U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Flawed Victory at Sea

By Alan Rems
October 2017
On 23 October 1944, three days after General Douglas MacArthur’s forces landed on Leyte Island in the Philippines, the Japanese navy emerged to fight. Awaiting them in the waters east ...

Seven Decades of Debate

By Alan Rems
October 2017
Critical reaction to ‘Bull’ Halsey’s performance at the Battle of Leyte Gulf has threatened his stature as the United States’ most admired World War II fighting admiral.In his 1947 ...
“Battle of the Philippine Sea, Evening” by John Hamilton/Navy Art Collection, Na

Recapturing the Interwar Navy's Strategic Magic

By Lieutenant Commander Joel Holwitt, U.S. Navy
October 2017
First Prize Winner in the 2017 CNO Naval History Essay Contest--Professional Historian Category. To maximize the growth of strategic thought in the present-day Navy, the service should turn to practices ...
Courtesy of Joel Holwitt

On Our Scope

October 2017
The large echo on the U.S. Naval Institute’s scope recently has been the inaugural CNO Naval History Essay Contest. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John M. Richardson—in conjunction with the ...
Naval History and Heritage Command

As I Recall - At Sea a Century Ago

By Vice Admiral John L. McCrea, U.S. Navy (Retired)
October 2017
As a captain, John McCrea was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s naval aide and the first commanding officer of the USS Iowa (BB-61)—the same two billets in the same sequence held ...
Library of Congress

'All that Flies and Creeps'

By Charles D. Dusch Jr.
October 2017
The German way of war took a historic and strategic turn during the Great War, incorporating attacks from the air using enormous zeppelins and airplanes in concert with submarine operations ...
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Champagne With Ernest Hemingway

By Breck Viets
October 2017
A Naval ROTC midshipman on summer cruise in Havana meets his literary idol.It was a beautiful Cuban summer day in July 1955, and the searing heat of seductively beautiful Havana ...

In Contact

October 2017
Remembering the FliersBarrett TillmanDick Camp’s August articles about Guadalcanal’s “Cactus Air Force” (“Flying in the Eye of the Guadalcanal Storm” and “The Cactus Air Force’s Humble Home,” pp. 14–21) stirred ...
Wikipedia

A Sub-Hunting Bloodhound

By Thomas Wildenberg
October 2017
The Mark 24 torpedo, nicknamed “Fido” for its ability to sniff out enemy submarines, was one of the first “smart” weapons developed during World War II. An official definition for ...
MICHAEL BLANCHARD, COURTESY OF USS CONSTITUTION MUSEUM

Naval History News

October 2017
Fresh from Dry Dock, the Constitution Reopens to VisitorsThe frigate USS Constitution returned to the waters of Boston Harbor on the night of 23 July after a two-year restoration in ...
Howard Koslow/U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Historic Ships - Two Navies, Five Lives

By J. M. Caiella
October 2017
On 12 April 1861, the Revenue Cutter Service—a forebear of the U.S. Coast Guard—made its mark in U.S. naval service when its finest cutter, captained by the service’s most distinguished ...
U.S. Navy

Historic Aircraft - Silent (By) Night

By Norman Polmar, Author, Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet
October 2017
In 1968, U.S. forces in South Vietnam sought to halt the nighttime infiltration of Viet Cong into the Mekong Delta area using helicopters and Cessna O-1 “Bird Dog” aircraft to ...

Book Reviews

October 2017
Never Call Me a Hero: A Ledgendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway sN. Jack “Dusty” Kleiss with Timothy and Laura Orr. 312 pp. New York: William Morrow ...
U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE PHOTO ARCHIVE

Pieces of the Past

By Eric Mills
October 2017
The waning days of an American summer always have been a special time—a mixture of carefree pleasure and a growing poignancy that soon it all will be over—a time for ...