Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The Coast Guard’s long-sought heavy icebreaker, the Polar Security Cutter, was among the programs to receive funding when Congress passed a spending...
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 AA guns and tracers from light guns. The flak...
By Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn, U.S. Navy (Retired)
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—the three-and-a-half-year campaign to force Hanoi...
By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Proving its adaptability during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Navy created coastal and riverine forces from scratch that reduced communist infiltration from the sea, secured vital waterways, and pushed enemy forces into the...
Seventy years ago, the Nuremberg Tribunal endeavored to dispense fair and impartial justice. Yet the verdicts and sentences delivered for the German admirals satisfied neither their supporters nor their opponents....
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 Corps. During his 28-year career as an infantry...
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, Lieutenant Commander George Van. I first heard from George in early...
By Commander Tyrone G. Martin, U. S. Navy (Retired)
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 of its trajectory. Whatever its genesis, the weapon...
The 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 Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 2...
Historic Aircraft - 'There's a Ford in Your Future'
By Norman Polmar, Author, Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet
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...
Historic Fleets - 'This Vessel Most Successfully Accomplished Her Mission'
By Robert J. Cressman
As the transport Susan B. Anthony (AP-72) stood toward the Normandy coast to disembark her troops early on a June morning in 1944, Chief Signalman David P. Fitzgerald, a 24-year-old Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native, wearily drew a mug of...
Museum Report - Showcasing Naval Treasures as Masterpieces
By William Galvani
The imperial barge of Napoleon, with a gilded, resplendent Neptune astride its bow, is the first and largest object visitors see at the French National Navy Museum. The 59-foot vessel is an impressive sight, with its 22 white oars raised in...
“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, Maryland. The story of American POWs in the...