Free Republic

Even after the USS Missouri (BB-63) was officially decommissioned in 1992, the “battleship retirement debate” continued – with some military pundits arguing that the old battlewagons were still the best way to provide fire support for amphibious assaults as well as to other troops near shorelines. A counterargument was made that smaller warships such as the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers could provide similar support fire from vastly smaller platforms, while close air support fighters and even advanced missile systems can do the job that was once the domain of the battlewagons.

A history of Roosevelt's (the good one) Great White Fleet and the voyage that announced America's emergence as a major world power.

US NAVY AIRCRAFT CARRIER MUSEUMS (Click map for a high resolution image) Currently (July 2013) there are five US Navy Aircraft Carrier museums. Four are of Essex class carriers commissioned during World War II which underwent the SBC-125 refit in the 1950s to modernize them. All were commissioned in 1943 & served into modern times. The last, the USS Lexington, was decommissioned in 1991 after 48 years service. The other is the USS Midway, namesake of a larger class carrier built at the end of the war. She underwent two major refits, in the 1950s & in 1970 greatly enlarging...

Crews have been working 24-hour days to keep up with extraordinary amounts of water leaking on board Battleship Texas. The historic ship, which just turned 100 years old in May, is only one of six remaining that served in both World War I and World War II. The ship manager says crews noticed the unusual amount of water coming on board sometime on Saturday. Since then, workers have been at it day and night just trying to keep up. A number of pumps have been brought to the site as the water is being directed back out into the channel....

In the early days of the cold war, the U.S. Navy was feeling left out. The future was nuclear, and the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command seemed to have a lock on the delivery systems. The Navy’s first bid for a piece of the strategic pie, the supercarrier USS United States, was killed by the Pentagon in favor of the Air Force’s B-36 bomber, so the admirals came up with a plan for a force of nuclear-armed seaplanes. The Seaplane Striking Force would comprise jet-powered flying boats capable of long-range strategic nuclear attack and more mundane tasks such as conventional...

The South Devon man who sunk the Argentine navy cruiser General Belgrano with the loss of 323 lives in the 1982 Falklands War is to retire as Paignton Zoo's manager and administrator. Chris Wreford-Brown who was Commander of the Royal Navy nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror when it went to the South Atlantic to reclaim the Falkland Islands and gave the order to fire the fateful torpedoes which sank the cruiser, has worked at the zoo for 15 years. In a career spanning 30 years Mr Wreford-Brown, who lives in the South Brent area, commanded the frigate HMS Cornwall, the diesel...

The navy has scuttled plans to make the USS Saratoga a museum in favor of another more modern aircraft carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy. The Saratoga, now docked in Newport, R.I., will almost certainly be scrapped. Six ships have been named Saratoga in American naval history – three sailing ships from the Revolution, War of 1812 and Civil War, respectively, a cruiser and two aircraft carriers. "Every ship named Saratoga has had a strong presence in the history of this nation," said Larry Gordon of Wilton, the unofficial USS Saratoga historian. "It isn’t like we’re losing the ship. You...

1. SLUYS FRANCE, 1340 The English defeat the French at the naval Battle of Sluys, June 24, 1340 The first naval battle of the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). The French king, Philip VI, was preparing to invade England from Flanders, but his fleet was surprised at dawn at Sluys. The English attacked from the east with the rising sun blinding the French crossbowmen, while illuminating their own ships perfectly for the English archers. Conservative estimates put the French losses at about 190 ships and 16-18,000 men, including both admirals. Such was the scale of the victory that the English joked...

1783 - USS Alliance defeats HMS Sybil, final naval action of Revolution in West Indies waters. 1948 - First use of jets (VF-5A) on board a carrier (Boxer).

1847 - Navy leads successful amphibious assault near Vera Cruz, Mexico. 1862 - First battle between ironclads, USS Monitor and CSS Virginia.

The hunt is on for the Alligator. Again. Beginning Friday, a second search will get under way for the Navy’s first submarine. The Civil War-era vessel was lost off Cape Hatteras during a fierce storm in 1863. Researchers looked in the same vicinity last summer for six days but found nothing except a barge. This year’s mission is scheduled for four days and will cover a smaller piece of ocean, about 30 miles off the coast. The effort is being undertaken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with the Navy’s Office of Naval Research. Mike Overfield, chief scientist for...