Naval History Blog

On September 7, the NHHC Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB), Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, Naval Oceanographic Office, Office of Naval Research, and U.S. Naval Academy along with partners from Ocean Technology Foundation began the 2010 search and survey for Bonhomme Richard. The investigation will take place September 7 through September 21.

A SAAB Double Eagle MKII ROV being launched off the deck of CMT Cassiopée during the May 2010 search for Bonhomme Richard. Photo courtesy of Alexis Catsambis.

On September 23, 1779, Bonhomme Richard,  the flagship of the Continental Navy and commanded by Captain John Paul Jones, participated in one of the fiercest battles of the Revolutionary War against HMS Serapis off the coast of Flamborough Head, England. Although Jones emerged victorious from the battle, Bonhomme Richard was badly damaged and, after drifting for thirty-six hours, sank into the North Sea. If found, the final resting place of Bonhomme Richard could shed new light on US maritime history and would increase public awareness and appreciation for America’s maritime patrimony.

Photo of the USNS Henson, which will serve as the search vessel for the 2010 Bonhomme Richard survey. Photo courtesy of msc.navy.mil.

The survey area was determined using a computer program, developed by the U.S. Naval Academy, which integrates the weather and tidal data, crew actions and the vessel’s last known positions to establish where it might have gone down. The Bonhomme Richard Project teams will use an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) equipped with side scan and multibeam sonar, and a separate high-quality side scan sonar that will be towed behind the search vessel to create an image of the sea floor. NHHC will also be joined by a French Navy minehunter equipped with a robotic underwater video camera and teams of divers to further examine any targets warranting closer investigation. Dr. Robert Neyland, Head of UAB, will act as chief archaeologist and lead the investigation in authenticating and identifying any remains of the ship and its artifacts.

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

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.

The submarine USS Stingray (SS 186) landed fifteen Philippine personnel and six tons of supplies on the island of Luzon on 27 August 1944. This operation was in support of guerilla operations in advance of the U.S. landings in the Philippines. This mission was one of dozens of “special transport” missions carried out by submarines to land, support, or evacuate people ashore on Japanese-held islands throughout the war.

A historical marker near the landing site was dedicated in 2007. Two Stingray sailors and one Blackfin (SS 322) sailor—all in their eighties—attended the ceremony at which the marker was dedicated not only to the Stingray landing, but to all the submarine landings in the Philippines. One Stingray sailor, Basil Wentworth, said that he had been told after the mission that the landing party had been killed soon after arriving, and he did not find out until the year 2000 that the landing had been successful.

This landing mission occurred on the twelfth of Stingray’s sixteen war patrols. Stingray was at Manila on 7 December 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and began her first war patrol immediately. After a wartime record that included numerous special missions and four confirmed sinkings of Japanese merchant vessels, Stingray was decommissioned in late 1945 and sold for scrapping two years later.

Psychological and economic warfare, with the intention of deflecting American forces from the northern theater, rather than a desire to occupy territory, dominated British strategy in the Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.

The Madison administration’s decision not to harness a force strong enough to repel British raids of coastal settlements left the bay vulnerable to repeated attacks. The inability of Secretary of War John Armstrong to plan for the defense of Washington prompted the British to risk an inland march to torch the American seat of power.

A British invasion force landed at Benedict, Maryland, a port on the Patuxent River, on 19 August 1814, resulting in a chaotic scene. Secretary of the Navy William Jones directed the men in the Chesapeake Bay flotilla squadron under Commodore Joshua Barney’s command to join forces with a contingent of Marines to assist the regular army and militia forces. While the naval forces fought bravely at the Battle of Bladensburg on 24 August, the battle-tested British troops easily overran the American position, leaving the American capital vulnerable to attack, as most of the defenders scattered.

Commodore Thomas Tingey, commandant of the Washington Navy Yard since its founding in 1799, had anticipated that the enemy’s forces would target the shipping there. Fearful that valuable naval stores would fall into British hands, Secretary Jones ordered Tingey to torch the Yard. After setting fire to most of the public buildings in the capital, the British entered the Yard on the 25th and burned much of what remained there. After a scant twenty-four-hour occupation, the British left the humbled city. The Navy Yard alone had suffered half a million dollars in losses.

No significant benefit accrued to the enemy beyond humiliating the Americans, as three weeks later British forces failed in their assault on Baltimore.

SCORPION Project barge transported back down the Patuxent after the completion of the field work.

 On August 12, the NHHC Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB), and its partners MD SHA and MHT, successfully completed the first phase of their three-year archaeological investigation of the Patuxent shipwreck believed to be the War of 1812 U.S. block sloop SCORPION.  Firstly, a big thank you to our on-site visitors who made the trip out to Upper Marlboro, MD.  It was great to see you and we really appreciate your support!  We were also glad to welcome members of the press on site to inform them about the SCORPION project, our partnerships and the NHHC and were pleased to see the story covered in the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun and The Capital (Annapolis). 

Underwater archaeologists preparing to dive on the wreck.

 During the first part of the two-week project, UAB’s team of underwater archaeologists, in cooperation with MD SHA and MHT, measured the site and extent of the wreck beneath the sediment via a process called “hydroprobing.”  Based on the data from the hydroprobe, the team was then able to determine which parts of the wreck most warranted investigation.  Archaeologists then removed the overburden (overlying sediment) from specific parts of the wreck using dredge systems; the sediment pulled from the wreck was suctioned up the dredge onto the barges where it was screened by capable staff.  Some artifacts were also recovered and brought back to the UAB Conservation and Archaeology Lab for stabilization, treatment and documentation.  

Again, the UA team is very grateful to MD SHA and MHT as well as URS and SUPSALV. With their help and cooperation, significant progress was made during Phase 1 and we look forward to working with them again on the next phase of the SCORPION project in summer 2011. We’re always glad to talk about the SCORPION project and answer any questions, so feel free to stop by our offices or send us an email (NHHCUnderwaterArchaeology@navy.mil) and stay tuned for more posts!

In June 1944, Allied forces launched an offensive to capture the Marianas Islands from the Japanese. Invasion forces stormed the islands of Saipan, Guam and Tinian in succession, supported by ships and aircraft of the United States Navy.

Offshore, the Battle of the Philippine Sea proved a decisive victory for the Allies. This United States Marine Corps “Official Operations Report,” produced during the war, provides a detailed examination of each phase of the campaign. Using maps and animations, the three films outline landing assignments, naval gunfire support, and air support for each phase of the campaign.

 The story of the battle on each island is brought to life with extensive combat footage of land, sea, and air operations.

These films, with a running time of nearly two and a half hours, stand as an excellent history of a crucial phase in the Pacific island-hopping campaign.

Read the rest of this entry »

On 19 August 1966, SEAL Team One suffered its first combat fatality in Vietnam. While on a reconnaissance mission, a patrol had discovered a series of bunkers and weapons positions along the Dinh Ba River, thirteen miles south-east of Nha Be. They were extracted and reinserted further up river to pinpoint two reported camouflaged sampans that had been spotted by a helicopter. Fresh tracks were discovered, and the sampans were then sighted five hundred meters from the SEAL’s position.

Radarman Second Class Billy W. Machen, a 28 year old sailor from Dallas, Texas, was acting as point man. Coming to a clearing in the jungle growth, RD2 Machen halted the unit and moved ahead into the opening to reconnoiter. As he paused and searched the surrounding area, he suddenly spotted several Viet Cong (VC) guerillas. Rather than retreating and seeking cover, Machen initiated fire and attacked the enemy unit, forcing them to trigger their ambush prematurely. The resulting hail of fire from both banks of the river alerted his fellow SEALs to the danger and allowed them to take cover, return fire, and engage to suppress the VC attack. Machen, however, was killed in the initial fusillade.

For sacrificing his own life for those of his shipmates, he was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, the nation’s third highest medal for valor. More recently, the SEALs named its Desert Warfare Training Facility in California, Camp Billy Machen.

Guest post by Dr. Dave Winkler of the Naval Historical Foundation.

The Naval War College’s multi-million dollar war-gaming facility takes advantage of the latest technologies to add realism to the scenarios. However, war-gaming at Newport harks back to an era long before computers where participants walked over large table-tops to move miniature fleets of varying colors. Before World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy was Orange.

Of course Japan also conducted large sea-battle simulations against its potential cross-Pacific foe. Strongly influenced by their naval victories against the Russians in 1905, the Japanese naval leadership envisioned a “Decisive Battle” strategy. Japanese war gamers steamed the U.S. Navy across the Pacific to defend the Philippines and challenge the Japanese Combined Fleet. Japanese planners believed that through attrition tactics using submarines, destroyer flotillas, and aircraft, the American battle line could be severely weakened before arriving in the vicinity of Japan. Operating close to home waters, Japanese battleships would strike the coup de grace against the exhausted Americans.

Various versions of “War Plan Orange” actually did envision an American naval dash across the Pacific. However, logistics worried the Navy’s planners. For example, the 1917 version of the plan called for the availability of 494 colliers or tankers to fuel the Navy’s warships. Still, advocates for the cross-Pacific dash, labeled “Thrusters” by historian Edward S. Miller, believed Americans would become disillusioned with a long conflict and hence a lunge into the heart of the Japanese Empire would bring the war to a swift conclusion. The “con” group, dubbed “Cautionaries” by Miller, pushed for a more deliberate advance, countering that the swift conclusion forecast by the Thrusters might not be advantageous to America.

The naval dash strategy was tested repeatedly within the war-gaming hall at Newport with results that could have only pleased the Japanese had they been present to observe. In the wake of a 1933 war game, which ravaged much of the Navy’s battleline, the academics at the Naval War College projected a strategy of containing Japanese offensive actions to the Western Pacific while America built up its offensive forces. The forecast projected a four to five year struggle.

Despite the foreboding projections sent down from Newport, Navy planners in Washington, DC, retained the dash as part of War Plan Orange right up to 7 December 1941. Of course the Japanese attack preempted the execution of this portion of the strategy. However, the strategic thinking conducted at the Naval War College during the 1920s and 30s enabled the Navy’s leaders to overcome early setbacks to implement a credible war plan. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, reflecting about the Naval War College after the war, said “…nothing that happened during the war was a surprise…except the kamikaze.”

Sources: John Prados, Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II; and Edward S. Miller War Plan Orange.