Platforms

By Hill Goodspeed, Historian, National Naval Aviation Museum The aircraft carrier Hornet (CV 8) served for just 372 days, her short lifespan reflective of the fact that she put to sea in dangerous waters.   During that brief time, it can be said two distinct flights defined the service of …

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 …

  Editor’s note: September 6, 2018 marks 100 years since the first firing of the Navy railway gun used in World War I. For the 100th anniversary, Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) will highlight the weapon system through blogs, videos and photographs. To provide additional details, NHHC Historian Dr. Gregory …

  By Dennis Conrad, Ph.D., Histories and Archives Division, Naval History and Heritage Command In November 1917, Rear Adm. Ralph Earle, the head of the Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance, suggested that if the Navy mounted “several naval 14-inch guns . . . fitted with high angles of fire, and with …

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 …

Editor’s note: This is Part Two of  “USS Robin: When the CNO Needed a Royal Navy Carrier.” Read Part One here. Victorious departed Norfolk on Feb. 3 en route to the Panama Canal—and assigned the U.S. Navy two-syllable call sign “Robin.” Intensive flight operations utilizing U.S. Navy procedures, both with Martlet …

By Carsten Fries, Communication and Outreach Division,  Naval History and Heritage Command. In autumn 1942, Adm. Ernest J. King, the Chief of Naval Operations, faced a dilemma: The battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, and the still-ongoing Guadalcanal campaign had severely weakened the U.S. Navy’s fleet carrier presence in the …

By Capt. Paul Bowdich, Commanding Officer, NAS Whiting Field During World War II, in the rural fields of Milton, Florida, a small outlying field named Naval Auxiliary Air Station Whiting Field began its primary mission—producing the military’s best-trained aviation warfighters.  The value of aviation to the war and to the …

By Sam Cox (Rear Adm. USN, Ret.), Director, Naval History and Heritage Command On May 26, 2018, I had the opportunity to see and touch what many consider to be the “Holy Grail” of artifacts associated with U.S. naval history; the stern plate of the WWII aircraft carrier USS Enterprise …

  By Lt. Rob Reinheimer, Deputy Public Affairs Officer, Carrier Strike Group NINE “Examine into this flying machine…” There is a letter framed in the commanding officer’s in port cabin aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). The letter is from the ship’s namesake, written in 1898 when …