The Mighty “B” – Don’t give up the ship… the story of the USS Birmingham CL-62

On March 20, 1942, the cruiser Birmingham was launched at Newport News Virginia. Like so many ships of her generation, she was planned and designed around a model that had been determined during the various naval arms limitation treaties that predated the war she would fight in. In 1942, ships were desperately needed to fight […]

The Three Plane Navy – The Story of Rear Admiral Fullam’s Vision

A little bit longer of a post than normal, but I found this to be an interesting story about a visionary man who played a key role in the Navy in the early 1900’s. Twenty years before the attack on Pearl Harbor, many voices were actively trying to warn about the narrow-minded vision of naval […]

May you live long enough that you long for your past despite the hardships and difficulties.

The definition for nostalgia that comes from Webster’s Dictionary include these: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period of irrecoverable condition the state of being homesick With apologies to Webster and company, this is my definition: May you live long enough that you long for your past despite […]

A sign of the times… Got Shelters?

Sunday March 4, 1962 was a cool and cloudy day in Washington DC. The front page of the paper had several stories about Marine Colonel John Glenn, Jr., recent space traveler visiting his hometown in Ohio to happy throngs of people. Other front-page stories talked about government corruption, unrest overseas, and of course, across the […]

Book progress – Tell the Whole Story

One of my goals for the past few years was to tell the story of Cassin Young, Captain, US Navy. Cassin was a thirty-year man in the Navy that saw some of his most significant moments during two of the most pivotal battles of the Second World War. At Pearl Harbor, he was stationed on […]

The Ship That Wouldn’t Die – USS Shaw DD-373

The Ship That Wouldn’t Die – USS Shaw DD-373 One of the most remarkable pictures captured at Pearl Harbor on December 7th was the spectacular explosion of the USS Shaw which was in a floating dry dock as the attack began. The bomb damage was significant enough to make anyone watching wonder if anything could […]

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 […]

Crossing the line February 8, 1974

Our fears are always more numerous than our dangers Seneca Forty-eight years ago, I was brought into one of the most ancient organizations called the Ancient Order of the Deep. The Crossing the Line Ceremony is as old as the sea. From the Official Navy Web Site: Although crossing the equator may seem like a […]

All Hope was abandoned – the S-26 (Part 2)

Submarine rescues were still pretty rare in 1942. The rescue of the sailors from the sunken USS Squalus in 1939 was made possible because of the emerging technology that allowed a rescue bell to be attached to the boat. On the morning of May 23, 1939, the submarine USS Squalus slipped beneath the storm-tossed surface […]

Death of the Old Gambler – Yamamoto’s End

I was browsing through the movie selections on my TV a few weeks ago looking for something to occupy my time while I was on the treadmill. One of the movies that came up was about Admiral Halsey called The Gallant Hours. The Gallant Hours is an American docudrama from 1960 about William F. Halsey, […]