“
It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.
”
”
Babe Ruth
“
Dad had this story. A Marine and a Navy guy walk into a bathroom together. They both take a piss, and then sailor goes to the sink. The Marine heads for the door, and the sailor says, "Hey- in the Navy they teach us to wash up after we take a leak." And the Marine turns around and says, "Yeah? Well, in the Marines they teach us not to piss on our hands.
”
”
Keith R.A. DeCandido (Nevermore (Supernatural, #1))
“
Yamamoto sensed a feeling of culmination about the huge success of the first strike, and the same incisive intuition that guided his brilliant moves at the gaming tables told him what the next move on the bridge of Akagi would be. In (Vice Admiral) Nagumo he knew his man. Nagumo had never been committed to the Pearl Harbor mission. He had not been Yamamoto’s choice to command the Striking Force; his assignment was the decision of the Navy Ministry in Tokyo, based on seniority. While the exultation of the officers and sailors on his staff swirled around him, Yamamoto sat quietly. Finally, he fixed a steely gaze on his chief of staff, and in a low, intense voice: “Admiral Nagumo is going to withdraw.
”
”
Dale A. Jenkins (Diplomats & Admirals: From Failed Negotiations and Tragic Misjudgments to Powerful Leaders and Heroic Deeds, the Untold Story of the Pacific War from Pearl Harbor to Midway)
“
First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can.
”
”
Horatio Nelson
“
Max himself was sitting on the rug, wearing a sailor suit with elaborate navy ribbons to match his hair, tightly embracing Chairman Meow.
“You are my meow friend,” he told the Chairman solemnly, squeezing him.
“Meow,” Chairman Meow protested. He’d lived a life of torment since Max learned to walk.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (The Land I Lost (Ghosts of the Shadow Market, #7))
“
There is a witchery in the sea, its songs and stories, and in the mere sight of a ship, and the sailor's dress, especially to a young mind, which has done more to man navies, and fill merchantmen, than all the pressgangs of Europe.
”
”
Richard Henry Dana Jr. (Two Years Before the Mast: A Sailor's Life at Sea)
“
It has been written that so much of life is preparation, so much is routine, and so much is retrospect that the purest essence of anyone's genius contracts itself to a precious few hours.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
I’m not studying the heroes who lead navies—and armies—and win wars. I’m studying ordinary people who you wouldn’t expect to be heroic, but who, when there’s a crisis, show extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice. Like Jenna Geidel, who gave her life vaccinating people during the Pandemic. And the fishermen and retired boat owners and weekend sailors who rescued the British Army from Dunkirk. And Wells Crowther, the twenty-four-year-old equities trader who worked in the World Trade Center. When it was hit by terrorists, he could have gotten out, but instead he went back and saved ten people, and died. I’m going to observe six different sets of heroes in six different situations to try to determine what qualities they have in common.
”
”
Connie Willis (Blackout (All Clear, #1))
“
Anxieties,” wrote Alfred Thayer Mahan, “are the test and penalty of greatness.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
Strength lies not in defence but in attack.
”
”
Marquis de Acerba
“
Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
I take a nap after supper and dream of the U.S. Navy, a ship anchored near a war scene, at an island, but everything is drowsy as two sailors go up the trail with fishing poles and a dog between them to go make love quietly in the hills: the captain and everybody know they're queer and rather than being infuriated however they're all drowsily enchanted by such gentle love... (p. 119)
”
”
Jack Kerouac (Big Sur)
“
After the Second World War, San Francisco was the main point of re-entry for sailors returning from the Pacific. Out at sea, many of these sailors had picked up amatory habits that were frowned upon back on dry land. So these sailors stayed in San Francisco . . .
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
“
Oldendorf’s fleet would hold its position astride the northern end of the strait and devour Nishimura’s column like a log thrust into the business end of a U.S. Navy wood chipper.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
Kurita knew that heavenly influences could be counted upon to trump human planning. In war, events seldom cooperate with expectation. Given
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
The Bane
...where coxswain's dirt
and seaman's shirts
brushed bawdily upon her chest...
”
”
Muse (Enigmatic Evolution)
“
In life, one can choose to go up, down, or standstill. I choose to move up.
”
”
Linda Jo Heffner (Tainted Seas: My Sailor's Story)
“
So many men were dead, yet the ship itself continued to live, as if animated by its own force of will.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
Like most veterans, they would continue their lives saying that the truest heroes were the men who did not come back.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
The story, the history, of Navy men in extremis animates the idea that Americans can do anything when it is necessary and when it counts.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
national navies tend to cooperate better than national armies, partly because sailors are united by a kind of fellowship-of-the-sea born of their shared experience facing violent natural forces.
”
”
Robert D. Kaplan (The Return of Marco Polo's World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-first Century)
“
Dr. Sacks treats each of his subjects—the amnesic fifty-year-old man who believes himself to be a young sailor in the Navy, the “disembodied” woman whose limbs have become alien to her, and of course the famous man who mistook his wife for a hat—with a deep respect for the unique individual living beneath the disorder. These tales inspire awe and empathy, allowing the reader to enter the uncanny worlds of those with autism, Alzheimer's, Tourette's syndrome, and other unfathomable neurological conditions. “One of the great clinical writers of the 20th century” (The New York Times), Dr. Sacks brings to vivid life some of the most fundamental questions about identity and the human mind.
”
”
Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales)
“
Captain Copeland picked up the intercom mike and addressed the Roberts’s crew. That he was speaking for himself struck Ens. Jack Moore as unusual and urgent. Normally seaman Jack Roberts was the public address voice of his namesake warship. His southern drawl was all but unintelligible to anyone not acquainted with Dixie’s rhythms and diphthongs. But the skipper’s diction was as crisp as a litigator’s. He was talking fast and sounding more than a little nervous. “A large Japanese fleet has been contacted. They are fifteen miles away and headed in our direction. They are believed to have four battleships, eight cruisers, and a number of destroyers. “This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
The navy, I think, who have done so much for us, have at least an equal claim with any other set of men, for all the comforts and all the privileges which any home can give. Sailors work hard enough for their comforts, we must all allow.
”
”
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
“
For over two weeks, the defenders of Wake Island held off a vastly superior force of Japanese ships and troops, inspiring the whole nation with their plucky spirit and sacrifice. Unfortunately, Navy leaders at Pearl Harbor, struggling to protect what was left of the shattered Pacific Fleet, canceled a relief mission, allowing the island and its defenders to fall without support. Wake damaged the long-standing trust between the Corps and the Navy, a memory that still rankles Marines and shames sailors.
”
”
Tom Clancy (Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit (Guided Tour))
“
By any measure the mathematics of the engagement were preposterously against them. The Yamato displaced nearly seventy thousand tons. She alone matched almost exactly in weight all thirteen ships of Taffy 3. Each of her three main gun turrets weighed more than an entire Fletcher-class destroyer.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
When a ship sinks, the battlefield goes away. Currents move, thermal layers mix, and by the time the surveyors and rescuers arrive, the water that more witness to the slaughter is nowhere to be found. The dead disappear, carried under with their ruined vehicles. No wreckage remains for tacticians to study. There are no corpses for stretcher bearers to spirit away, no remains to shovel, bad, and bury. On the sea there is no place to anchor a memorial flagpole or headstone. It is a vanishing graveyard.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
Black seamen - or "Black Jacks" as African sailors were known - enjoyed a refreshing world of liberty and equality. Even if they were generally regulated to jobs such as cooks, servants, and muscians and endured thier fellow seamen's racism, they were still freemen in the Royal Navy. One famous black sailor wrote, "I liked this little ship very much. I now became the captian's steward, in which I was very happy; for I was extremely well treated by all on board, and I had the leisure to improve myself in reading and writing.
”
”
Tony Williams (The Pox and the Covenant: Mather, Franklin, and the Epidemic That Changed America's Destiny)
“
On the cusp of a smashing victory, a commander must keep his nerve or fail altogether.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
His dad asked Bud what the decorations meant. All the Samuel B. Roberts survivor could say in reply was they meant that he had not dishonored his mother.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
The previous day, December 6, Sprague had upbraided his crew for their sloppy performance during an intensive series of drills. He broke with his nature and let them have it. Gathering his officers in the Tangier's wardroom, Sprague said, “We're not prepared. We can't trust the Japanese. How do you know the Japanese won't attack tomorrow?” The next morning the Combined Fleet struck.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
But he and his compatriots would soon assess the cost of Taffy 3’s audacious resistance, the effectiveness of which no tactician could ever have foreseen and no statistician could have measured.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
The key to being a successful skipper is to see the ship through the eyes of the crew. Only then can you find out what’s really wrong and, in so doing, help the sailors empower themselves to fix it.
”
”
D. Michael Abrashoff (It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy)
“
The victory at Leyte Gulf was the product of Allied planning, savvy, and panache, to be sure. But only Samar showed the world something else: how Americans handle having their backs pushed to the wall.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
Though distrust of the Japanese was widespread in the Navy, Sprague was among the first to appreciate exactly what the Japanese might do. In June 1928 the Lexington participated in a mock surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
ESCORT CARRIERS HAD MANY nicknames, only a few tinged with anything resembling affection: jeep carriers, Woolworth flattops, Kaiser coffins, one-torpedo ships. Wags in the fleet deadpanned that the acronym CVE stood for the escort carrier’s three most salient characteristics: combustible, vulnerable, expendable. That most everyone seemed to get the joke—laughing in that grim, nervous way—was probably the surest sign that it was rooted in truth.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
Archer kept his course toward the battleship. He opened his bomb bay doors for show, hoping to persuade the dreadnought to veer from its course. Then, as he began to pull up over the ship, Archer rolled his Avenger over on its back and took his .38-caliber service revolver from its holster. Running on anger born of pain and not a little adrenaline, he squeezed the trigger repeatedly, sending six rounds into the dark superstructure of the battleship.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
Paul Henry Carr of Checotah, Oklahoma, proud member of the Future Farmers of America, football and baseball letterman, brother to eight sisters, only son of Thomas and Minnie Mae Carr, died there on the deck of his battered, broken warship.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
The sudden silence was the first thing many survivors of the Hoel, the Gambier Bay, the Samuel B. Roberts, and the Johnston noticed after their ships had been smashed and swallowed. To many, the quiet was unwelcome. The noise of battle--the roar of machinery, the shrieks and blasts of shells incoming and outbound, the shouts and screams of their buddies--had anesthetized fear. Now the noise lifted like a curtain, unveiling the hidden inner vistas of their grief and shock. When their ships sank, their duties went down with them.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
Legend, tradition, history can drive a commitment to excellence that raises people and has them perform at a level above anything they ever dreamed they could do. And it makes all of us realize the potential that everybody has who serves for you and goes to sea on ships.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
The portly Italian chief never talked much. Though he had played the royal baby at the crossing-the-line ceremony, he was the oldest man on the ship at forty-three and had little in common with boys twenty and more years his junior. Serafini was an immigrant from the Old Country whose Navy service dated to World War I. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, he had left a well-paying job in the Philadelphia Navy Yard and reenlisted despite both exceeding the age limit and his status as father of two. Serafini felt that he owed a debt of gratitude to the United States.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
In combat you have to leave the wounded behind whether they are men or ships and go on your way and fight. Nevertheless, it was something that made every man on our topside feel the same as I did, and it bothered us to leave those men at the mercy of the Japs, but there was no other choice.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
Naval combat offered nowhere to run, no foxholes to dive into. You had no way to know whether the next round would fall ahead of you, behind you, to the left or right, or come burning straight in, right down Lucifer’s pike. No degree of personal cleverness could fuse or deflect a shell bound in a particular sailor’s direction. Against a faster, more powerful opponent, a sailor had neither the hope to vanquish him nor the possibility to flee. The Roberts had no way out but through this enemy cruiser. There thus remained only the duty to engage it. No one shirked from that duty.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
As I'm smiling but fearing for the worse, he asks if I was in the Navy.
"NO. THIS IS JUST MY HALLOWEEN COSTUME."
"WELL, I WAS... FOR NEARLY TWENTY YEARS."
I don't know whether he wants me to apologize for impersonating a sailor, thank him for his service, or stop drooling as I melt into his eyes
”
”
Giorge Leedy (Uninhibited From Lust To Love)
“
Wildcats could carry a light bomb load too. Their pilots, however, found to their dismay that the bombs could be difficult to drop: a pilot had not only to pull the bomb release but also to jerk the plane’s rudder back and forth, shaking the plane in midflight to dislodge the bombs from their notoriously sticky mountings.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
National defense: the truth about sailors.
Are sailors' pants tight to begin with or do the sailors have them altered to increase their allure?
The Navy it seems has always realized the importance of well-fitting trousers. Plus most of the guys also get them tailored, especially overseas, where the tailor know how to emphasize male sexuality.
”
”
Boyd McDonald (Juice: True Homosexual Experiences from S.T.H. writers)
“
Among his innovations was the Liberty ship, a cargo vessel that could be mass-produced virtually like an oceangoing Model T. Using a breakthrough welding technique, submerged arc welding, that could stitch steel plate with molten rivets up to twenty times faster than existing methods, Kaiser’s shipbuilders produced a Liberty ship in an average of only forty-two days.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
We stole the eagle from the Air Force, the anchor from the Navy, and the rope from the Army. On the seventh day when God rested, we overran the perimeter and stole the globe—we’ve been running the show ever since. We live like soldiers, talk like sailors, and slap the hell out of both of them at the same time. Fighter by day, lover by night, drunkard by choice, and a United States Marine by an act of God.
”
”
Jane Harvey-Berrick (The Education of Caroline (The Education of..., #2))
“
As Herman Wouk wrote in War and Remembrance, ‘The vision of Sprague’s three destroyers--the Johnston, the Hoel, and the Hermann--charging out of the smoke and the rain straight toward the main batteries of Kurita’s battleships and cruisers, can endure as a picture of the way Americans fight when they don’t have superiority. Our schoolchildren should know about that incident, and our enemies should ponder it.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
He was a good kid and a good destroyerman for the same reason: he was always looking out for someone else. At one point LeClerq had had the presence of mind to train his forty-millimeter mount on a spread of torpedoes bubbling toward Sprague’s carriers. Johnny LeClerq was the very picture of wholesome blond American innocence, considerate of the enlisted men, devoted to the Navy, and meticulous in his duties.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
There are many who predict that China is the next challenger to the United States, not Russia. I don’t agree with that view for three reasons. First, when you look at a map of China closely, you see that it is really a very isolated country physically. With Siberia in the north, the Himalayas and jungles to the south, and most of China’s population in the eastern part of the country, the Chinese aren’t going to easily expand. Second, China has not been a major naval power for centuries, and building a navy requires a long time not only to build ships but to create well-trained and experienced sailors. Third, there is a deeper reason for not worrying about China. China is inherently unstable. Whenever it opens its borders to the outside world, the coastal region becomes prosperous, but the vast majority of Chinese in the interior remain impoverished.
”
”
George Friedman (The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century)
“
Earl ‘Blue’ Archer, the Kalinin Bay VC-3 Avenger pilot who suffered a serious back injury amid the brambles of flak over Kurita’s fleet, went home and kept quiet about his infirmity. He soon realized that he had a choice to make: he could take an eighty or ninety percent disability benefit from Uncle Sam and begin a life of inactivity, or he could take three or four aspirin twice a day and continue flying planes in the naval reserve.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
I have to tell you, Major, if we don't get these bombs and stop this Jap fleet, they're gonna come in here and bomb the hell out of this place and maybe recapture it. Then their planes will be dropping these bombs on you. I've gotta have these bombs, sir, or we'll have a disaster on our hands.' Lupo asked who the major's superior was.
The Army officer mentioned a colonel who stationed out toward the front. 'He's out fighting a war, and I'm not going to bother him."
'Well," Lupo said, "that's just too bad." The pilot pulled out his service revolver and pointed it at the major. Then Lupo handed the pistol to his radioman, Earl Gifford, instructing the flabbergasted aircrewman to hold the Army officer at bay. Lupo climbed into the cockpit of his plane and hailed the Fanshaw Bay on the radio. His fellow pilots from VC-68 and other Taffy 3 squadrons were already inbound
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed—while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed—while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
“
Tesla's 1895 incident have any bearing on persistent rumors that the alleged "Philadelphia Experiment" may have been possible due to contributions from Tesla? These allegations have come from people such as Al Bielek who said that Tesla helped design the electrical equipment used on the U.S.S. Eldridge. Bielek states that Tesla became concerned that his equipment would once again warp time and space and have dire consequences for the sailors onboard. However, the Navy ignored Tesla's objections and continued on with their experiments.
”
”
Tim R. Swartz (The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla: Time Travel - Alternative Energy and the Secret of Nazi Flying Saucers)
“
Who can blame the poor lad for not advertising his rather unique name? Especially when his mother’s maiden name is Jewel Diamond Sunrise and his grandmother’s is Dawn Moonbeam Sunrise. Dawn Sunrise, such a pretty name. And it is true that your mother was almost named Red Sky Sunrise, but your grandfather said he would divorce her mother if she didn’t change it. He was in the navy and thought that it was a bad omen. Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning, you know. And Max’s grandmother didn’t tell anyone that she considered calling her daughter Sunset Sunrise. Catchy isn’t it?
”
”
Oscar Eccentric
“
No matter how overmatched the Americans were at Samar, no matter how dashing their screening ships were in intercepting the superior force during the critical first ninety minutes of the unlikely battle, the strength of the U.S. forces that Kurita confronted was more formidable than many analysts have allowed. It does nothing to diminish the valor of the tin can sailors aboard Taffy 3’s destroyers and destroyer escorts, or of the gallant aviators and airedales who flew on that day, to say that Kurita’s ultimate victory was by no means assured, and that withdrawing in the face of continuous and savage air assault was perhaps the prudent thing to do.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
“
The experience helped Copeland see a certain egalitarian nobility to his crew and officers. ‘On that raft we were just forty-nine very wretched human beings, entirely dependent upon ourselves and one another in an effort to sustain life. Under those conditions it made no difference to us whether a man’s parents had been rich or poor; whether he was Catholic, Protestant, or Jew; whether his skin was black, brown, or white; or whether his ancestry was English, Spanish, Italian, or something else.’ During their second day at sea, the oil mostly dissolved and washed away from their skin, revealing those things that Copeland no longer felt mattered anymore.
”
”
James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
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The close-up encounter with the enemy was like a throwback to another era, when sailing ships grappled and boarded one another. Even gunnery had once been conducted at such close range, yardarm to yardarm, that one ship’s men could hear the other’s shouts, prayers, songs, and pleas. The killing was more personal, but there also existed the possibility of surrender, capture, and mercy. By the middle of the twentieth century the reach of new weapons had made combat a cold, long-distance business. Warships didn’t surrender to one another any longer. Commanders were insulated from their counterparts in closed bridges, communicating by secret codes and radio frequencies. Sea warfare became thoroughly depersonalized.
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James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
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You’d like a fitting,” he said cheerfully, and I thought with relief that he wasn’t the sort of doctor to ask awkward questions. I had toyed with the idea of telling him I planned to be married to a sailor as soon as his ship docked at the Charlestown Navy Yard, and the reason I didn’t have an engagement ring was because we were too poor, but at the last moment I rejected that appealing story and simply said “Yes.” I climbed up on the examination table, thinking: “I am climbing to freedom, freedom from fear, freedom from marrying the wrong person, like Buddy Willard, just because of sex, freedom from the Florence Crittenden Homes where all the poor girls go who should have been fitted out like me, because what they did, they would do anyway, regardless. . . .
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Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
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it was probably more dangerous to remain aboard the fuel- and explosive-laden jeep carrier than to take off and glide-bomb a Japanese capital ship. As Leonard Moser, a plane captain on the Fanshaw Bay, was changing a carburetor on a VC-68 aircraft, half a dozen pilots hovered nearby, coveting a chance to climb into that cockpit and get their tails off the ship. The aviation machinist’s mate finished the job, then climbed up into the cockpit. “What are you doing?” one of the pilots asked. “I’m going to check this damn engine out,” Moser said, “and then go find a hole to hide in.” The pilot said that he would do his own engine check this time, thank you very much. Moser stepped aside. “He got in, started it up, and took off with a cold motor. My helper didn’t even have all of the cowling on. That pilot was glad to leave.
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James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
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Man, attracted by the treasure that the victory over the whale might afford him, has troubled the peace of their immense solitary abodes, violated their refuges, sacrificed all those which the icy, unapproachable polar deserts could not screen from his blow; and the war he has had made on them has been especially cruel because he has seen that it is large catches that make his commerce prosperous, his industry vital, his sailors numerous, his navigators daring, his pilots experienced, his navies strong and his power great.
Thus it is that these giants among giants have fallen beneath his arms; and because his genius is immortal and his science now imperishable, because he has been able to multiply without limit the imaginings of his mind, they will not cease to be the victims of his interest until they have ceased to exist. In vain do they flee before him; his art will transport him to the ends of the earth; they find no sanctuary except in nothingness.
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Bernard Germain de Lacépède
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And how nationally disgraceful, in every conceivable point of view, is the IVth of our American Articles of War: "If any person in the Navy shall pusillanimously cry for quarter, he shall suffer death." Thus, with death before his face from the foe, and death behind his back from his countrymen, the best valor of a man-of-war's-man can never assume the merit of a noble spontaneousness. In this, as in every other case, the Articles of War hold out no reward for good conduct, but only compel the sailor to fight, like a hired murderer, for his pay, by digging his grave before his eyes if he hesitates.
But this Article IV is open to still graver objections. Courage is the most common and vulgar of the virtues; the only one shared with us by the beasts of the field; the one most apt, by excess, to run into viciousness. And since Nature generally takes away with one hand to counterbalance her gifts with the other, excessive animal courage, in many cases, only finds room in a character vacated of loftier things. But in a naval officer, animal courage is exalted to the loftiest merit, and often procures him a distinguished command.
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Herman Melville (White-jacket ; or, The World in a Man-of-war)
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With one final flip the quarter flew high into the air and came down on the mattress with a light bounce. It jumped several inches off the bed, high enough for the instructor to catch it in his hand. Swinging around to face me, the instructor looked me in the eye and nodded. He never said a word. Making my bed correctly was not going to be an opportunity for praise. It was expected of me. It was my first task of the day, and doing it right was important. It demonstrated my discipline. It showed my attention to detail, and at the end of the day it would be a reminder that I had done something well, something to be proud of, no matter how small the task. Throughout my life in the Navy, making my bed was the one constant that I could count on every day. As a young SEAL ensign aboard the USS Grayback, a special operation submarine, I was berthed in sick bay, where the beds were stacked four high. The salty old doctor who ran sick bay insisted that I make my rack every morning. He often remarked that if the beds were not made and the room was not clean, how could the sailors expect the best medical care? As I later found out, this sentiment of cleanliness and order applied to every aspect of military life. Thirty years later, the Twin Towers came down in New York City. The Pentagon was struck, and brave Americans died in an airplane over Pennsylvania. At the time of the attacks, I was recuperating in my home from a serious parachute accident. A hospital bed had been wheeled into my government quarters, and I spent most of the day lying on my back, trying to recover. I wanted out of that bed more than anything else. Like every SEAL I longed to be with my fellow warriors in the fight. When I was finally well enough to lift myself unaided from the bed, the first thing I did was pull the sheets up tight, adjust the pillow, and make sure the hospital bed looked presentable to all those who entered my home. It was my way of showing that I had conquered the injury and was moving forward with my life. Within four weeks of 9/11, I was transferred to the White House, where I spent the next two years in the newly formed Office of Combatting Terrorism. By October 2003, I was in Iraq at our makeshift headquarters on the Baghdad airfield. For the first few months we slept on Army cots. Nevertheless, I would wake every morning, roll up my sleeping bag, place the pillow at the head of the cot, and get ready for the day.
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William H. McRaven (Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World)
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who seemed to lack humility or a sense of awe, than of the faithful. “The fanatical atheists,” he explained in a letter, “are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’—cannot hear the music of the spheres.”13 Einstein would later engage in an exchange on this topic with a U.S. Navy ensign he had never met. Was it true, the sailor asked, that Einstein had been converted by a Jesuit priest into believing in God? That was absurd, Einstein replied. He went on to say that he considered the belief in a God who was a fatherlike figure to be the result of “childish analogies.” Would Einstein permit him, the sailor asked, to quote his reply in his debates against his more religious shipmates? Einstein warned him not to oversimplify. “You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth,” he explained. “I prefer the attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.
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Walter Isaacson (Einstein: His Life and Universe)
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Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed— while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
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Herman Melville (Moby Dick: or, the White Whale)
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Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
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Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
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the Cook expedition had another, far less benign result. Cook was not only an experienced seaman and geographer, but also a naval officer. The Royal Society financed a large part of the expedition’s expenses, but the ship itself was provided by the Royal Navy. The navy also seconded eighty-five well-armed sailors and marines, and equipped the ship with artillery, muskets, gunpowder and other weaponry. Much of the information collected by the expedition – particularly the astronomical, geographical, meteorological and anthropological data – was of obvious political and military value. The discovery of an effective treatment for scurvy greatly contributed to British control of the world’s oceans and its ability to send armies to the other side of the world. Cook claimed for Britain many of the islands and lands he ‘discovered’, most notably Australia. The Cook expedition laid the foundation for the British occupation of the south-western Pacific Ocean; for the conquest of Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand; for the settlement of millions of Europeans in the new colonies; and for the extermination of their native cultures and most of their native populations.2 In the century following the Cook expedition, the most fertile lands of Australia and New Zealand were taken from their previous inhabitants by European settlers. The native population dropped by up to 90 per cent and the survivors were subjected to a harsh regime of racial oppression. For the Aborigines of Australia and the Maoris of New Zealand, the Cook expedition was the beginning of a catastrophe from which they have never recovered. An even worse fate befell the natives of Tasmania. Having survived for 10,000 years in splendid isolation, they were completely wiped out, to the last man, woman and child, within a century of Cook’s arrival. European settlers first drove them off the richest parts of the island, and then, coveting even the remaining wilderness, hunted them down and killed them systematically. The few survivors were hounded into an evangelical concentration camp, where well-meaning but not particularly open-minded missionaries tried to indoctrinate them in the ways of the modern world. The Tasmanians were instructed in reading and writing, Christianity and various ‘productive skills’ such as sewing clothes and farming. But they refused to learn. They became ever more melancholic, stopped having children, lost all interest in life, and finally chose the only escape route from the modern world of science and progress – death. Alas,
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Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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Today, such studies are illegal. Medical scientists cannot offer inducements like pardons to persuade prisoners to take part in their studies. Although they can award small cash payments to research subjects, they are forbidden from giving anyone so much money or such tempting favors that their compensations might constitute what ethicists term an inappropriate inducement, an irresistible temptation to join the study.
Now, more than eighty years after the 1918 flu, people enter studies for several reasons—to get free medical care, to get an experimental drug that, they hope, might cure them of a disease like cancer or AIDS, or to help further scientific knowledge. In theory at least, study participants are supposed to be true volunteers, taking part in research of their own free will.
But in 1918, such ethical arguments were rarely considered. Instead, the justification for a risky study with human beings was that it was better to subject a few to a great danger in order to save the many. Prisoners were thought to be the ideal study subjects. They could offer up their bodies for science and, if they survived, their pardons could be justified because they gave something back to society.
The Navy inmates were perfect for another reason. Thirty-nine of them had never had influenza, as far as anyone knew. So they might be uniquely susceptible to the disease. If the doctors wanted to deliberately transmit the 1918 flu, what better subjects? Was influenza really so easily transmitted? the doctors asked. Why did some people get it and others not? Why did it kill the young and healthy? Could the wartime disruptions and movements of troops explain the spread of the flu? If it was as contagious as it seemed, how was it being spread? What kind of microorganism was causing the illness?
The normal way to try to answer such questions would be to study the spread of the disease in animals. Give the disease to a few cages of laboratory rats, or perhaps to some white rabbits. Isolate whatever was causing the illness. Show how it spread and test ways to protect animals—and people—against the disease.
But influenza, it seemed, was a uniquely human disease. No animal was known to be susceptible to it. Medical researchers felt they had no choice but to study influenza in people. Either the Navy doctors were uncommonly persuasive or the enticement of a pardon was overwhelmingly compelling. For whatever reason, the sixty-two men agreed to be subjects in the medical experiment.
And so the study began. First the sailors were transferred to a quarantine station on Gallops Island in Boston Harbor. Then the Navy doctors did their best to give the men the flu. Influenza is a respiratory disease—it is spread from person to person, presumably carried on droplets of mucus sprayed in the air when sick people cough or sneeze, or carried on their hands and spread when the sick touch the healthy. Whatever was causing the flu should be present in mucus taken from the ill.
The experiments, then, were straightforward. The Navy doctors collected mucus from men who were desperately ill with the flu, gathering thick viscous secretions from their noses and throats. They sprayed mucus from flu patients into the noses and throats of some men, and dropped it into other men’s eyes. In one attempt, they swabbed mucus from the back of the nose of a man with the flu and then directly swabbed that mucus into the back of a volunteer’s nose.
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Gina Kolata (Flu: The Story Of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It)
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Huzzah! Free Trade and Sailors' Rights! But instead American ships are captured and sailors impressed by the thousands into the British Navy, becoming slaves to the lash, while the United States has virtually no navy to back them up. Baltimore native, Nathan Jeffries, son of an American hero, Captain William Jeffries, and his Quaker wife, Amy, is haunted by the memories of his fiancee, his best friend, his enemy's woman and his betrayal. Chesapeake Bay is no refuge aboard his father's brig Bucephalus;facing his worst fears, he is chased and captured by armed privateer schooner Scourge. In a violent world at war, Nathan must break his most solemn promise to his mother. For Nathan and the young United States, 1812 would severely challenge rights of passage.
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Bert J. Hubinger (1812: Rights of Passage (War of 1812 Trilogy))
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From the decks of the warships the foreign sailors watched the massacre through binoculars and took pictures. The navy bands played late and phonographs were set up on the ships and aimed at the quay. Caruso sang from Pagliacci all night across a harbor filled with bloated corpses. An admiral going to dine on another ship was late because a woman’s body fouled his propeller.
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Edward Whittemore (Sinai Tapestry (The Jerusalem Quartet, #1))
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In addition to sharing grog, black and white sailors wore the same naval outfit. This consisted of navy blue bell-bottom pants, tight blue woolen caps, and a bloused blue woolen frock with jumper flaps on the front and back.
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Peter Kurtz (Bluejackets in the Blubber Room: A Biography of the William Badger, 1828-1865)
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Since 1884 Bath Iron Works was incorporated by General Thomas W. Hyde who had served in the Union Army during the Civil War. At first the shipyard made iron hardware and windlasses for the wooden ships of the day but soon built warships for the United States Navy although it also started builting commercial vessels. The USS Machias a schooner rigged, steam driven, gunboat was one of two 190-foot (58 m) gunboats, first built by the company. It has been said that Chester Nimitz commanded the Machias during World War I, although this has not been substantiated. In 1892 the yard built their first commercial vessel, the 2,500-ton steel passenger steamer the SS City of Lowell. From these humble beginnings BIW became a major United States shipyard and has designed and built almost every type of naval vessel that the US Navy had or has, including the new stealth destroyers of the Zumwalt class.
I first saw Bath Iron Works when I crossed the Kennebec River in 1952. I wrote about this in “Seawater One” describing how our bus crossed on the Carlton Lift Bridge and how I saw the USS Dealey (DE-1006) being built.
During World War II, ships built at BIW were considered by Navy officers and sailors to be the toughest afloat, giving rise to the slogan "Bath-built is best-built." In 1995, BIW became a subsidiary of General Dynamics and at that time was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world.
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Hank Bracker
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Although ship for ship it approached a match with the British and in gunnery was superior, the Kaiser, who could hark back to no Drakes or Nelsons, could never really believe that German ships and sailors could beat the British. He could not bear to think of his “darlings,” as Bülow called his battleships, shattered by gunfire, smeared with blood or at last, wounded and rudderless, sinking beneath the waves. Tirpitz, whom once he had gratefully ennobled with a “von” but whose theory of a navy was to use it for fighting, began to appear as a danger, almost as an enemy, and was gradually frozen out of the inner councils.
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Barbara W. Tuchman (The Guns of August)
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The guns on both sides were silent until they returned. Suddenly, a fierce cannonade from the British ships exploded onto the beach at Turtle Gut Inlet, but only one American was hit, “Shott through the arm and body.” It was Richard Wickes. A cannonball took his arm and half his chest away. Fresh from the Reprisal, Lambert Wickes arrived on the beach at the head of his reinforcements just as his younger brother died: “I arrived just at the Close of the Action Time enough to see him expire . . . Captn Barry . . . says a braver Man never existed.”123 Taking Richard Wickes's body, the American sailors left the spit of sand they fought over that morning. The powder was stowed in the Wasp's hold and sent up the Delaware. “At 2 weighed and made Sail,” Hudson briefly noted in his journal.124 The British returned to Cape Henlopen. As before, Barry had taken long odds, assessed the best plan that could succeed, and beaten the British. The Nancy was destroyed, but the Wasp would reach Philadelphia safely with the desperately needed gunpowder. Despite superior firepower, the “butcher's bill” was far heavier for the British. But the victory brought no cheers or satisfaction among the Americans, and Barry was particularly saddened by the death of the gallant young Wickes.125 The next morning—Sunday, June 30—the men of the Lexington and Reprisal gathered to mourn their shipmate at the log meetinghouse in the small village of Cold Spring, just north of Cape May. Under the same light breezes of the day before, the American sailors, with “bowed and uncovered heads,” filed inside and sat on the long, rough-cut wooden pews. After “The Clergyman preached a very deacent Sermon,” Lambert Wickes and the Reprisal's officers silently hoisted the coffin. Shuffling under its weight, they carried it outside to the little cemetery, and laid their comrade to rest.126 Lambert Wickes now faced the task of informing his family in Maryland of Richard's death. On July 2, in a sad but disjointed letter to his brother Samuel, he mentioned Richard's death among a list of the items—including the sugar and “one Bagg Coffee” that accompanied the letter. “You'll disclose this Secret with as much Caution as possible to our Sisters,” he pleaded. He quoted Barry's report that Richard “fought like a brave Man & was fore most in every transaction of that day,” dying for the cause of the “united Colonies.”127 By the time Lambert's package reached his family in Maryland, the “united Colonies” ceased to exist as well. The same day Wickes posted his letter, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. Barry, Wickes, and the rest of the Continental Navy were now fighting for the survival of a new country: the United States of America.
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Tim McGrath (John Barry: An American Hero in the Age of Sail)
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On November 2, 1899, eight members of the United States Navy were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism and service beyond the call of duty. On the night of June 2, 1898, they had volunteered to scuttle the collier USS Merrimac, with the intention of blocking the entry channel to Santiago de Cuba. On orders of Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, who was in command, their intention was to trap Spanish Admiral Cervera’s fleet in the harbor.
Getting the USS Merrimac underway, the eight men navigated the ship towards a predetermined location where sinking her would seal the port. Their course knowingly took them within the range of the Spanish ships and the shore batteries. The sailors were well aware of the danger this put them into, however they put their mission first. Once the Spanish gunners saw what was happening, they realized what the Americans were up to and started firing their heavy artillery from an extremely close range. The channel leading into Santiago is narrow, preventing the ship from taking any evasive action. The American sailors were like fish in a barrel and the Spanish gunners were relentless. In short order, the heavy shelling from the Spanish shore batteries disabled the rudder of the Merrimac and caused the ship to sink prematurely. The USS Merrimac went down without achieving its objective of obstructing navigation and sealing the port.
Fête du Canada or Canada Day is the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the Canadian Constitution Act. This weekend Americans also celebrate the United States’, July 4, 1776 birthday, making this time perfect to celebrate George Fredrick Phillips heroic action. Phillips was one of the men mentioned in the story above of the USS Merrimac. He was born on March 8, 1862, in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and joined the United States Navy in March 1898 in Galveston, Texas. Phillips became a Machinist First Class and displayed extraordinary heroism throughout the Spanish bombardment during their operation. He was discharged from the Navy in August 1903, and died a year later at the age of 42 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His body was returned to Canada where he was interred with honors at the Fernhill Cemetery in his hometown of Saint John, New Brunswick.
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Hank Bracker
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having coauthored The Wrong Guys: False Confessions and the Norfolk Four, a book about four U.S. Navy sailors who, under intense police pressure and without
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Beverly Lowry (Who Killed These Girls?: Cold Case: The Yogurt Shop Murders)
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Within Germany, unrest fermented after Germany lost World War I, and the German people, including the workers and the military, detested the idea that they would be held accountable for the war and would have to pay reparations to their former enemies. On November 3, 1918, the Kaiserliche Marine, German Imperial Navy, had an internal revolt between the officers and the sailors, known as the Kiel mutiny. On November 6th, the revolt reached Wilhelmshaven, triggering a revolution throughout Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm II had proven to be an ineffective wartime leader and lost the support of his Generals. However, it was when he lost the support of his beloved Navy that he abdicated and fled to the Netherlands. This act heralded the end of the German monarchy. Living in exile in Huis Doorn, in the Netherlands, Wilhelm II died on June 3, 1941, of an embolism.
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Hank Bracker
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The British government in 1807 had issued the “Orders in Council,” which enforced a naval blockade against France, and with a shortage of seamen to man the Royal Navy, Britain also felt justified in stopping and sometimes firing on ships flying the American flag in the name of apprehending escaped British sailors. The other main cause of war was distress on the Northwestern frontier, where the British in Canada were supporting Indian resistance to American settlement. So-called “War Hawks” from that region in Congress pushed for a declaration of war. Some hoped that a war would not only stop Indian depredations but evict the British from Canada and lead to completion of some unfinished business from the American Revolution, namely Canada
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Charles River Editors (Francis Scott Key: The Life and Legacy of the Man Who Wrote America’s National Anthem)
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The British government in 1807 had issued the “Orders in Council,” which enforced a naval blockade against France, and with a shortage of seamen to man the Royal Navy, Britain also felt justified in stopping and sometimes firing on ships flying the American flag in the name of apprehending escaped British sailors.
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Charles River Editors (Francis Scott Key: The Life and Legacy of the Man Who Wrote America’s National Anthem)
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THE MEG DISAPPEARED. No telltale whale carcasses, no sightings by chopper... nothing. Many speculated the creature had gone deep... never to return. Nine members of the Nautilus’s crew were missing, along with fourteen sailors from the Japanese whaler. A ceremony honoring the dead had taken place at Pearl Harbor. Two days later, Captain Richard Danielson re-retired from the navy.
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Steve Alten (Meg (Meg, #1))
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For two hours, Clarke and the other men rowed, until it was clear they could no longer keep up with the wreck due to the wind, sea and their condition. When they stopped rowing, Apprentice Officer Clarke could not remove his hands from the oars. The burnt skin of his hand had adhered to them. Actually, the skin had become separated from the bones of his hands and had essentially just been a surface for the bones to rest on. Clarke had rowed for two hours in this condition in the salt sea. When they tried to separate him from the oars, the other survivors found they could not, and were forced to cut away the skin of Clarke's hands in order to wrap his arms and place him in the bottom of the boat, out of the weather.
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Ryan Jenkins (World War 2 Sailor Stories: Tales from Our Warriors at Sea (Military Naval, World War 2, World War II, WW2, WWII, Soldier Stories, US Navy, SEAL Book 1))
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Irma Grese & Other Infamous SS Female Guards World War 2: A Brief History of the European Theatre World War 2 Pacific Theatre: A Brief History of the Pacific Theatre World War 2 Nazi Germany: The Secrets of Nazi Germany in World War II The Third Reich: The Rise & Fall of Hitler’s Germany in World War 2 World War 2 Soldier Stories: The Untold Stories of the Soldiers on the Battlefields of WWII World War 2 Soldier Stories Part II: More Untold Tales of the Soldiers on the Battlefields of WWII Surviving the Holocaust: The Tales of Survivors and Victims World War 2 Heroes: Medal of Honor Recipients in WWII & Their Heroic Stories of Bravery World War 2 Heroes: WWII UK’s SAS hero Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne World War 2 Heroes: Jean Moulin & the French Resistance Forces World War 2 Snipers: WWII Famous Snipers & Sniper Battles Revealed World War 2 Spies & Espionage: The Secret Missions of Spies & Espionage in WWII World War 2 Air Battles: The Famous Air Combat that Defined WWII World War 2 Tank Battles: The Famous Tank Battles that Defined WWII World War 2 Famous Battles: D-Day and the Invasion of Normandy World War 2 Submarine Stores: True Stories from the Underwater Battlegrounds The Holocaust Saviors: True Stories of Rescuers who risked all to Save Holocaust Refugees Irma Grese & The Holocaust: The Secrets of the Blonde Beast of Auschwitz Exposed Auschwitz & the Holocaust: Eyewitness Accounts from Auschwitz Prisoners & Survivors World War 2 Sailor Stories: Tales from Our Warriors at Sea World War 2 Soldier Stories Part III: The Untold Stories of German Soldiers World War 2 Navy SEALs: True Stories from the First Navy SEALs: The Amphibious Scout & Raiders If these links do not work for whatever reason, you can simply search for these titles on the Amazon website to find them. Instant Access to Free Book Package! As a thank you for the purchase of this book, I want to offer you some
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Ryan Jenkins (World War 2 Air Battles: The Famous Air Combats that Defined WWII)
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The thirty year period since the end of the Revolutionary war left America without the protection of the mighty Royal Navy. Still, there was peace. American ships were stopped and boarded, with sailors forced to join the crews of British ships.
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Ken Rossignol (Battle of Solomon's Island)
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It was downright harrowing to be airborne while battleships offshore were bombarding targets ashore. Pilots flying gunnery spotting missions became sandwiched in an invisible corridor between salvos from the big ships offshore. While they spotted shell bursts and called in corrections, fourteen-hundred-pound battleship shells flew overhead in trios, plainly visible to the eye. Below, the smaller warheads of the cruisers whizzed past.
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James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
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An escort carrier was built on a cargo ship’s hull. Shipbuilding magnate Henry J. Kaiser was the Lee Iacocca of his day, a visionary industrialist whose name was a household word.
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James D. Hornfischer (The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour)
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Burdens grew heavier the higher one ascended in rank. Captains concerned themselves with ships and crews, commodores with squadrons, task force commanders with objectives, and theater commanders with campaigns. The burdens of sailors weighed mostly on the muscles. The weight of leadership was subtler and heavier. It could test the conscience.
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James D. Hornfischer (Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal)
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Gary admired the lengths the KGB was willing to go to get their way, and he hoped he would have that kind of power someday, because he certainly wouldn’t be afraid to use that kind of power. Terrorism continued all over the world, which also involved many aircraft hijackings. One of those hijackings was the hijacking of Trans World Airlines Flight 847, which was supposed to fly from Cairo, Egypt, to London, England. When the aircraft was flying between Athens and Rome, the plane was hijacked by Shia Muslims from Lebanon. They ended up killing an American, who was a sailor in the U.S. Navy, but they kept the rest of the passengers as hostages for the next two weeks. What everyone remembered about this particular hijacking, was when the pilot was trying to answer questions from a reporter, while he was hanging out the window of the cockpit, and had a gun at his head by one of the hijackers.
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Cliff Ball (The Usurper: A suspense political thriller)
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staff of U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet and submitted his narrative in 2001. With the ongoing war in Iraq, I felt it appropriate that a broader audience have access to Commander Winkler’s work.
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David F. Winkler (Amirs, Admirals, and Desert Sailors: Bahrain, the U.S. Navy, and the Arabian Gulf)
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The crew did not fit the stereotype of the Navy sailors that I expected. The media always presented Navy men as being GI Joe’s in white. But a good sum of them were in their thirties and forties. Very few sported less than two chins, let alone the six-pack of a warrior. While standing at attention, I saw a slew of potbellies jiggling atop Navy belt buckles. I saw bald spots, acne, retro porn mustaches, and wrinkles, but to my utter disappointment, no eye candy.
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Maggie Georgiana Young (Just Another Number)
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When transports carrying survivors of the Battle of Savo Island finally returned home, the men were sent to quarantine, removed from public circulation. They had stories to tell that Admiral King would be quite happy not to see in the newspapers. Some five hundred survivors of the Astoria, Vincennes, and Quincy were held under virtual house arrest in a barracks that had been constructed on Treasure Island for the 1939 World’s Fair. Marines were detailed to prevent the sailors from leaving. “Don’t you say one word about the battle,” they were told.
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James D. Hornfischer (Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal)
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On his visit to Henderson Field, Hanson Baldwin of The New York Times had sniffed out the latter story, as well as the torpedoing of the North Carolina. Though he itched to file stories, he saw a larger need. American readers certainly deserved to know the truth about Savo. The question was whether it put sailors at risk in the continuing fight. Baldwin wrote a series of stories, including an account of Savo as he had learned it on the beaches of Guadalcanal and the decks of warships. His eventual accounts withheld the number of ships sunk, their names, and the vulnerabilities that resulted in their loss. “I fudged this very carefully because I realized it was very important that the Japs not know exactly how damaged we were.
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James D. Hornfischer (Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal)
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The most impressive naval career of all the female sailors is that of William Brown, a black woman who spent at least twelve years on British warships, much of this time in the extremely demanding role of captain of the foretop. A good description of her appeared in London’s Annual Register in September 1815: “She is a smart, well-formed figure, about five feet four inches in height, possessed of considerable strength and great activity; her features are rather handsome for a black, and she appears to be about twenty-six years of age.” The article also noted that “in her manner she exhibits all the traits of a British tar and takes her grog with her late messmates with the greatest gaiety.”
Brown was a married woman and had joined the navy around 1804 following a quarrel with her husband. For several years she served on the Queen Charlotte, a three-decker with 104 guns and one of the largest ships in the Royal Navy. Brown must have had nerve, strength, and unusual ability to have been made captain of the foretop on such a ship….The captain of the foretop had to lead a team of seamen up the shrouds of the foremast, and then up the shrouds of the fore-topmast and out along the yards a hundred feet or more above the deck….
At some point in 1815, it was discovered that Brown was a woman and her story was published in the papers, but this does not seem to have affected her naval career….What is certain is that Brown returned to the Queen Charlotte and rejoined the crew.
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David Cordingly (Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways & Sailors' Wives)
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Mr. Jones had just started her on scraping the bottom when he came around the bow and stopped short. He shook his head in disbelief.
“How did you manage to get so filthy so fast?” he said. “Didn’t I tell you to wear a painter’s cap?”
Denny shrugged and squinted at him through her safety goggles. “I thought the wind would blow the old paint and junk away as I scraped it off,” she said.
Mr. Jones came over and took a closer look. “Look at your hair,” he said. “Your mother’s going to kill me. Try and shake some of that junk out of it.”
Denny leaned over and shook her hair in the wind. She was almost sorry she’d let it grow. Long hair was such a pain sometimes. She heard the putter of an outboard motor and looked up to see Spence making his way across the bay.
“Him again,” she grumbled, but she pulled the comb out of her back pocket and started furiously tugging at her hair.
Mr. Jones grinned. “Thought you couldn’t stand him,” he said.
“I can’t,” said Denny, whipping off her safety glasses.
“Oh,” said Mr. Jones; then he gave her a maddening smile and went back to rebuilding the cradle.
Denny glanced at Spence out of the corner of her eye as he approached. He stood at the wheel, wearing a knit sailor’s cap and an old navy peacoat. A shock of blond hair stuck out under the cap and was swept back by the wind. His dark eyes squinted into the sun, and the cut of his jaw was firm and square. Denny shook her head. “You’ve been away from civilization too long,” she told herself, “when somebody like him starts looking good.
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Jackie French Koller (The Last Voyage of the Misty Day)
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Not surprisingly, there's nothing to do at the Pentagon except start a war. Tourist aren't even allowed to take photos with the building in the background, so when the sailor-suited family of Navy veterans four generations deep handed me a disposable camera and asked me to follow at a distance and secretly take photos of them while they snapped to attention, saluted, and flashed peace signs for no apparent reason, I was only too happy to serve my country.
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Paul Beatty (The Sellout)
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On May 17, 1913, Domingo Rosillo and Agustín Parlá attempted the first international flights to Latin America, by trying to fly their airplanes from Key West to Havana. At 5:10 a.m., Rosillo departed from Key West and flew for 2 hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds before running out of gas. He had planned to land at the airfield at Camp Columbia in Havana, but instead managed to squeak in at the camp’s shooting range, thereby still satisfactorily completing the flight.
Parlá left Key West at 5:57 in the morning. Just four minutes later, at 6:01 a.m., he had to carefully turn back to the airstrip he had just left, since the aircraft didn’t properly respond to his controls. Parlá said, “It would not let me compensate for the wind that blew.” When he returned to Key West, he discovered that two of the tension wires to the aircraft’s elevators were broken.
Two days later, Parlá tried again and left Key West, carrying the Cuban Flag his father had received from José Martí. This time he fell short and had to land at sea off the Cuban coast near Mariel. Sailors from the Cuban Navy rescued him from his seaplane.
Being adventuresome, while attending the Curtiss School of Aviation in 1916, Parlá flew over Niagara Falls. In his honor, the Cuban flag was hoisted and the Cuban national anthem was played. The famous Cuban composer, pianist, and bandleader, Antonio M. Romeu, composed a song in his honor named “Parlá over the Niagara” and Agustín Parlá became known as the “Father of Cuban Aviation.
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Hank Bracker
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That kind of thinking went as high as the secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox. Speaking to a private gathering in Washington on the evening of December 4, he announced: “I want you to know that whatever happens, the United States Navy is ready! Every man at his post, every ship at its station. . . . Whatever happens, the Navy is not going to be caught napping.
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Donald Stratton (All the Gallant Men: An American Sailor's Firsthand Account of Pearl Harbor)
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That’s how we’ll stay alive, throw back the enemy, and animate the courage and best traditions of the Navy. Those, if we’re lucky, will flow into us and give us strength, illuminate the great and good parts of honor, and connect us to the American sailors who came before us. When you fight on the sea as they did, you’ll bring them back alive inside you, a rare and joyous thing that makes the world seem close to just.
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Mark Helprin (The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel))