USS Somerset (LPD 25) Honoring America’s Heroes

The USS Somerset will be commissioned on March 1 2014 in Philadelphia PA. The ship is named after the County where our brave fellow citizens demonstrated courage and sacrifice in a way that is remarkable. If you have not been to the Site near Shanksville, you owe it to yourself and your family to […]

“Ever a Submariner” by Jody Durham, MM2/SS (A Gang)

I am obviously a sucker for a great submarine story. I spend much of my free time researching stories about a rare breed of men who chose voluntarily to sail on ships designed by their creators to sail beneath the oceans surface. I was recently introduced to Jody Durham, a fellow Cold War sailor (and […]

Fringes of the Fleet

Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves When your country is an island, it is only natural that you would come to rely on the ocean for commerce with others. When that island is vulnerable to attacks form others, it is even more natural that the ocean would serve as a means for your defense. To […]

Grand Theft Submarine – Stealing the U-111

Note: This article is a result of some research I have been doing in the past few days about an amazing submarine story related to the technological development of American submarines. The story was researched and developed using two reference books: United States Submarines, Naval Submarine League, published in 2002 and United States Submarines by […]

Blinders? Why no, these are my new leadership Goggles!

Originally posted on theleansubmariner:
For over a century the leadership of the U.S. Army and Navy were in agreement about how the United States coast would be managed: the Army would defend the beaches and out to the range of their coastal guns, and the Navy would protect anything beyond that range. The advent of…

Comrades, If you like your Reich, you can keep your Reich

Every time I see a member of the opposition party standing up and supporting policies that are ill thought out and ill prepared to serve the nation, I am reminded of the delusional attitude of the despicable Nazi Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. His address to the German nation in December of 1943 on the eve […]

Inflict Maximum Damage on Enemy Shipping

Victory At Sea ~ Full Fathom Five – HQ The threat of death at full fathom five is always in the backs of the minds of the submariners according to the steady voice of the narrator. Yet they still went on many patrols and exacted a toll on the enemy that brought him to a […]

December 27 1943 Greatest Generation … well mostly

“We’re all in this together” … unless of course you were in the union One of the greatest myths ever perpetrated about the greatest generation is that everybody was in it together for the win during World War 2. Winning a war is a lot more than just having men in uniform. They need the […]

The Day after Pearl Harbor

The day after Pearl Harbor was still a chaotic day for most in the Hawaiian Islands. Rumors of an invading Japanese force were widespread and panic was probably just below the surface. The brilliant and gleaming fleet was awash in black residue and blood. Shipwrights and common sailors frantically were trying to rescue men […]

The First Thanksgiving (Updated from Original Post in 2013)

The First Thanksgiving If you are expecting a traditional story about Pilgrims and Indians, you might as well go back to your search engine and try again. This is a story about my real first Thanksgiving that occurred somewhere in the western Pacific Ocean about 150 feet below the ocean exactly forty years ago today […]