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Monday, January 7, 2013

DARING WAKE AND MARCUS ISLAND RAIDS

PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA

If there was one spot on the map, other than "home," for which the men on the Enterprise had particular interest, it was Wake Island

Still reeling from the disaster at Pearl Harbor, the US Navy's warships gave the Japanese a taste of their own medicine in a series of daring hit-and-run raids against Japanese-held islands

HERE is the article

Thursday, January 3, 2013

DANIEL AND THE WOLF

THE CAPTAIN OF A HUNTER-KILLER GROUP RELATES HOW WW II'S GREATEST CAPTURE AT SEA CAME ABOUT.

It was my great good fortune to command the Atlantic Fleet hunter-killer group that captured the German submarine U-505.

This is Vice Admiral Dan V. Gallery telling how his group along  with the Guadalcanal (CVE-60) captured and preserved the German Submarine U-505, of which now sets at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

This is his story in his words: Click HERE

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

THE IRON MAN TROPHY

Since those long-ago days when a Navy ship organized the first spontaneous "smoker," replete with boxing matches, or ran climb-the-rigging races over the bounding main, sports and athletics have been a highly important part of the Navy scene.
It was far from an organized effort in the beginning - more of a "Hey, you guys on the USS Neversail, our whaleboat crew can beat yours across the bay any old time" type of thing.  Or the "Our old man can lick your ole man" bit - which meant, in Navy lingo, something like, "We've got a fireman in our black gang who can whip the bell-bottoms off anybody you've got aboard."

HERE is how it all got started