British Night Raid

                                                12 AUGUST 1814                                             BRITISH NIGHT RAID As Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry built his Lake Erie squadron at Presque Isle during the Summer of 1814, we and the British had but a few brigs and schooners for patrols.  Even so, American Read More

METACOMET vs. SELMA

                                                 5 AUGUST 1864                                           METACOMET vs. SELMA As RADM David Farragut forced Mobile Bay, the channel coursed only several hundred yards from the heavy Confederate guns of Fort Morgan.  To protect his wooden warships, Farragut ordered smaller gunboats lashed to the starboard Read More

“Red” Ramage

                                                 30-31 JULY 1944                                                 “RED” RAMAGE Parche is the name of a small, colorful fish remarkable for its uncanny ability to maneuver, even sideways and upside down, among the clefts and crevices of a coral reef.  On this night 82 years ago Read More

REPRISAL vs. HMS SHARK

                                                   27 JULY 1776                                              250th ANNIVERSARY                                          REPRISAL vs. HMS SHARK GEN George Washington had chased the British from Boston only to have them reestablish headquarters in New York.  News of the conflict in America had only just reached England.  At sea, Read More

HM3 Travis Youngblood

                                                   21 JULY 2005                                      HM3 TRAVIS YOUNGBLOOD On the 16th of July a government vehicle pulled up to the family home on Long Island at which Laura Youngblood was staying.  A Navy Chief Petty Officer dressed in khakis exited the vehicle.  Her Read More

The P6M-2 “SeaMaster”

                                                   14 JULY 1955                                         THE P6M-2 “SEAMASTER” The draw-down of US armed forces after World War II was accompanied by a shift in military strategy.  The advent of the atomic bomb captivated military planners even to the extreme of entertaining the elimination Read More

Flotsam, Jetsam, Royalties, and Buccaneers

                                                    9 JULY 1647                 FLOTSAM, JETSAM, ROYALTIES, AND BUCCANEERS The Eleutherian Adventurers included about a hundred English Puritan gentleman and their households who obtained in 1647 a land grant in the Bahamas from Oliver Cromwell’s Parliament.  Each member contributed £100 and signed Read More

Holiday Joyride

                                                    4 JULY 1986                                              HOLIDAY JOYRIDE LCPL Howard A. Foote, Jr., enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1984 with the hope of an enlisted commissioning and selection for flight training.  He was already an accomplished pilot at the time, having established several Read More

Victory at Charles Town

                                                  9-28 JUNE 1776 250th ANNIVERSARY                                     VICTORY AT CHARLES TOWN The British evacuation of Boston in 1775 turned their attentions to the southern American colonies.  To Anglican eyes, the origin of revolution in the northern mercantile colonies left the southern agrarian colonies Read More

Cold War Downing

                                                   22 JUNE 1955                                            COLD WAR DOWNING As the Cold War deepened and the United States became aware that the Soviets had developed their own atom bomb, we scrambled to install the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line of radar posts across northern Read More