16-31 MARCH 1885 PRESTAN’S UPRISING In the nineteenth century Panama was a province of Colombia. And in 1885, the Colombian populace became divided over the election of a conservative, Rafael Nunez, to the Presidency in Bogota. Localized political insurrections broke out, Read More
24 MARCH 1865 CSS STONEWALL In the early years of the Civil War Confederate agents engaged British shipbuilding firms in laying warships for the Confederacy. One such warship, Stonewall, was designed to be an able challenger to Union blockaders. In her Read More
18 MARCH 1804 A TYPICAL DAY IN THE BARBARY WARS Official Navy records show that March 18th, 1804, was a typical day for the vessels blockading the Barbary state of Tripoli. This power had been holding American merchant crewmen and cargoes Read More
11 MARCH 1903 GERMANY’S INVASION PLANS In the last decades of the 19th century the United States and Germany had several brushes, the most serious occurring during the Spanish-American War. VADM Otto von Diederichs’ Imperial German Asiatic flotilla appeared in Manila Read More
4-5 MARCH 1864 CHERRYSTONE RAID The strong Union presence in the Norfolk area by this date in the Civil War attracted the attention of local Rebels. In fact, Confederate Navy CDR John Taylor Wood made himself notorious by staging a series of bold Read More
28 FEBRUARY 1945 PhM1c JOHN HARLAN WILLIS By D-Day + 9 on Iwo Jima, intense fighting was raging in several acres of low hills and gullies that would come to be known as the “meat grinder” just west of the central Read More
25-28 FEBRUARY 1814 ESCAPE OF ENTERPRISE Part of our Navy’s upsizing for the War of 1812 was the strengthening of several schooners then in service. Extra guns and extra crewmen were added, but at the cost of making the spritely schooners Read More
17-18 FEBRUARY 1944 OPERATION “HAILSTORM” Truk (now Chuuk) along with Yap, Pohnpei, and Korsae, comprise the Federated States of Micronesia in the South Pacific. An encircling reef forms Chuuk’s outer perimeter, creating a large, sheltered lagoon 40 miles in diameter that Read More
13 FEBRUARY 1917 SOMEONE HAD TO BE FIRST The seaplane was essential to our Navy and Marine Corps in the earliest days of military aviation. With the aircraft carrier years away from reality, planes operating from ships at sea needed to Read More
9 FEBRUARY 1945 OPERATION “CAESAR” On 5 December 1944 the Type IX long-range U-boat U-864 departed Kiel, northern Germany, for Penang, Indochina (modern Malaysia). The Japanese coveted German jet aircraft technology and U-864’s mission was to transport Messerschmitt “Swallow” jet engine Read More