9 JUNE 1942 CONTROVERSIAL SILVER STAR This dawn saw eleven Army Air Corps Martin B-26 Marauder bombers of the Army Air Corps 22nd Bomb Group waiting on the runway at Port Moresby, New Guinea. They were one of three squadrons on Read More
22 MARCH 1820 ARTICLE 114. DUELING. James Barron and Stephen Decatur enjoyed distinguished careers during the wars with the Barbary pirates. They became not just colleagues, but good friends. Thus, Decatur was disheartened in 1807 when Barron, then in command of Read More
14 AUGUST 1870 THE PASSING OF FARRAGUT It is hard to overstate the reverence our Navy holds for David Glasgow Farragut. He entered our Navy at age 9 through the influence of his adoptive father, CAPT David Porter, in 1810. He Read More
5 JULY 1801 DAVID (JAMES) GLASGOW FARRAGUT BIRTHDAY Jordi Farragut Mesquida was a Minorcan-born sea captain sailing Spanish merchant ships between Vera Cruz, New Orleans, and Havana in the 1770s. With the outbreak of our Revolutionary War, Mesquida anglicized his Read More
29 JUNE 1842 “PATHFINDER OF THE SEAS” Matthew Fontaine Maury was born in a woodland cabin near Chancellorsville, Virginia, on 14 January 1806. At age 5 his family moved to Franklin, Tennessee, where Matthew attended the Harpeth Academy for teachers. Read More
TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY 4 SEPTEMBER 1887 RADM GEORGE BROWN On the moonless night of 14-15 February 1863, 27-year-old LCDR George Brown of the Union Navy’s Mississippi River Squadron took the sidewheel ironclad gunboat USS INDIANOLA south toward Vicksburg. His Read More
23 AUGUST 1819 DREADED YELLOW JACK On this date, 34-year-old Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of the War of 1812, died aboard the schooner USS NONSUCH, 14, in Trinidad. He and many of his crew had contracted yellow fever on a Read More
15 JANUARY 1865 FIGHTING FATHER AND SON CAPT Benjamin Franklin Sands, USN, came from a military family, having 11 relatives and descendants with military service. His combat tours during the Mexican War were bracketed by duty of a more scientific nature. Read More
12 JANUARY 1910 “JOHNNY” MOORE John Anderson “Johnny” Moore was born on 12 January 1910 in central Texas. By age 18 he was living near Memphis, from whence he was appointed to the US Naval Academy. Here, his thundering right hook Read More
6 JANUARY 1945 CDR GEORGE F. DAVIS Since October 1944, the Allied assault on the 7000 islands of the Philippines had been steadily progressing. Leyte, Samar, and several more of the Visayans had fallen, though the main island of Luzon remained Read More