Naval History Blog

While doing research for my last blog topic, the Trans-Atlantic Flight of the NC-4, I stumbled across a name that I’ve seen many times during the Naval Institute’s photo digitization project: Richard E. Byrd. Byrd was one of the men who was consulted for the flight plan of the NC-4, and his name titles a series of Antarctic expeditions I personally scanned and researched for our new digital photo archive. It wasn’t until seeing his name appear connected to the NC-4, however, that the realization I knew so little about this renowned adventurer himself hit me. Just who was Richard… Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of Coast Guard Day, please enjoy the following! In the 29 June 2018 issue of Stars and Stripes, there was an article about the six-member North Pacific Coast Guard Forum (Japan, South Korea, China, Russia, Canada, and the United States). While the theme of the article was the effort to search the northern Pacific for illegal and unregulated fishing boats, the focus was on the U.S. Coast Guard and its deployment of a C-130 aircraft from Air Station Kodiak, Alaska, to Misawa Air Base in Japan. The effort of the C-130 was to enforce the “Law of the… Read the rest of this entry »

On 15 February1943, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest J. King assigned responsibility for sea-going development of helicopters to the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard has proven time and time again that the helicopter is a unique instrument for the saving of human lives.” Here are some of the important missions flown by the service’s helicopters. ‘Yes, I Can’ The first life-saving mission by a Coast Guard rescue swimmer took place on 10 December 1987. At 1936 the Bluebird, a 26-foot fishing vessel requested assistance. The duty helicopter crew at Coast Guard Air Station Sitka, Alaska, quickly boarded HH–3F… Read the rest of this entry »

“Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. . . .” —… Read the rest of this entry »

  This article was written by Rear Admiral George J. Dufek, USN (retired) with Joseph E. Oglesby, JOC, USN. It was originally published as “Operation Deepfreeze Fits Out” in the March 1956 issue of Proceedings magazine. When President Eisenhower an­nounced a renewal of American in­terest in the Antarctic early last year, he gave the Department of Defense the responsibility for supporting American sci­entists in the greatest American undertaking in the barren history of the Antarctic. Considering the complexities involved, it immediately became apparent that the Navy would draw the bid as the Defense agency best qualified to undertake the four-year… Read the rest of this entry »

On August 12, 1958, the USS Nautilus arrived in Portland, England, after completing the first submerged under ice cruise from Pacific to Atlantic oceans. This cruise earned the Nautilus the Presidential Unit Citation, becoming the first ship to receive the award in peace time. The following article, published in the November 1955 issue of Proceedings, gives an account of the training the crew of the Nautilus went through before launching the first nuclear powered submarine, and making the historic under-ice cruise. “SCHOOL OF THE BOAT” FOR THE NAUTILUS By LIEUTENANT COMMANDER DEAN L. AXENE, U. S. Navy THE Nautilus had been long… Read the rest of this entry »

May 9th, 1926 LCDR Richard Byrd and Chief Machinist Mate Floyd Bennett fly over the North Pole Fifteen years after Robert Peary claimed to have reached the North Pole, Richard E. Byrd, along with his pilot, Floyd Bennett, became the first men to fly over the pole. Because the North Pole lies within the Arctic Ocean, rather than upon a fixed landmass, its exact location cannot be precisely determined. Thus Byrd’s observations and recordings, much like Peary’s, were subject to intense scrutiny from scientists and mathematicians before he could lay claim to his achievement. Both Byrd and Bennett received the Congressional Medal of Honor for… Read the rest of this entry »