Courtesy of Barrett Tillman

On Our Scope

February 2017
Thirty years ago the U.S. Naval Institute debuted Naval History. With 163 issues under its belt, the magazine remains the only publication dedicated to documenting and preserving the history of ...
Courtesy of Christopher P. O’Connor

In Contact

February 2017
Closer Look at the EvidenceAnthony Summers and Robbyn SwanIn our book A Matter of Justice: Pearl Harbor: Betrayal, Blame and a Family’s Quest for Justice (Harper, 2016) we ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

As I Recall - Competing for the Top Job

By Admiral Robert E. Kramek, U.S. Coast Guard (Retired)
February 2017
James Leamon Forbis enlisted in the Navy in 1939. When war came on 7 December 1941, he was on the front line of history, serving as a coxswain on board ...
Naval History and Heritage Command

Naval History News

February 2017
Scavengers Trash WWII Java Sea ShipwrecksThe Guardian reported the alarming news in November that three World War II–era British warships and a U.S. submarine that sank in the Java Sea ...
Vasa Museum, Stockholm, Sweden

Armaments & Innovations

By Commander Tyrone G. Martin, U. S. Navy (Retired)
February 2017
Steering a Ship with a PoleWhen people began traveling afloat, they soon learned that the easiest way to change direction was to stick something in the water on the side ...
U.S. Navy

Historic Aircraft - Flying Sans Engines

By Norman Polmar
February 2017
Germany’s highly successful use of airborne troops to capture Belgian forts in 1940 and to seize the British-held island of Crete in 1941 encouraged the U.S. Army and Marine Corps ...
Carte de visite by James Wallace Black of Boston, Massachusetts, Collection of the author

Calling Cards From the Civil War

By Ronald S. Coddington
February 2017
How would we remember the Civil War if photography had not yet been invented? Wartime likenesses of leading military and political leaders would be preserved as engravings, sketches, and paintings ...
Minnesota Historical Society; Photo: courtesy of Martha King

Pipeline to Freedom

By David L. Sears
February 2017
June 20, 1944 0345 local time—crash—all miraculously uninjured. Tried to find someone without success. Finally, after shooting flare they found us.The U.S. Navy twin-engine PV-1 Ventura bomber piloted by Navy ...
National Archives

Flying the Empire Express

By David L. Sears
February 2017
Carrier-based plane flew over. . . . Evacuated to the summit. Air raids carried out frequently. . . . Heard loud noise. It is naval gun firing. . . ...
Library of Congress

Great Expectations for an Ill-Fated Ironclad

By Charles E. Pearson
February 2017
The story of the Eastport­—from packet steamer to Confederate gunboat to U.S. ironclad to shipwreck—is one of the most intriguing of any Civil War vessel.ter. Plagued by damages and under ...
U.S. Naval Academy Museum

A ‘Sloop-of-Mercy’

By J. M. Caiella
February 2017
The Jamestown was one of the typically handsome U.S. sloops-of-war of the antebellum Navy. There was nothing remarkable about her form, construction, or armament to set her apart from the ...

Book Reviews

Reviewed by Norman Polmar<p>
February 2017
The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944–1945James D. Hornfischer. 640 pp. New York: Random House, 2016. Illus. Notes. Biblio. Index. $35.Reviewed by Craig ...

Pieces of the Past

February 2017
To a lover of naval artifacts, any relic from the Age of Fighting Sail is a special thing. And if it happens to have a Nelsonian connection, well, then, all ...

Prewar Voyage Down Under

By John J. Domagalski
February 2017
Rear Admiral John Henry Newton, on board the USS Chicago (CA-29), did not know his ultimate destination as the Northampton-class heavy cruiser gracefully sailed out of Pearl Harbor in early ...