Naval History Blog

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. The Landing Beaches, Purple Heart Ridge and the Suicide Cliffs It is now the spring of 1944 and the Navy pushed the Japanese out of New Guinea and safely away from the southern supply lines. With the Solomon and Gilbert Islands battles behind it, the Navy… Read the rest of this entry »

On this day in 1899 during the Philippine Insurrection Campaign, the gunboat, USS Concord, and the monitor, USS Monterey, capture two insurgent schooners at Aparri, Philippine Islands. Learn more about the Philippine Insurrection and the U.S. Navy’s role from these articles featured in Proceedings. April 1904 https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1904-10/operations-navy-and-marine-corps-philippine-archepelago-1898-1902 March 1938 https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1938-03/philippine-insurrection  

On this day in 1776 the Navy adopts uniforms for officers. Enjoy this look back through naval history and the evolution of the uniform.                                            

Featured in comics, novels, radio programs and film serials, Don Winslow of the Navy attracted legions of fans throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The character was created by a former crime reporter, naval intelligence officer and FBI agent named Frank V. Martinek. Although he surely enjoyed the commercial success of Don Winslow, Martinek was in part motived to develop the character because he had been frustrated with the public’s indifference to his dire warnings of an inevitable war with Japan. The creative process that resulted in Don Winslow began when Martinek worked as a young crime reporter for the Chicago… Read the rest of this entry »

While working on the U.S. Naval Institute’s photo digitization project, I happened upon a folder of photographs filled with something that always brings joy to my heart: Dogs! It may be a few days after the official National Dog Day, but for dog lover’s, every day is for the dogs, and I thought I’d use today to share some history on dogs in the military. We know that dogs have been keeping us company since before 10,000 BCE. By becoming our companions, dogs also became our allies against our enemies, whether they be the animals early man hunted, or men… 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

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. Back in 1944 when Dad traveled from Honolulu to Guam on the Stevens it took over a week at sea. Today we made the journey in a little over eight hours, with two meals, some wine, a movie and air conditioning. The juxtaposition is stunning. The world… Read the rest of this entry »

The Second Nicaragua intervention of 1927-1932 marks a unique and very interesting chapter in Marine Corps history. Marines were dispatched to the Central American republic to support democracy by supervising a contentious presidential election and building an apolitical internal security force, the Guardia Nacional, that could take over from the Marines and police their own country. However, U.S. Marines soon found themselves deep in the jungles, manning lonely posts and on the trail chasing elusive rebels that refused to honor a political process they saw as being tampered with by meddlesome foreigners. Many innovations were developed and countless lessons were… Read the rest of this entry »