DoD/Jian DeLeon

A Night at the Ballpark

By Paul Stillwell
January 2011
Many of the enjoyable days and nights of my life have been spent in baseball parks, past and present. Images of those days were rekindled in early November, the weekend ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Flight Line

By Hill Goodspeed, Historian, National Naval Aviation Museum
January 2011
The First Tentative Steps In an example of the ironies that pervade history, the initial development of naval aviation resulted from the efforts of three unlikely proponents: a civilian pilot ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

The Navy’s First

By Norman Polmar
January 2011
Orville and Wilbur Wright developed the principles of manned, powered flight, first demonstrated on 17 December 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, with their Wright Flyer. But it was Glenn ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Hellcat Ace in a Day—Twice!

Interview by Paul Stillwell
January 2011
The late David McCampbell remains the Navy’s top fighter ace. Here’s an account of World War II aerial action in the Medal of Honor recipient’s own words.
Naval History & Heritage Command

America's First Strike Against Terrorism

Lieutenant Commander Joseph T. Stanik, U.S. Navy (Retired)
January 2011
In the predawn darkness of 15 April 1986, the sky along the Libyan coast suddenly erupted in blinding fire and dense smoke. U.S. Navy attack aircraft from carriers in the ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

The Washington Wins the Draw

By James D. Hornfischer
January 2011
In an exclusive excerpt from the new book Neptune’s Inferno , Rear Admiral Willis Lee coolly directs the big guns in a nighttime showdown at Guadalcanal.
U.S. Air Force Art Collection

What Goes Up . . .

By Daniel J. Demers
January 2011
In 1911 pioneering pilot Eugene Ely advanced the nascent art of naval aviation with a historic first: actually landing a plane on a ship.
Naval History & Heritage Command

When Frank Jack Met Maggie

By Stephen D. Regan
January 2011
Fame and glory lay ahead for him, but first, a young officer named Frank Jack Fletcher had to command a wheezing gut-bucket in World War I.
National Archives

Fire Down Below!

By Christopher Edwards
January 2011
It was one of the worst peacetime disasters in U.S. Navy history: the 1954 conflagration on the aircraft carrier Bennington .