2 SEPTEMBER 1944 PILOT DOWN! By September of 1944 the Allied advance across the Pacific reached the Bonin Islands, an 1800-mile-long chain that includes Iwo Jima. At 0715 this morning, a squadron of Grumman TBF Avengers took off from USS SAN Read More
18 JUNE 1942 LTJG RALPH RICH With Hitler’s 1 September 1939 invasion of Poland, the citizenry of the United States remained divided over whether or not we should become involved. However, enlistments in our military went up as men prepared Read More
14-15 APRIL 1986 AIR RAID ON KADHAFI Before Saddam and bin Laden there was Muammar Kadhafi, and this Lidyan dictator’s continuing support of terrorism in the mid-1980s prompted ADM William J. Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to draft Read More
1 APRIL 1944 VADM FUKUDOME AND PLAN “Z” After diverting to Cebu to escape the path of a violent storm, VADM Shigeru Fukudome’s “Emily” seaplane still found itself in dire straits. On the approach to Cebu’s harbor this dark night the Read More
31 MARCH-1 APRIL 1944 THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ADMIRAL KOGA With the death of ADM Isoruku Yamamoto on 18 April 1943 command of the Imperial Japanese Combined Fleet passed to ADM Mineichi Koga. In February 1944 Koga was forced by American air Read More
23-27 MARCH 1986 OPERATION “PRAIRIE FIRE” After Muslim strongman COL Muammar al-Kadhafi overthrew the monarchy in Libya in 1969, he began agitating against two perceived enemies, the US and Israel. He defiantly and arbitrarily extended his territorial claims to include all Read More
18 JANUARY 1911 EARLY NAVAL AVIATION As early as 1898 such forward thinkers as Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt urged that the “flying machines” then under development be investigated. Indeed, in less than a decade civilian aircraft designers Glenn Read More
4 JANUARY 1989 NAVY 4, LIBYA 0 Since 1973 Libyan strongman COL Muammar Kaddafi had claimed territorial sovereignty over the international waters of the Gulf of Sidra–a claim the United States never recognized. In obvious rejection of Kaddafi’s claim, our warships Read More
19 JUNE 1968 CELEBRATED SAR MISSION Any search and rescue team member will tell you that no SAR mission is routine. Such was the case shortly after midnight on this date, as LTJG Clyde E. Lassen and the crew of Read More
5 JUNE 1942 CAPT FLEMING vs. MIKUMA Under ADM Isoroku Yamamoto’s complex plan to capture Midway the four cruisers of RADM Takeo Kurita’s Cruiser Division 7 were tasked with a pre-invasion bombardment of the island. On June 4th these warships closed Read More