13-15 JANUARY 1865 FT. FISHER FALLS (cont. from Dec 25) After MGEN Benjamin Butler’s Christmas assault was rebuffed, RADM David Dixon Porter returned off Fort Fisher on the 12th of January. Two lessons had been learned in the failed attempt–the naval Read More
TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY 8 JANUARY 1907 THE ORIGIN OF “U.S.S.” Prior to the 20th century there was no policy governing the titling of US warships in official correspondence. Navy vessels were sometimes distinguished from merchant or research ships by Read More
4 JANUARY 1966 “LIVE” PATIENT Dr. James H. Chandler completed his residency at Columbia University, then under one of a series of Vietnam-era physician recruitment plans, reported for duty with the US Navy. He received orders to the Marine Corps’ Field Read More
31 DECEMBER 1862 THE LOSS OF MONITOR Our Navy first entertained the new technology of armor plating in 1842 when Congress authorized inventor Robert L. Stevens to construct an ironclad steamship for coastal defense. However, delays in construction, funding, and the Read More
23-25 DECEMBER 1864 FT. FISHER FAILURE Several factors made Wilmington, North Carolina, a valuable entry port for blockade running. Wilmington was equidistant from the main smuggling bases in Nassau and Bermuda, with good rail connections inland. Positioned 28 miles up the Read More
20 DECEMBER 1776 THE INDOMITABLE LEXINGTON Many of the original thirteen colonies organized their own navies during the Revolutionary War. For example, in February of 1776 the Maryland Committee for Safety sent Abraham Van Bibber to St. Eustatius in the Dutch Read More
16 DECEMBER 1907 RADIO FAUX PAS Communication between ships at sea had been line-of-sight visual to date, even in foul weather. Experimentation had been in the works for years, indeed in 1888 a genius of naval invention, CAPT Bradley A. Fiske, Read More
TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY TWO WEEKS LATER THE “APACHE” (cont.) Two weeks had gone by since a captured Marine had suffered a grizzly death at the hands of the notorious female Viet Cong sniper and interrogator “the Apache” (see story Read More
5 DECEMBER 1940 VANISHING COLLIERS The steam engine revolutionized naval architecture by freeing sea travel from slavery to the wind. But steam engines require a source of heat to make steam, and for decades around the turn of the 20th century Read More
NOVEMBER 1966 THE “APACHE” The cruelty experienced by American servicemen at the hands of the North Vietnamese confounds verbal description. Such was the case in “Indian Territory” in the northwest corner of South Vietnam in 1966, nicknamed for its rampant Viet Read More