Naval History Blog

  The USS Carpenter (DD-825) reunion will take place in San Antonio, TX from May 16th through May 20, 2019. Jimmie Kennedy is the point of contact for additional information. Please email him at [email protected] or call 714-776-4019 for information.

Naval historians from around the world mustered last week in Annapolis for the U.S. Naval Academy’s biennial two-day, deep-immersion McMullen Naval History Symposium. During a banquet at the DoubleTree Annapolis Hotel on Friday night, 18 September, attendees heralded the latest authors to receive the Commodore Dudley W. Knox Naval History Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the U.S. Naval Historical Foundation. As in years past, the names of all three honorees in 2015, along with the namesake of the award himself, are familiar to readers of U.S. Naval Institute publications.

  This weekend members of the USS Houston (CA 30) Survivors Association and Next Generations are gathered for their 2015 reunion in Houston, Texas. In addition to conducting the business of the organization the reunion featured a dinner last night in which Naval History and Heritage Command Director Rear Adm. (Ret) Sam Cox provided the keynote remarks updating reunion attendees on the NHHC study of the condition of Houston’s wreck as well as ongoing Navy and diplomatic efforts to prevent further unauthorized disturbance of the ship which is the final resting place of more than 700 Houston Sailors and Marines… Read the rest of this entry »

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,… Read the rest of this entry »

 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.

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. 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

Today is the 87th anniversary of the 1923 grounding of seven destroyers at Point Perdanales, California, also called Honda Point. Following a day of maneuvers and a high-speed run south from San Francisco Bay, the fourteen destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 11 turned east toward the Santa Barbara Channel, soon entering dense fog. However, the force was north of where they thought they were, and a few minutes after the turn the flagship USS Delphy (DD 261) ran aground at 20 knots, quickly followed by six other ships. Twenty-three sailors died, and the seven ships were left in place to be… Read the rest of this entry »

Historians depict the War of 1812 as a forgotten conflict because the Treaty of Ghent affirmed the status quo for the two combatants,. American naval victories during that war, however, had greatly improved the U.S. Navy’s stature. On 23 February 1815, only six days after that war had ended, President James Madison confidently proposed a declaration of war against Algiers for its depredations against American merchant commerce in the Mediterranean perpetrated during the late war with England. Eleven years after his daring 1804 raid to destroy the captured frigate USS Philadelphia held by Tripoli during the first Barbary War, Stephen… Read the rest of this entry »