The Great White Fleet
After Submarine School, then-Lieutenant Robert McNitt joined Commander Eugene Fluckey as executive officer on board the USS Barb (SS-220). On patrol duty during World War II, the submarine “took a real pasting” that came too close for comfort.
Jim and Taimi Leavelle at Pearl Harbor, the site of Jim’s first brush with history in 1941. Two decades later, as a detective with the Dallas Police Department, he would be witness to another momentous event in the nation’s history.
Grievously wounded in November 1942 at Guadalcanal, then-Ensign Robert Hagen would not be with the Aaron Ward when she sank five months later, and he would survive the loss of the Johnston, pictured here, at Leyte Gulf in October 1944.
Japanese records confirmed Navy Captain Edwin T. Layton’s suspicions: Japan had tried a second strike on Pearl Harbor using two Kawanishi H8K “Emily” flying boats.
The author with his father in  February 1956.
The USS John D. Ford (DD-228). Writing about the 1942 battle in the Makassar Strait, then-Lieutenant William Mack wrote of the men and four ships of Destroyer Division 59: “We weren’t much, but we were full of fight.’”
The MV-22 provides a critical capability, but it faces challenges that echo those of the Harrier. If the current review looks at and builds on the aircraft’s previous readiness review, its insights will help keep the MV-22 ready and reliable for the remaining decades of its service life.