In Death Unafraid is a two part blog miniseries chronicling the history and memory of the USS Maine from 1898 to present. Read PART I here. Part II: Worse Than Hell When riots broke out in Havana at the beginning of 1898, the McKinley government sent the battleship Maine there to protect American interests
On May 6, 1947, a party was held in Washington, D.C. Among the honored guests there: A president, a few politicians, and a majority of the most important and influential officers in United States military history. They all came to the “stag party” (according to President Truman’s presidential diary entry) to honor General George Marshall,
The Naval Historical Foundation recently received some very interesting pieces of naval aviation memorabilia from the descendants of Ensign Dudley C. Lunt, USNRF. Lunt enlisted in the Naval Reserve in March 1918 and was called into active service shortly thereafter. He found himself at a ground school for aviation cadets at the Massachusetts Institute of
By George J. Hill, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, (2013) Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. George J. Hill, a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Medical School, served in the Marines Corps and U.S. Public Health Service until he retired as a Captain, Medical Corps, USNR, in 1992. He is the son-in-law of Albert W.
By Robert J. Winklareth, Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia, PA. (2012). Reviewed by Richard P. Hallion, Ph.D The fateful encounter between the Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, Hood, and Prince of Wales at 0600 on the morning of 24 May 1941 midway between Iceland and Greenland has drawn the attention of numerous authors and analysts. It even inspired a now-classic
By Robin L. Rielly, McFarland & Co. Inc., Jefferson, NC and London, UK, (2013) Reviewed by Samuel Loring Morison The sub title of this work, A History of LCI and LCS(L) Ships in the Pacific, is a more appropriate title for the subject. With the exception of Rielly’s previous book on LCS(L)’s, very little (if
Edited by Gary W. Neidhardt. AuthorHouse, Bloomington, IN, (2013) Reviewed by Charles Bogart Editor Gary Neidhardt transcribed and annotated 115 letters that his father, Lt. Paul W. Neidhardt, wrote to his wife, Phyllis, between September 1943 and November 1945. Neidhardt, commissioned as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy in July 1942, went on to serve
By Carl LaVO, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, (2013) Reviewed by Charles H. Bogart Those who study the United States Navy submarine service have encountered in their readings a mention of the McCann Submarine Rescue Chamber. This book is a biography of Vice Admiral McCann, who played a major role in shaping the United States’
By Thomas F. Jaras, iUniverse, (2013). Reviewed by Thomas P. Ostrom This book drew my attention because of my time in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve in the 1960s. Between 1940 and 1980, the USCG had Ocean Station vessels in the Atlantic and Pacific performing a variety of national defense initiatives. These included search and
This is the third of three articles that describe my experiences while serving as an engineer aboard commercial tankers in 1961. These articles provide a perspective on the different engineering practices between the Navy and Merchant Marine in the post-World War II era. (READ THE SECOND ARTICLE HERE) In the summer of 1961, I relocated
In Death Unafraid is a two part blog miniseries chronicling the history and memory of the USS Maine from 1898 to present. Newspaper Reaction to the Sinking of the Maine Part I: Garish Marble The week before I started my job at the Naval Historical Foundation, my wife and I took a trip to
By Norman Polmar (Editor’s note: This is the 24th in a series of blogs by Norman Polmar—author, analyst, and consultant specializing in the naval, aviation, and intelligence fields. Follow the full series here.) The U.S. nuclear attack submarine Thresher sank during sea trials off the New England coast on 10 April 1963, with the loss
The first thing visitors see when they walk through the doors of the Navy Museum’s Cold War Gallery is the massive Trident I C-4 Missile. Looking left, an impressive glass case sits right next to the Ready Room Theater. The case houses a wide array of 1:48 scale models of aircraft developed and flown during
By Dave Colamaria This week is the annual LEGO Shipbuilding Contest at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, and I’ve finished my contribution to the event in the nick of time. This weekend I completed work on a 7 foot long version of the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV 2). The project took me a little
This is the second of three articles that describe my experiences while serving as an engineer aboard commercial tankers in 1961. These articles provide a perspective on the different engineering practices between the Navy and Merchant Marine in the post-World War II era. (READ THE FIRST ARTICLE HERE) I just completed a stint of
