Navy History

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Comment by NavyDads Admin (Paul) on July 27, 2012 at 2:35pm

Comment by NavyDads Admin (Paul) on July 19, 2012 at 5:14pm

anybody heading to the LA area:http://graphics.latimes.com/towergraphic-visiting-iowa/

Comment by NavyDads Admin (Paul) on July 5, 2012 at 8:55pm

this is too cool........virtual tour of the USS IOWA

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/photography/la-tr-battleship-iowa...

Comment by NavyDads Admin (Paul) on June 30, 2012 at 4:59pm

A Man of July and his historical beginnings: John Paul Jones (July 6, 1747 – July 18, 1792) was a Scottish sailor and the United States' first well-known naval fighter in the American Revolution. Although he made enemies among America's political elites, his actions in British waters during the Revolution earned him an international reputation which persists to this day. He later served in the Imperial Russian Navy.

During his engagement with HMS Serapis, Jones uttered, according to the later recollection of his first lieutenant, the legendary reply to a taunt about surrender from the British captain: "I have not yet begun to fight!"

Comment by NavyDads Admin (Paul) on June 21, 2012 at 7:17pm

this day in 1945: 

Okinawa declared secure after most costly naval campaign in history. United States had 30 ships sunk and 223 damaged, mostly from kamikaze attacks, with 5,000 dead and 5,000 wounded, while the Japanese lost 100,000 dead.

Comment by Paige on June 7, 2012 at 2:35pm

DNU -- A Look Back at D-Day
-- http://www.navy.mil/viewVideo.asp?id=17194

Comment by Paige on June 7, 2012 at 2:33pm

DNU -- Battle of Midway Commemorated Throughout the Fleet
-- http://www.navy.mil/viewVideo.asp?id=17182

Comment by NavyDads Admin (Paul) on May 4, 2012 at 11:51am

here is a chance to become part of a truly historic ship....for only a very limited time remaining, you can donate and become a "plankowner" to one of the most historic vessels in history.  Check them out:

http://www.pacificbattleship.com/

Comment by NavyDads Admin (Paul) on March 9, 2012 at 10:12am

Comment by NavyDads Admin (Paul) on January 5, 2012 at 6:52am

found this site on the internet ..... worth a visit: http://www.ourflagwasstillthere.org/why-commemorate.html

Why Commemorate the War of 1812 Bicentennial?

"The deeds of our Navy form a part of history over which any American can be pardoned for lingering."
President Theodore Roosevelt
The Naval War of 1812

From 2012 to 2015, the United States Navy and its partners will commemorate the Bicentennial of the War of 1812 and the writing of our National Anthem, the Star Spangled Banner. It is remarkable that 200 years ago, the first declared war in our nation’s history was fought against the nation (now two nations) which have become our closest allies. Many things change in 200 years, but what doesn’t change is the importance of sea power in the affairs of maritime nations.

Since its birth in 1776, the United States has always been a maritime nation, which means that unobstructed access to and free use of the world’s oceans are essential to our national welfare and prosperity. That’s what the United States went to war in 1812 to defend, and that is what the United States Navy has been protecting ever since.

Why is keeping the seas free so important? Here are a few facts about the world:

• 70% of the world is covered by the oceans
• 80% of the world’s people live near the oceans
• 90% of all international trade travels on the oceans
• 95% of all global communications are transported under the oceans

That’s the world America lives in today. Looking at those numbers, one begins to understand the immense importance of ensuring the freedom of the oceans with capable and effective sea services. The piracy off the Horn of Africa that has emerged in the first decades of the 21^st century reminds us of the 18th century Barbary Pirates and the threat they posed to our nation in its early years. In response to that threat, the United States commissioned six frigates, built up and down the Atlantic coast from New Hampshire to Virginia. Since America’s Navy began with those first six frigates, American sea power has been essential to countering threats, winning wars and furthering the interests of peace and prosperity worldwide.

Our Sea Services team and its capabilities are absolutely critical to our Nation’s security. We learned that lesson first and well during the War of 1812, and that tuition is worth reviewing again as we commemorate that war’s bicentennial over the next several years.

To say a lot has changed in the last 200 years is an obvious understatement. For example:

• The two combatant nations in the War of 1812 have become three nations enjoying the closest possible friendly relationships: The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
• In 1812 America’s Navy operated wooden ships; now it operates steel ships and is working on constructing ships of futuristic synthetic materials.
• The sails powered by wind in 1812 have given way consecutively to steam (from coal and then oil), to gas turbines, to energy from the atom, and in the future to green energy sources.
• In 1812, the Navy’s situational awareness was limited to the horizon of visibility from the top of the tallest mast on a ship; today, America’s Navy enjoys instantaneous communications to any point on the globe, to the bottom of the ocean, and to and from outer space.
• The smoothbore cannons of 1812 have metamorphosed into modern naval guns, aircraft, missiles, and torpedoes, and America’s Navy is on course to a force armed with lasers and railguns, technologies unimaginable to the sailors who fought in the War of 1812.

But today one of those first six frigates that 200 years ago fought in the War of 1812, the U.S.S. Constitution, is still a commissioned ship in the United States Navy. She is a tangible link to those critical events in our nation’s history, and anchors one end of the arcs of technological change just described. As such, she invites one’s attention to the intangible lessons of the War of 1812 that have shaped, and must continue to shape, the nation’s sea services today and in the future. The traditions, customs, and norms of the United States Navy in the 21^st Century were laid down in the War of 1812. The outstanding Navy commanders of the War of 1812, such as Stephen Decatur, Isaac Hull, Oliver Hazard Perry, Thomas Macdonough, Charles Morris, and others, set benchmarks for leadership, seamanship, and innovation that shape and inform the officer corps of America’s Navy today. The performance of America’s Sailors and Marines in that war, fighting always against great odds and in great peril, set the standards proudly met by our ships’ crews over the last 200 years and today.

Ultimately, the commemoration of the Bicentennial of the War of 1812 is a salute to all of our Sailors and Marines who fought so gallantly against great odds in that conflict, in all of our nation’s conflicts between then and now, and those who are today defending freedom around the world – from the mountains of Afghanistan to the coasts of Africa to the Straits of Hormuz – and standing ready to provide compassionate humanitarian aid from Haiti to Japan to wherever catastrophe strikes. The Navy and Marine Corps and Coast Guard are what they are because of the quality of the people that served over the last 200 years, and the tens of thousands of Sailors and Marines now making sacrifices every day, something that America can be very grateful has not changed over the past 200 years.

If America remembers the lessons of the naval war of 1812, lessons paid for with the lives of Sailors and Marines, then America can be confident that the nation will always answer Francis Scott Key’s question in the affirmative: 

Oh, say does that that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

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