It was in 218 B.C. that the Carthaginian commander Hannibal famously marched some 30 elephants across the Alps and over the Rhône River by boat to attack Rome during the Second Punic War.
(U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive)
In the millennia that have followed, the use of elephants in naval warfare has not accounted to much—certain films, of course, excepted. But that has not stopped pachydermous photographs from appearing in the Naval Institute's Photo Archive for one reason or another.
The selection that follows shows some of the interactions naval personnel have had over the years with the elephants they've encountered in their travels.
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