Naval History Blog

Each year on Memorial Day, we stop to remember the brave men and women who sacrificed their lives for this nation. This year we share a story over 150 years in the making from the May 2013 issue of Naval History. After years of forensic and genealogical research, the remains of two Monitor sailors who went down with their ship more than a century and a half ago were laid to rest. Early on 31 December 1862, the pride of the U.S. Navy, the Monitor, was about to die. For several hours, her crew fought to keep the ship afloat… Read the rest of this entry »

Lieutenant Leroy Fadem recently revisited sites in the Pacific where he saw action in the Navy during the tumultuous years of the War in the Pacific over 70 years ago. This is a journal of that recent trip as kept by his son, Steven Fadem, who accompanied Lt. Fadem on that journey of rediscovery. I awoke in the dark, the victim of a telemarketing call at 4:47am from, ironically, an alleged veteran’s association in the States. I could not fall back asleep and so decided watch the dawn’s blue-gray fingers creep across the horizon. As the sky lightened I saw… Read the rest of this entry »

On 6 April 1917, the USS Olympia (C-6) was in transit, sailing from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands to Hampton Roads, Virginia. A gale was blowing from the southwest and the ship had to be secured for heavy weather. It was also the day Congress declared war against Germany. For the next nineteen months, USS Olympia sailors assisted with U.S. war efforts by participating in convoy patrols in the North Atlantic. The day that the Armistice was signed the ship was in Murmansk, Russia and a portion of her crew had spent the previous few months on land fighting the Bolsheviks.1… Read the rest of this entry »

While we recall the wreck of the USS Memphis (ACR-10) which occurred on August 29, 1916 killing 43 crew members, let’s remember a lesser known tragedy that occurred aboard the ship when she was known by her original name, Tennessee.   Inscription: George Wood (-1908) Watertender U.S. A Reinhold (-1908) M.M. 2.C. S. W. Meek (-1908) F. 1.C. E. C. Boccs (-1908)F. 2.C. F. S. Maxfield (-1908)F. 2.C. J. P. A. Carroll (-1908)F. 2.C. E. J. Burns (-1908) C.P. Died Heroically at Their Stations, In Line of Duty, USS Tennessee (ACR-10), June, 1908, Erected by Shipmates

On Memorial Day, it is important to reflect on the soldiers, sailors and airmen that have kept the U.S. safe. Each of us on that day should reserve simple, single moments of reverence—spots of time, as Wordsworth called them—that allow us to look back and reflect on lives lived and moments lost. For most of the 20th century, regardless of what our political stripes were, Americans stood as one when it came to the military and its role as our country’s protector. That changed during the Vietnam era, when our political and military leaders systematically deceived the American public about… Read the rest of this entry »

The ornate, allegorical Tripoli Monument is a memorial to six U.S. naval officers’ ultimate sacrifice during the Barbary War. On the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy, sandwiched between Leahy Hall and Preble Hall, lies an unlikely looking military memorial. Its elaborate, asymmetrical appearance, however, belies its rich martial past. In fact, the white marble statuary is the United States’ oldest military monument, built to commemorate the supreme sacrifice of U.S. naval officers during the Barbary War against Tripoli and originally funded by their fellow officers. The monument was the idea of David Porter, who would rise to become a… Read the rest of this entry »

Just outside the west entrance to Luce Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy sits a stately thirteen-tiered stone pagoda. Though it is relatively unadorned by the standards of many monuments, if one looks closely, on its base one may find this (English) inscription: “In memory of JAPANESE AMBASSADOR HIROSI SAITO, who died at Washington on February 26, 1939, and whose remains were by order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, conveyed on board the U.S.S. Astoria to his native land, and in grateful appreciation of American sympathy and courtesy this pagoda was presented by his wife and children to the United… Read the rest of this entry »

The Naval Academy, home to the U.S. Naval Institute, is home to many monuments big and small, that honor the men and women of the Sea Services and their contributions to the well-being of the country. But often the things that exist right in one’s own back yard can get overlooked. So it is with some reflection in that vein that this month’s featured monument begins at a spot very close to the home of the USNI. Up a short flight of steps and a down a small path is a nearly-forgotten and often overlooked courtyard that was once part… Read the rest of this entry »