Convoy RB-1

                                          21-30 SEPTEMBER 1942                                                   CONVOY RB-1 In the decades before practical automobile transportation, Americans traveling between cities of the eastern United States often did so by way of intercoastal steamer.  Numerous private steamship companies offered passenger service on 200-400-foot, shallow draft screw Read More

The Fight to Save GLENNON

                                                                           8-10 JUNE 1944                                    THE FIGHT TO SAVE GLENNON USS GLENNON (DD-620), JEFFERS (DD-621), and BUTLER (DD-636) spent June 7th close inshore against “Utah” beach, the former expending 430 five-inch rounds against enemy pillboxes and machine gun nests from which American Read More

CORRY Controversy

                                                    6 JUNE 1944                                           CORRY CONTROVERSY The morning of 18 December 1941 dawned at the Charleston Navy Yard with palpable anticipation.  Our citizenry was united against the Pearl Harbor attack only 11 days earlier, and this morning our Navy was set to Read More

Operation “Mincemeat”

                                     TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY                                                   30 APRIL 1943                                       OPERATION “MINCEMEAT” When the American 7th and British 8th Armies landed on southern Sicily 10 July 1943 they found lighter than anticipated resistance.  It seems the Germans had concentrated their defenses on the Read More

The Controversy of PE-56

                                                  23 APRIL 1945                                     THE CONTROVERSY OF PE-56 On this day the 62 sailors aboard the Navy’s “Eagle”-class patrol craft PE-56 were carrying out the plan of the day, patrolling for German submarines off the Maine coast.  Duty on board such vessels Read More

U-604

                                                11 AUGUST 1943                                                          U-604 By November 1941, Britain was hanging tenuously, her economy smothering at the hands of German U-boats.  And on the 16th of that month, Germany’s position got incrementally better with the launch of yet another U-boat, U-604, in Read More