Thomas Wildenberg

Thomas Wildenberg is an award-winning scholar with special interests in aviators, naval aviation, and technological innovation in the military. He is the author of a number of books on a variety on naval topics as well as biographies of Joseph Mason Reeves, Billy Mitchell, and Charles Stark Draper.

Articles by Thomas Wildenberg

To Sink a Battleship

By Thomas Wildenberg

August 2023

Commanding the Balao-class submarine Sealion, Eli Reich accomplished a singular sea-fighting exploit of World War II.

History’s First Torpedo Strike

By Thomas Wildenberg

December 2022

After a rocky start, the experimental French boat Gustave Zédé went on to enter the annals of naval warfare as the first submarine to fire a torpedo and strike an ...

Optical mirror landing system on the the port side of the flight deck of HMS Illustrious in 1953

‘Call the Ball’: The Optical Mirror Landing System

By Thomas Wildenberg

August 2019

Landing on an aircraft carrier always has been a challenging maneuver, but optical landing systems aid pilots as they approach carrier decks.

RIM-7 Seasparrow missile is fired from the trainable Mk 29 launcher.

The Seasparrow Surface-to-Air Missile System

By Thomas Wildenberg

December 2018

The sinking of the Israeli destroyer Eilat by a Russian antiship missile in 1967 led the development of the AIM-7 Seasparrow Surface Missile System (NSSMS).

National Air and Space Museum (Eric Long)

Inertial Navigation Made Ballistic-Missile Submarines a Reality

By Thomas Wildenberg

June 2018

The deployment of the U.S. Navy’s first nuclear-powered Polaris ballistic-missile submarine, the USS George Washington (SSBN-598), was a true revolution in naval affairs thanks to her ability to launch missiles ...

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 ...

The Instrumental Oerlikon

By Thomas Wildenberg

April 2016

One of the most widely used naval weapons of World War II, the 20-mm Oerlikon antiaircraft cannon was installed aboard virtually every U.S. Navy warship—from lowly PT boats to massive ...

The Revolutionary Rangekeeper

By Thomas Wildenberg

October 2015

‘I would construct a machine to do any old thing in any old way” was young Hannibal C. Ford’s yearbook motto at Cornell University. Fortunately for the U.S. Navy, the ...

Neptune's Band of Brothers

By Thomas Wildenberg

December 2014

In 1936 close to 30,000 sailors traversed the equator and participated in the largest Crossing the Line ceremony the Navy has ever conducted.

A Gun to Counter the Dive Bomber

By Thomas Wildenberg

July 2014

The quadruple 1.1-inch machine cannon, affectionately known as the “Chicago Piano,” was the first medium-range antiaircraft gun adopted by the U.S. Navy. 1 Engineered and built by the Naval Gun ...

Crewless Ghost Ships of the Interwar Navy

By Thomas Wildenberg

March 2014

“Unmanned” is the much talked-about wave of the naval future—but is it really all that new an idea?

The Shoebox that Transformed Antiaircraft Fire Control

By Thomas Wildenberg

November 2013

In the spring of 1941, the staff of the fire-control section in the newly reorganized Bureau of Ordnance’s Research and Development Division was struggling with the problem of how to ...