The End of the World was THIS close. (The Gaither Report and its consequences)

The End of the World was THIS close. This is a story about a series of events that happened in the late 1950’s that changed the course of the world in one of its darkest times. America and her allies had squared off against the Soviet Union in an increasingly complex game of […]

The Emergency Meeting: January 1, 1959

The Emergency Meeting: January 1, 1959 The following transcript, (heavily redacted for security reasons) is a record of an emergency meeting held at the office of Manpower for the United States Navy Bureau of Personnel on New Year’s Day 1959. This meeting was held in the strictest secrecy and portions of the meeting have only […]

What’s in a name? (a short explanation of how naming submarines got so fishy fifty years ago)

Growing up, I read nearly every book I could get my hands on that contained US Navy ships. I especially loved the stories about the Second World War. It was so cool to be able to know that Battleships were always named after states, cruisers bore the names of cities and destroyers were honored with […]

41 for Freedom; Answering a Threat

On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite. This launch was a double blow to the fledgling American rocket program. It proved that the Soviets were able to accomplish something that the Americans had yet to do. It also proved that the Soviets had the ability to launch […]

Strategic Deterrence – 3500 patrols and counting

When most people look back at the fifties, it was a mixture of many different themes. On the one hand, we had the growth of the so called middle class into suburbia as returning GI’s and their counterparts in the other services came home as victors to a nation ready to grow. Home ownership became […]