U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

On Our Scope

April 2017
World War I had been raging for more than two and a half years by the time the United States entered the conflict a century ago, on 6 April 1917 ...

In Contact

April 2017
War-Winning Aircraft? James M. Caiella I just received my February issue of Naval History, and briefly flipping through it, a headline stopped me in my tracks: “The Plane that Won ...

Bluejacket’s Manual - Ranks, Rates, and Ratings

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
April 2017
The recent demise and subsequent resurrection of the Navy’s rating system has brought considerable attention to a side of the Navy that is unique among the armed services (shared only ...
Naval History and Heritage Command

Armaments & Innovations

By Norman Friedman<p>
April 2017
The Problematic Magnetic Exploder The U.S. Navy innovation was supposed to result in the ultimate submarine weapon—a torpedo that would explode under a ship. That sort of attack would snap ...
NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Naval History News

April 2017
Women in Military Honored at Athena Conference In 1976 women were admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy for the first time and began to be integrated into the Brigade of ...
“Splice the Main Brace,” Proceedings, Nov. 1937

Rum: The Spirit of the Sea

By Louis Arthur Norton
April 2017
The naval tradition of consuming alcohol at sea has a long history. In the beginning, this attempt to reduce some of the boredom of shipboard duty was a public-health measure ...
National Archives

Historic Aircraft - A Lackluster Performance: Part 1

By Norman Polmar, Author, Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet
April 2017
The Brewster Aeronautical Corporation operated from the early 1930s until the end of World War II, producing several lackluster aircraft for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps and Allied air ...
Nimitz Library, U.S. Naval Academy; Inset: Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy, by Elting E. Morison

Incubation of a World War I Flag Officer

By Kenneth J. Hagan and Michael T. McMaster
April 2017
In the 1870s, one’s ability to memorize arcane formulas and facts without necessarily acquiring the intellectual means for understanding them was key to academic success at the U.S. Naval Academy ...
HMS Campbeltown at St. Nazaire, by Norman Wilkinson, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

Sacrifice at Saint-Nazaire

By Michael D. Hull
April 2017
As the spring of 1942 approached, the British Admiralty had its hands full with the Battle of the Atlantic, which had been raging for two and a half years. U-boat ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

The First Korean Conflict

By David McCormick
April 2017
Gray smoke rose from the USS Monocacy as the ship’s cannon laid siege, battering the Koreans positioned behind parapets and palisades, high above the river. Mustered on a hill facing ...

Book Reviews

April 2017
Where Divers Dare: The Hunt for the Last U-Boat Randall Peffer. New York: Berkley Caliber, 2016. 310 pp. Illus. Index. $28. Reviewed by James P. Delgado From 1939 through 1945 ...
Library of Congress

Pieces of the Past

Eric Mills<p>
April 2017
Rear Admiral William Sowden Sims had been making a name for himself—and making waves—within the U.S. Navy for some time when Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels (they were destined ...