Naval History Blog

In commemoration of the Centennial of Naval Aviation kick-off event in San Diego this week, NavyTV has dug up from the archives a great video about the USS Intrepid (CV-11), the legendary aircraft carrier, which served this nation from WWII through the height of the Cold War. After being decommissioned in 1974, the Intrepid became the foundation of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City in 1982. Watch The Story of the USS Intrepid here on NavyTV.

16 December, 1910 – LT Theodore G. Ellyson of the submarine service asked to “be assigned to duty in connection with aeroplanes as soon as such duty may become available.” On December 23rd,1910 Ellyson was reassigned becoming the first naval officer sent to flight training.

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Ellyson

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Early flight training in New York

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