As a 19-year-old seaman who had been in the Navy for about a year and a half, Richard Nowatzki’s ship USS Hornet (CV 8) was mortally wounded in the intense World War II Battle of Santa Cruz Islands. In this first-handaccount, from his book Memoirs of a Navy Major, Nowatzkishares …
Read More »The End of Hornet – Part 2
As a 19-year-old seaman who had been in the Navy for about a year and a half, Richard Nowatzki’s ship USS Hornet (CV 8) was mortally wounded in the intense World War II Battle of Santa Cruz Islands. In this first-handaccount, from his book Memoirs of a Navy Major, Nowatzki …
Read More »The First Test of an Independent Carrier Task Force
Editor’s note: ‘Why We Do What We Do’ is an initiative CNO Richardson asked the Naval History and Heritage Command to help share with the fleet. Each month, our historians will dissect a seminal moment in our Navy’s past and then highlight the lessons we learned. The purpose, is to …
Read More »5 Things to Know: The Shared Pacific Umbilical of USS Monsoor & USS Missouri
By Dave Werner, U.S. Pacific Fleet Public Affairs On Saturday, January 26th the Navy will commission its newest Zumwalt-class destroyer, the USS Michael Monsoor (DDG 1001), at 10:00 a.m. at Naval Air Station North Island. A little further West in the Pacific, organizers are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the January 1944 …
Read More »A Portrait of HM2 Bobby Ray, Heroic “Doc” of Liberty Bridge
By André B. Sobocinski, Historian, BUMED In the early morning of March 19, 1969, a Marine combat base at Phu Loc 6 near An Hoa, Vietnam, became the scene of a surprise enemy attack. As the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) infiltrated the camp’s barbed wire perimeter, a 24-year old corpsman …
Read More »A Sticky Situation: The Navy and the Great Molasses Flood
By Alex Hays, Communication and Outreach Division “Sailors Do Heroic Work in Aiding Victims,” declared the front page of The Boston Daily Globe on Jan. 16, 1919. On the previous day, these U.S. Navy Sailors witnessed and played a key role in the recovery efforts of one of America’s most …
Read More »Refreshed U.S. Navy Design Promotes Pacific Engagement, Urgency
By Dave Werner, U.S. Pacific Public Affairs The Pacific Ocean is bristling with naval activity. Navies and Sailors are operating with narrowed focus and renewed sense of purpose. They are following in the long wake of those who have gone before them. The dock landing ship USS Rushmore (LSD 47), …
Read More »World War I Sailors Recognized 100 Years Later
By Lt. Josh Waters, Navy Department Board of Decorations and Medals World War I saw technological advances that changed the face of warfare. Prominent among these was the use of submarines, or U-boats. Although they had been in use since the mid-1800’s, submarines only became effective weapons during WWI and …
Read More »What the Navy Learned from Guadalcanal
By: Curtis Utz, Nicholas Roland and Guy Nasuti, Historians, Naval History and Heritage Command Editor’s note: Learning from History is an initiative CNO Richardson has asked the Naval History and Heritage Command to shepherd. Each month, our historians will dissect a seminal moment in Navy’s past and present today’s Fleet …
Read More »Naval Aviation Development in World War II–U.S. Navy Versus Royal Navy Experience
By U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Stuart R. Lockhart (Ret.) Naval History and Heritage Command writer Carsten Fries’s recent narrative of the support lent by the British carrier HMS Victorious to the U.S. Pacific Fleet in the first half of 1943 brings to mind a comparison of naval aviation experiences …
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