died protecting us.

That we live in America is, in itself, an act of grace. We came to it naturally; we were born into it. Or we were welcomed as immigrants; we were naturalized. By either route, America has been for everyone of us a gift, and what a stupendous gift, a country that was built collectively but cherishes us individually; a country built of the effort of servicemen and statesmen, farmers and factory workers, those who toiled on the railroad and those who bankrolled it. Our philosophers, our politicians, our priests, all together, created something bigger than any of us; and then, they gave it to us.

Any true gift is infused with opportunity, and responsibility that arises from that opportunity. An inherent talent, a good education, money in the bank—they all cry to the recipient, What will you make of this? What will you do individually? What will we do collectively in light of how many have done so much for us?

These 17 answered that question. They didn’t opt just for themselves; they didn’t stay home; they didn’t turn away from their country. They put themselves out there. They joined a family, the United States Navy, and the USS Cole (DDG-67)—a ship, the very essence of a group enterprise. And think not just of these 17. Think of the 39 who were injured, and then think of the 240 beyond them; the 240 who absorbed the shock of the explosion, who saw the death of 17, the injury of two score, but who turned to and fought on; fought together for their ship and for their shipmates.

For two days and two nights, they fought under the most extreme conditions—blood, bent and broken steel, flooding, uncertainty, and danger. They saved their ship, their injured—every one of them—and each other. And then their generators failed. The waters rose, and they, had to do it all over again. Waistdeep in water, manning bucket brigades by hand, they did it again. Amidst all of that, their captain said to me,

“Mr. Secretary, we will save this ship. We will repair this ship. We will take this ship home, and we will sail this ship again to sea.”

In every gift there is a responsibility. The Cole has given us a gift. The 17 join more than 1.3 million service men and women who have given us their lives. Thirty-nine from the Cole were injured; 240 fought on. All together, they added a building block to America. Will we, as recipients of this gift, live up to them? I think we will; we’re Americans.

Thank you, Cole.

Also: USS Cole (DDG 67): A guest post from CDR Kirk S. Lippold, USN (Ret.)

Fuller, Howard J. Clad in Iron: The American Civil War and the Challenge of British Naval Power. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2008.

     Civil War naval histories are itself a niche market in the spectrum of scholarship written about the five year conflict. As we draw near the beginning of the sesquicentennial celebration of the American Civil War, a cursory examination of previous scholarship reveals an obsession with fleet operations and technology. It is no surprise then that monographs written about famous naval battles and leaders of the Union and Confederacy will continue to increase in their appeal. Yet what is perceived as new scholarship about the dawn of modern naval warfare more often a metaphorical “slight of hand” to previous arguments. University of Wolverhampton Senior War Studies lecturer Howard J. Fuller’s recent work, Clad in Iron: The American Civil War and the Challenge of British Naval Power, breaks this chain, offering readers an interesting and insightful interpretation to the Civil War’s most overlooked aspect.

     Amidst the greatest test in our nation’s history, massive technological, political, and social change occurred on all fronts in the United States. Between these lines of conventional wisdom, a far more pressing issue occurred between policymakers in Washington and London over the threat of war. Fuller discusses these issues thoroughly from a naval perspective, examining the diplomatic and strategic goals of Britain’s budding ironclad navy in direct response to American sea power.

     Clad in Iron is not a narrative of conflict so often found in Civil War historiography. The focus instead resides in how conflict was ultimately avoided with Britain. Even in the wake of an international crisis like the TrentAffair, an unnecessary war between Britain would be an equally unprepared one between fleets on either side of the Atlantic. That possibility of war from the British perspective, Fuller suggests, became a necessary challenge to the growth of a large maritime force in the pre-Dreadnaught era. Victory in 1865 became a dual one over the Confederacy militarily and the British diplomatically.

     Clad in Iron begins with an informative discussion on why Anglo-French naval policy before the Civil War inexorably altered the course of change in America. Although the British ironclad program “began purely as a response to the establishment of the French ironclad fleet of Napoleon III,” focus shifted after the introduction of the American program in the first two years of the war. It is interesting to note how Fuller details the naval rivalry between France’s La Gloire and Britain’s Warrior occurred well before the Monitor and Virginiaever engaged in combat. Naval architects like Captain Cowper Coles and Dupuy de Lôme are given due credit to the evolution and revolution of ironclad navies normally reserved only for John Ericsson.

     Several chapters are devoted to the “war within,” as the debate and hesitancy of Union political and military officials mirrored that of Great Britain. The need to satisfy Washington of a sufficient coastal force with the possibility of foreign intervention became the ammunition to the argument for the ambitious program initiated by Ericsson. Fuller posits the necessity of such ambition in correlation to the “vested interest” of Britain in the failure of the southern blockade. He notes how Union War Secretary William H. Seward feared British reception during the beginning years of the war under the backdrop of events like the 1861 Trent Affair and Battle of Hampton Roads. The best chapter in the book, “Two Ironclad Adversaries,” sums up a large portion of this central theme. Fuller feels that necessity of an effective ironclad navy was built in direct response to both the Confederacy and Great Britain, one being “actual” and the other “potential.”

     With regards to Hampton Roads, it is one of Fuller’s main points to mention how Monitors were used not for their capacity to become the scourge of Confederate fleets and coastal force, but as a technological “check” to competing programs in Britain as well. The Trent Affair is used “in direct contrast to the battle of Hampton Roads,” because “the Anglo-American naval balance of power was completely upset” in a mere three month window. Fuller also suggests the greatest loser in mid-19th century naval innovations was the French. Through clash of armor, Union and Confederate ironclad warships confirmed British suspicions while damning the French’s narrow disregard for such vessels. It would be multi-turreted ships that survived and evolved after the war, not broadside and sail ironclads as the French suspected. The Monitor’s innovation brought forth the emergence of the first turreted capital ship in the Royal Navy, HMS Devastation. Fuller makes good use of the ironclad-era to detail how events occurring in one conflict continually shaped others.

     One of Clad in Iron’s hallmarks is the method Fuller uses to formulate his arguments. Interpretations of events are taken from letters and reports written by sailors, foreign ministers, and politicians. The analysis is evenhanded and methodical, often offering comparisons in minute details like tonnage and budgetary restrictions. Indeed, Fuller intends to leave no stone unturned. More interesting is the analysis of print media in the United States and Great Britain. Fuller makes the reader believe that the threat of foreign intervention was at a state of near paranoia in both countries, with its only solution through the use of iron-wielded steam power, not amassed troops and musket fire.

     Flaws to Clad in Iron are merely superficial. More attention might be paid in future scholarship on the relationship Britain and Confederate blockade running, which is mentioned only in passing. Fuller also gives very little credit to the Union’s broadside ironclad USS New Ironsides, which many consider to be a comparable vessel to the Monitor.

     Civil War historians will champion the level of care taken by Fuller to accurately document and chronicle the challenge British naval experts and politicians had on the American ironclad program. His work is highly recommended for scholars and layman alike who might find interest in the unspoken foe across the Atlantic chessboard. Clad in Iron is not the definitive Civil War naval history written on the heels of the sesquicentennial, but it is a fantastic and fresh start.