A Swashbuckling Submariner – Creed Burlingame

The Washington Star GRAVURE SECTION from February 14, 1943 featured pictures of the many faces of the war around the world. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/dlc_1xul_ver01/data/sn83045462/00280603351/1943021401/0129.pdf From the Mediterranean to the Pacific, allied navies were aggressively pushing back against the forces of the Axis. This particular section of the paper showed images from many fronts but one small picture […]

A Day at the Races – Submarine Skulduggery in the Home Islands 1942-1943

Skulduggery has been described as underhanded or unscrupulous behavior. Using technology to sneak up on an enemy was once viewed by proper gentlemen as nothing more than skullduggery. In the nicest sort of way, that is what submarines are best at. I mean, how unfair is it that someone can sneak up on your homeland […]

Submarine Minelaying – More than one way to skin a cat

There is more than one way to skin a cat. That is one of those odd sayings form a long lost generation that typically means there is more than one way to successfully complete a task. My cats Moses and Oscar would be offended by the original usage which was about actually skinning cats. From […]

December 7 1942 – The first of many rememberences and concerrn for accountability

On the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, many reflections take place in towns across the United States. I was reading yesterday that one of the few remaining Pearl Harbor survivors turns 101 years old this year. It will also be the first year he is not able to travel to Honolulu since his doctor advised him […]

The Horrors of War – Navy Medicine at Pearl Harbor (1942 Reflection)

One of my earliest memories of Pearl Harbor was reading books about the attack. I grew up in a firefighter’s family so was aware of the dangers of fire in the civilian world. But reading the many books included in Samuel Eliott Morrison’s collection “The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931 – April 1942 […]

December 6, 1942 – The Navy Reveals the True Damage at Pearl Harbor

Within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, news started filtering back to anxious families on the mainland that something horrible had happened to the country. The banner headlines from the eighth of December would forever be changed with news of the encroachment of the Empire of Japan across the vast reaches of the Pacific […]

1930 – the last chance to eliminate the rattlesnakes of the seas is over

The London Naval Conference of 1930 This conference was the third in a series of conferences meant to slow, limit or eliminate large combat shipbuilding efforts among a group of nations that were seen as potential adversaries. From the State Department’s Historian: “The purpose of the meetings was to promote disarmament in the wake of […]

1927 – The Submarine Myth and the Ace of the Pacific

1927 The back-and-forth argument about the significance of submarines continued in a variety of ways in 1927. The British continued their aggressive campaign of influence to demonstrate the need to abolish the boats while the original defenders in American and elsewhere continued to predict that they would become even more important in the future conflicts. […]

1923 – Someday all submarines will carry airplanes

You sunk my battleship! Growing up, we had a game called battleship. It was definitely old school and involved two plastic boards with a lid and an “ocean” that was punctuated by many small holes. Two players would sit across from each other and arrange their plastic ships and submarine at random places on their […]

1922 – A Thoroughly Modern Submarine

1922 A holiday from building With the signing of the Naval Arms Limitation Treaty, the American navy had a number of logistical problems to be met with in order to meet the terms of the treaty. Not the least of those issues was what to do with the ships that were now considered excess and […]