Courtesy of VADM Robert F. Dunn, USN (RET.)

On Our Scope

December 2015
As the Navy attack group and supporting fighters headed west over North Vietnam, small gray puffs blossomed in the clear sky—antiaircraft fire. More appeared, joined by black bursts from larger ...
Anita J. Estes

Looking Back - A Friend Indeed

By Paul Stillwell
December 2015
Throughout the course of our lives, we make many friends. One who brightened my existence from the early 1990s until his passing earlier this year was a retired naval officer ...
Courtesy of Robert Rickover

In Contact

December 2015
Rickover’s LettersDoug SjobergI read Vice Admiral George Emery’s insightful piece (“An Admiral’s Letters to His Son,” October, pp. 50–53) with mixed feelings. The article initially conveyed a feeling ...
Beverley R. Robinson Collection, U.S. Naval Academy Museum

Armaments & Innovations - The First Shell Gun

By Commander Tyrone G. Martin, U. S. Navy (Retired)
December 2015
Centuries ago, perhaps a gunner accustomed to firing his cannon became captivated with the idea of getting a second bang—not from his weapon but from the projectile at the target-end ...
Battleship Missouri Memorial

Naval History News

December 2015
Missouri Memorial Honors VeteransThe 70th anniversary of the signing of the Instruments of Surrender ending World War II was honored in a ceremony on board the USS Missouri Memorial in ...
U.S. Marine Corps Photo (Peter B. Mersky Collection)

Historic Aircraft - 'There's a Ford in Your Future'

By Norman Polmar, Author, Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet
December 2015
Eccentric innovator Henry Ford built airplanes as well as automobiles and antisubmarine ships (the Eagle boats), and developed low-cost housing projects and rubber plantations.1 Pro-fascist, anti-Semitic, and seeking to control ...
A-4C Skyhawk

Navy Air Strike North Vietnam

By Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn, U.S. Navy (Retired)
December 2015
Dodging SAMs by pulling high ‘Gs,’ and weaving and jinking to avoid antiaircraft fire were key survival skills for the pilots of Operation Rolling Thunder.
Navy Art Collection, Naval History and Heritage Command

From Blue to Green and Brown

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
December 2015
On the morning of 3 March 1965, a UH-1B helicopter piloted by an Army lieutenant lifted off the pad at Qui Nhon on the central coast of South Vietnam and ...
U.S. Coast Guard

Overlooked Service

By Lieutenant Commander Krystyn Pecora, U.S. Coast Guard
December 2015
Every day dozens of military members, retirees, and family members hurriedly pass through the doors of the administrative building at the U.S. Coast Guard base in Portsmouth, Virginia. For most ...
Photos courtesy of B. L. Petit and Richard H. Johnson

'Too Young to Be Scared'

By Bruce M. Petty
December 2015
Between the two World Wars, and especially once the Great Depression hit, getting into one of the armed services was almost as big of an accomplishment as getting accepted into ...
Corbis

A Most Timely Skirmish

By Lieutenant Colonel George S. Converse, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
December 2015
First Prize, 2015 Naval History Essay Contest: Marine Corps Actions Shaping History Throughout its history, the U.S. Marine Corps has earned immense respect from the American people for its success ...
Library of Congress

A WHAT in Union Square?

By Carl LaVO
December 2015
How do you get 25,000 New Yorkers to enlist for Navy sea duty amid the horror of World War I? Give them a look at sailor life by building and ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Struggle to Save the Raleigh

By John J. Domagalski
December 2015
During the fading afternoon hours of 6 December 1941, Captain Robert B. Simons decided to go ashore for a walk. The warship he commanded, the USS Raleigh (CL-7), was securely ...

Book Reviews

December 2015
Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and SacrificeAdam Makos. New York: Ballantine Books, 2015. 464 pp. Maps. Illus. Notes. Biblio. $28.Reviewed by David SearsAdam Makos makes a ...

Contributors

December 2015
Lieutenant Colonel George S. Converse (U.S. Marine Corps, Ret.) graduated with a BA in English from Montana State University in 1968, the same year he was commissioned in the Marine ...
Corinne Thompson

Pieces of the Past

December 2015
“Torture, boredom, and inventiveness. . . .” Such are the words that seek to describe the prisoner-of-war experience in an exhibit panel at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis ...