Naval History Blog

On this day in 1947 President Harry Truman signed into law the National Security Act of 1947. The bill reorganized the military, by placing the Army and Navy into the Department of Defense, and creating the position of Secretary of Defense at its head. It also created the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council. However, it seems the most impactful act from the bill, was establishment of a new branch of the military; the United States Air Force. Upon its inception, the Air Force began a campaign designed to downplay the significance of the Navy, especially aircraft carriers,… Read the rest of this entry »

June 6th, 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Belleau Wood. This three week long engagement between German infantry forces and the 4th Marine Brigade helped forge the culture of the Corps over the past century. Perhaps most significantly, the Germans gifted the Marines with one of their favorite nicknames: the Devil Dogs, but that is not even close to the most interesting part of the battle. Let’s take a closer look at what Belleau Wood was when it was fought and what it left in its wake.   If the Marines did not win the Battle, the… Read the rest of this entry »

12. Rob Riggle The comedian and actor Rob Riggle who appeared on Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show and dozens of films sitcoms and commercials retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve in 2013. His deployments included tours in Kosovo and Afghanistan. 11. Bea Arthur Actress Bea Arthur enjoyed a successful career playing acerbic characters on the TV series Maude and The Golden Girls. During WWII under her birth name Bernice Frankel, she served in the USMC as a truck driver and typist. Oddly, in her later years she would deny that she was a Marine…. Read the rest of this entry »

Amid the whirlwind of the Battle of Tarawa, Japanese soldiers dash for cover as nearby Marines open fire. A cameraman, then–Staff Sergeant Norman Hatch, captured the gripping scene—the only instance that U.S. servicemen and enemy forces appeared in the same World War II combat images. But the footage was only a fraction of what Hatch filmed on Tarawa’s Betio Atoll, the highlights of which appeared in a short documentary, With the Marines at Tarawa. The historic film brought the grim realities of Pacific island fighting to the American home front and earned the 1945 Academy Award for best short-subject documentary. Retired… Read the rest of this entry »

Men who enlist in the Marine Corps east of the Mississippi River and all women joining the Corps must first report to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, South Carolina, for four hellish months of physical training and conditioning. If they make it through, they emerge as Marines. An important teaching tool there is the Parris Island Museum, where raw recruits—and visiting civilians—can learn about the service’s heritage and the rich history of the island where Marines leave behind civilian life and become warriors. The museum is located in a circa-1951 building that once housed an enlisted recreation… Read the rest of this entry »

Today marks the 23rd anniversary of the Battle of Mogadishu, which saw 18 servicemembers killed and many more wounded in the raid on a Somali marketplace to capture two lieutenants of warlord Mohamed Farrah Hassan Aidid. United Nations Operations in Somalia had been ongoing since early 1992 in an effort to stabilize the region wracked by civil war, but the fallout from the mission, chronicled in Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, ultimately led to the reevaluation of the United Nations Operation in Somalia and to the eventual discontinuation of that international intervention. The instability and… Read the rest of this entry »

In the course of my duties as the oral historian for the U.S. Marine Corps History Division, I interview Marines, all ranks and all time periods. I was made aware of Lieutenant Colonel Roy H. Elrod in an unusual manner: through family friends from Muleshoe, Texas. This is where I grew up and, coincidentally, where Roy grew up, but about 30 years apart. Now Roy and I live within five miles of each other, but more than 1,500 miles from Muleshoe, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I was quite impressed when I met Roy. Here he was 93 years old; he lived… Read the rest of this entry »

In preparing each issue of Naval History, one of the staff’s regular stops is the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. During a visit there several years ago I came across an account by Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class John Bradley of his role in the famous Iwo Jima flag raising on Mount Suribachi—the subject of Joe Rosenthal’s immortal, iconic photograph, which was the basis for the Marine Corps War Memorial. When news broke questioning Bradley’s role in the flag raising—and presence in the photo—I remembered that account, the transcript of a Navy interview with the corpsman recorded less than three… Read the rest of this entry »