U.S. Navy

<p>Day after day, the sun, the sea, and the sharks cut down the men who clung to the “doughnut” raft: Seaman Heyn’s Story from the Naval Archives</p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Japan’s feudal, shut-in history suddenly came to an end when the bluff American commodore dropped anchor in Tokyo Bay</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">When American colonists sorely needed friends, a Dutch island governor risked political ruin by saluting the rebels’ flag</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> “Come and see the boiling cloud,” said a woman on the ground; aloft, the slender <span class="typestyle"> Shenandoah</span> headed straight into the eye of the vicious squall </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">So the Bible said, but American missionaries found Hawaii a paradise where pleasure reigned, and the sense of sin was difficult to teach</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">Weary of his humiliating job—American pay-off man to the piratical Arab states—this bold Yankee civilian raised his own army and won our strangest foreign war</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> It was thirty miles offshore, and stormy, but the daredevil swimmer plunged into the Atlantic with a crisp “Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen!” Our author recalls bold Captain Boyton, a mixture of Jules Verne, Tom Swift, and a bit of Walter Mitty.</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> As the debate about rescuing them droned on and on, Lieutenant Greely’s men were dying one by one</span> </p>

<p>The admiral who commanded "the ship that wouldn't die" recalls the hellish and heroic hours after a kamikaze turned the carrier <em>Franklin</em> into an inferno.</p>

<p><span class="deck"> The Navy and contractor Smith accused each other of fraud. The Navy won—until the President took a hand</span> </p>

<p>“My God! What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dead!” the Admiral told Lanikai's skipper when she finally sailed into port</p>

<p>The famed aviator recalls the dramatic bombing raid he led on Tokyo early in World War II.</p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">"With half the western world at stake,</span> <span class="typestyle"> See Perry on the middle lake.”</span> <span class="typestyle"> —Nineteenth-century ballad</span> </span></p>

<p>It became apparent that this influenza was a first-rate killer.</p>

<p><span class="deck"> A SUBMARINE COMMANDER TELLS WHY WE ALMOST LOST THE PACIFIC WAR</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">She was the last major American warship sunk during World War II, and her sinking was the single worst open-sea disaster in our naval history. How could it have happened?</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> An Interview With Edward L. Beach<br /><span class="typestyle"> The captain who first took a submarine around the world underwater looks at the U.S. Navy past and present and tells us what we must learn from the Falklands war</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">An extraordinary World War I naval operation is recounted by the commander of a decaying coastal steamer crammed with a terrifying new explosive</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> We built a merchant marine despite the opposition of the Royal Navy, went on to develop the most beautiful of all sailing ships, and held our supremacy for years. But how do we measure up today?</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> If he’d been the closest companion of the president of IBM, you might happen across his name in a privately printed memoir. But LeMoyne Billings was John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s best friend from Choate to the White House—and that makes him part of history.</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The U.S. Navy’s first submarine was scrapped half a century ago. But now we have been given a second chance to visit a boat nobody ever expected to see again.</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">His job was to destroy German submarines. To do it, they gave him 12 men, three machine guns, four depth charges, and an old wooden fishing schooner with an engine that literally drove mechanics mad.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Two letters from a Navy lieutenant to his wife tell the story of the last hours of World War II.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">A former Marine recalls the grim defense of Guadalcanal in 1942.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Chaos and farce and catastrophe played a big part. But so did a few men of vision.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">75 years ago, a powered kite landed on a cruiser. From that stunt grew the weaponry that has defined modern naval supremacy.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">A novelist and historian takes us on a tour of the Academy at Annapolis, where American history encompasses the history of the world.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Giving the men who died aboard America’s first battleship a decent funeral took 14 years, three-quarters of a million dollars, and some hair-raising engineering. But, in the end, they did it right.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The American army that beat Hitler was thoroughly professional, but it didn’t start out that way. North Africa was where it learned the hard lessons, and none were harder than the disaster at Kasserine. This was the campaign that taught us how to fight a war.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Revisiting the seas where American carriers turned the course of history, a Navy man re-creates a time of frightful odds and brilliant gambles.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">They padded aboard submarines and proved themselves steadfast in boredom and in battle. During the worst of war, these canine mascots brought their shipmates some of the comfort of home.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The author entered the conquered capital days after the surrender to meet high officers of the Imperial Navy.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery in 1865, but right on into this century, sailors were routinely drugged, beaten, and kidnapped to man America’s mighty merchant marine.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Unloved and unlovely, the fragile boats of the “Tinclad Navy” ventured, Lincoln said, “wherever the ground was a little damp,” and made a contribution to the war that has never been sufficiently appreciated.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">A TALE OF PERIL, COURAGE, and gross ingratitude on the old China station</span></p>

<p>Tough, nimble, and, pound for pound, the most heavily armed ships in the U.S. Navy, PT boats fought in the very front line of the greatest sea war in history. But even today, hardly anyone understands what they did.</p>

<p><span class="deck">THE NEGLECTED EPIC OF ANDREW JACKSON HIGGINS</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">THE ATOLL WHERE THE TIDE OF THE PACIFIC WAR TURNED IS NOW BOTH A STIRRING HISTORICAL LANDMARK AND A STUNNING WILD LIFE REFUGE.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">It is a place of noble harbors, a convergence of strong rivers and a promontory commanding a wind-raked bay; a shoreline enfolding towns older than the republic and the most modern and formidable naval base on Earth; a spot where a four-hour standoff between two very peculiar ships changed the course of warfare forever—and the breeding ground of crabs that people travel across the country to eat. Fred Schultz explains why the fifth annual American Heritage Great American Place Award goes to ...</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Powered flight was born exactly one hundred years ago. It changed everything, of course, but most of all, it changed how this nation wages war.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Forty years ago, the USS <span class="typestyle"> Maddox</span> fought the first battle of America’s longest war. How it happened—and even <span class="typestyle"> if</span> it happened—are still fiercely debated. </span></p>