USS San Francisco SSN-711 Plank Owner Belt and Buckle… Lost and Found the Backstory

Merry Christmas to all of my readers. This has been a very busy time of year with so much going on at work. A lot at home too which unfortunately keeps me from writing very much. My apologies for that. Mrs. Mac and I are doing pretty well but like many folks have had to […]

1920 The Sugar Boats – “faulty, sooty, dangerous and repellent engineering”

1920 The newspapers of the day in 1920 were filled with a series of articles called “The Victory at Sea”. These articles went into great detail to outline the role the US Navy had played in the recently ended war. Rear Admiral Sims was one of the key players in providing the facts, figures, and […]

The cost of peace is often the next war.

On February 12, 1922, the American fleet began their annual exercises. These exercises had been conducted for a very long time and were designed to test the readiness of the sips and the men who sailed on them. But in 1922, a very different atmosphere hung heavy over the entire fleet. Coming off of […]

Sinking of the S-26 Boat January 1942

Subsafe Anyone who has ever sailed on a US Navy submarine probably had at least some idea about the reasons for all the training and emphasis on safety that was given to them. From the beginning of submarine operations in the early 1900’s, diving on a submersible ship in an unforgiving ocean has always […]

We might as well stop daydreaming about defeating Japan – February 1940

WE MIGHT AS WELL STOP DAYDREAMING ABOUT DEFEATING JAPAN In February of 1940, the world was already at war. Germany had launched its offensive against Czechoslovakia and Poland and Hitler was in the process of approving the Mannstein Plan which would lead to the invasion and subjugation of France in the summer of 1940. In America, […]