On Our Scope

August 2015
Naval History readers wishing to transcend the printed word can get a tactile feel for sailor life by visiting one of the more than 160 museum ships located throughout the ...

Contributors

August 2015
Thomas B. Allen is well known for his writing on the subjects of espionage and military history. His books include Declassified: 50 Top-Secret Documents That Changed Military History (National Geographic ...
Courtesy of Richard K. Templeton

In Contact

August 2015
A Group Photo Brings Back MemoriesVice Admiral John Nyquist, U.S. Navy, RetiredMy father, Walfrid Nyquist, was a 1921 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a destroyer sailor ...
Top: National Archive; Above: NOAA/Boeing/Coda Octopus

Naval History News

August 2015
Arizona Memorial Closed After Tugboat CollisionA tugboat maneuvering a hospital ship evidently crashed into the floating dock leading to the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 27 May ...
USS Enterprise CV-6 Association

'The Big E' Leadership Factory

By Barrett Tillman
August 2015
In 1940 newly appointed Navy Secretary Frank Knox visited the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. Among his stops was the USS Enterprise (CV-6), berthed at Pearl Harbor. “The Big E” received ...
National Archives

Butch's Wingman

By David Sears
August 2015
The 31 August 1943 raid against Marcus Island was a big success—catching the Japanese with their pants down in the cold gray dawn.1 But while aviators from big fleet carriers ...
National Archives

Finishing Off the Japanese Navy

By Charles G. Westwater
August 2015
In the closing months of World War II, the U.S. Navy sailed with near impunity off the coast of Japan. U.S. submarines had relentlessly sunk Japanese merchant ships carrying oil ...
National Archives

How Many Will Die?

By Thomas B. Allen with Norman Polmar<p>
August 2015
Harry S. Truman had been president for five days when on 17 April 1945, he walked into his predecessor’s White House Map Room for the first time. Written on a ...
Norman Polmar Collection

Another Alternative—Poison Gas!

By Norman Polmar with Thomas B. Allen
August 2015
In June 1945, as the Pacific war continued its bloody advance toward the Japanese Home Islands, President Harry S. Truman met in the White House with his senior military and ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

The Enlisted Force's Scribe

By Senior Chief Petty Officer Dennis L. Noble, U.S. Coast Guard (Retired)
August 2015
Formative Years and Early Naval Career Richard was born on 9 May 1913 in the high desert town of Mountain Home, Idaho, the first of Milton and Anna Lucy McKenna’s ...
Nicholas Biddle, by James Peale, after Charles Willson Peale

'I Fear Nothing'

By Tim McGrath
August 2015
One of the youngest and one of the boldest: The exploits of Revolutionary War Captain Nicholas Biddle set a template for future officers.
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Historic Aircraft - A Limited Success

By Norman Polmar, Author, Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet
August 2015
The Grumman F11F Tiger was an attempt to obtain the maximum possible performance from an aircraft based on the firm’s highly successful F9F Panther/Cougar series of Navy fighters. While its ...

Book Reviews

August 2015
The Baltimore Sabotage Cell: German Agents, American Traitors, and The U-Boat Deutschland During World War IDwight R. Messimer. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2015. 280 pp. Appendix. Notes. Biblio ...
Richard Latture

Pieces of the Past

August 2015
There are flare guns, and then there are Nazi flare guns—talk about an artifact one doesn’t see every day. Currently in the collection of Annapolis Maritime Antiques, this stainless-steel Madelon ...