MV San Demetrio

                                              5 NOVEMBER 1940                                               MV SAN DEMETRIO The Eagle Oil and Shipping Company operated in England from 1912-59 moving petroleum products between Mexico, the Caribbean, and the United Kingdom.  Each of their tankers was given the Spanish name of a Christian saint.  Read More

Glenn’s Shuttle Mission

                                  29 OCTOBER-9 NOVEMBER 1998                                       GLENN’S SHUTTLE MISSION At 19 minutes after 1400 this afternoon, Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center roared to life with the lift-off of the space shuttle Discovery (OV-103).  COL Curtis L. Brown, Jr., commanded Mission Read More

Medill’s Wild-West Chase

                                               25 OCTOBER 1862                                     MEDILL’S WILD-WEST CHASE Acting RADM David Dixon Porter decried enemy guerrilla actions along the Mississippi during the Civil War.  From Mississippi Squadron headquarters in Cairo, Illinois, he wrote Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles that commercial river traffic Read More

Drexler and Cholister of TRENTON

                                               20 OCTOBER 1924                            DREXLER AND CHOLISTER OF TRENTON The light cruiser USS TRENTON (CL-11) was commissioned in April of 1924, one of the last of ten Omaha-class vessels authorized during WWI.  The principal difference between light and heavy cruisers of that Read More

The True Blue Saloon

                                               16 OCTOBER 1891                                         THE TRUE BLUE SALOON Frictions between the President of Chile, José Manuel Balmaceda, and the Chilean Congress erupted into civil war in January 1890.  US sympathies leaned weakly toward Balmaceda, but in the main, President Benjamin Harrison was Read More

Birth of the Naval Academy

                                               10 OCTOBER 1845                                  BIRTH OF THE NAVAL ACADEMY In spite of calls from such notables as John Paul Jones, our early Navy resisted establishing a shoreside teaching academy in favor of hands-on midshipman training under actual operating conditions at sea.  In Read More

Last Cruise of TANG

                                 24 SEPTEMBER-24 OCTOBER 1944                                           LAST CRUISE OF TANG The Balao-class WWII submarine USS TANG (SS-306) had amassed an enviable 18 ship sinkings totaling 120,476 tons, including a tender and two military transports, on her first four patrols.  On 24 September 1944, Read More

RADM William S. Benson, USN

                                             25 SEPTEMBER 1919                                  RADM WILLIAM S. BENSON, USN In the years before WWI, the Secretary of the Navy took a more hands-on approach to day-to-day Navy activities.  He was assisted by the Chiefs of the eight Bureaus in matters such as Read More