~ Navy Trivia and fun information ~

[Craig]

Welcome to the Navy Trivia section. Every so often I will ask a question about the Navy or a famous sailor. Remember, its not important that you get the answer correct. What is important is that you remember this Navy information so you can pass it along to others....... GO NAVY!

[TABBY]

 I remember that day when it was all over the news, I was a teenager and I did then what I did now, " I CRIED ".......

 † R.I.P †

[CatMom509]

I am comforted by knowing that brave Robert Dean Stethem is with our Lord Jesus~~  <></

[Craig]

Welcome to the Navy Trivia section. Every so often I will ask a question about the Navy or a famous sailor. Remember, its not important that you get the answer correct. What is important is that you remember this Navy information so you can pass it along to others....... GO NAVY!

I am a Sailor, Who am I ???................

Who am I ???? - I am known world wide!

You will know my name, but you probably didn't know that I'm also a United States Sailor.

I was in the US Naval Reserve (1944-46). As a US Navy surgeon in World War II, I saw numerous patients die on the operating table after being shot in the chest, when blood and air filled their chest cavities. The deaths bothered me for years, and in the early 1960s I devised a simple and inexpensive valve that could be quickly inserted through an injured patient's skin, to let the leakage escape.

In 1974, my study on airways lead to a maneuver which now carries my name. I found when a person choked on food, it was generally thought that forcefully slapping the victim's back was helpful, but in reality slapping often causes the blockage to drop deeper into the throat, making the situation even worse. In an 1974 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, I wrote that applying upward pressure to the diaphragm, under the choke point, might force the blockage to pop out, like a cork from a champagne bottle. I began to hear from doctors who had used the maneuver to save lives.

There is no doubt that my innovations have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. The American Red Cross, meanwhile, has quietly replaced the term "Heimlich maneuver" in its literature with the more generic term "abdominal thrusts". My first opportunity to actually perform my maneuver, when I heard a ruckus in a restaurant, and turned around to see a stranger choking. "I did the Heimlich maneuver, and got it out and then went on and had my lunch". Lastly, my nephew is Anson Williams, the actor who played Potsie Webber on Happy Days……Who am I ?

Answer: I am Dr Henry Heimlich, inventor of the “Heimlich Maneuver”, and a United States Navy Sailor!

 

[Craig]

 

I am a famous ship, who am I?

I am the USS Arizona (BB-39)

Since December 7th (Pearl Harbor Day) is coming up real soon, I thought I would give a refresher course to some of you guys. I'm into the weird stuff that most people don't know, so you will see some facts below that were gathered from different sources. I found these to be interesting, however some may be repeated.

Ok, so let's start with, who originally wrote "Yesterday, December 7th 1941, a day that will live in World History"?
It was President Franklin Roosevelt. Luckily, he changed those word to "a day that will live in infamy", which to me, sounds so much better. You can actually read the 1st draft of Roosevelt's famous "a date which will live in infamy" speech here>
http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/index.html?dod-d...
(Just click the picture and it will become large and clear)

So let's talk about the facts about the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese....

Facts :
- The attack took place on December 7, 1941.
- Although the aerial attack was very successful, the submarines failed to finish off any wounded ship inside the harbor.
- The attack's success surprised the Japanese as much as the Americans.
- The last part of the decoded Japanese message stated that U.S. relations were to be severed.
- Japanese force consisted of six carriers with 423 planes.
- At 6 a.m. the first Japanese attack wave of 83 planes took off.
- Eighteen U.S. ships were hit.
- Three prime targets escaped damage, the U.S. Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers, the Lexington, Enterprise and Saratoga. They were not in the port when the attack took place.
- Another target, the base fuel tanks also escaped damage.
- Casualties included 2,335 servicemen and 68 civilians.
- 1178 people were wounded.
- The day after the attack the U.S. and Britain declared war on Japan.
- Pearl Harbor has 10 square miles of navigable water.
- The attack was the climax of a decade of worsening relations between the U.S. and militaristic Japan.
- A U.S. embargo on necessary supplies for war prompted the attack on Pearl Harbor.
- All of the planes on the Japanese ships were fully fueled and armed.
- The Japanese planes took off about 90 minutes from Pearl Harbor.
- The Japanese were interested in the Hawaiian islands since the islands were annexed by the U.S. in 1898.
- An Admiral said, "leaving aside the unspeakable treachery of it, the Japanese did a fine job."
- Japanese suffered just small losses.
- The attack crippled the United States fleet.
- The Japanese deceived the U.S. by saying false statements and expressed interest in continued peace.
- The attack was planned weeks in advance.
- The main reason for the attack was over economic issues.
- Because of the unpreparedness of the U.S. military, Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short were relieved of duty.
- The attack severely crippled the U.S. naval and air strength in the Pacific.
- Of the eight battleships, all but the Arizona and Oklahoma were eventually repaired and returned to service.
- On December 8, 1941, Congress declared war on Japan with only one vote against it. The vote against it was of Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who had also voted against U.S. entry into World War I.
- Once the fleet was out of action, Japan would be able to conquest a great area.
- A U.S. Army private who noticed the large flight of planes on his radar screen was told to ignore them because a flight of B-17s from the continental U.S. was expected at the time.
- More than 180 U.S. aircraft were destroyed.
- During the attack the USS Arizona sank with a loss of more than 1,100 men.
- U.S. officials had been aware that an attack by Japan was probable, but did not know the time or place it would occur.
- Pearl Harbor was not in the state of high alert when the attack started, Anti-Aircraft guns were left unmanned.
- The main targets for the first wave was the airfield and battleships.
- The second wave targets were other ships and shipyard facilities.
- The air raid lasted until about 9:45 a.m.

PEARL HARBOR AND USS ARIZONA MYTHS & FACTS
The top three myths about the USS Arizona are in no particular order:
1. The USS Arizona is still in commissioned U.S. Navy ship.
2. A bomb falling down the stack and detonating the boilers sank her.
3. All 14" guns were removed for use in coastal batteries.

All of these are totally false, yet several authors who should have known better have included these falsehoods in their books. To address them individually:

1. The USS Arizona is not in commission.
- She was placed "in ordinary" at Pearl Harbor on December 29,1941, and was stricken on December 1, 1942. (Source – Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships – Published by USN.)

2. She was hit by 2 bombs (of 10 dropped) none down the stack. The fatal bomb hit forward, between #1 and #2 turrets, detonating the forward magazine and causing the forward decks to collapse. The "down the stack" theory is disproved by several facts:
- The deck over the boilers is intact to this day.
- The boiler uptakes are visible.
- If the boilers had exploded, the deck would be gone.
- The screen that was over the top of the stack was found intact in the harbor.
- A bomb falling down the stack would have pierced the screen.
- A boiler explosion would not have caused the forward decks to collapse as they did.
- The "down the stack" theory is perpetuated by the notion that the superstructure was blasted forward as shown in well-known pictures.
- This was actually caused by the collapse of the decks below the superstructure. (Source is – Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships – several other publications and inspection of the photos of the ship.)
The actual mechanics of the fatal bomb hit are as follows:
- The bomb was a converted 16.1" naval shell.
- It hit just forward and to the side of turret #2.
- It started a large oil fire in the forward part of the ship.
- The oil fire ignited over 1,000 pounds of black powder for the aircraft catapults, which was kept in a small magazine between #1 and #2 turrets.
- The explosion of the black powder caused the forward main magazine to explode, destroying the forward part of the ship.

3. Contrary to popular belief all 14" guns were removed, three of the twelve 14" guns remain in place.
#3 and # 4 turrets and their guns were removed, as were the guns in turret #2 and part of the turret itself. Turret #1 and its guns remain in place, intact. The forward turret and the guns of #1 were too badly damaged by the explosion to re-use so they were left in place.

Parts of #2 turret was removed to facilitate the removal of the guns.
The existence of the turret and guns is clearly supported by overhead photography, such as the picture on page 55 of the12/91 issue of National Geographic.

The removed guns were used in shore defense batteries.

OTHER INTERESTING FACTS:
1. After she was stricken all of her superstructure was removed, both for the scrap value and because it was a hazard.
2. Admiral Arthur W. Radford, CinPacFlt, started the tradition of hoisting the US flag over the ship March 7, 1950.
3. The Memorial over the wreck was dedicated on May 30, 1962. It does not rest on any part of the ship.
4. Oil is still leaking out of the ship, a few drops at a time.
5. Due to structural damage from the attack and 60+ years of rust, the Arizona is reportedly nearing the point of collapse.
6. The Arizona and Utah are the only two ships that were not salvaged after the attack.
7. The USS Utah capsized during the attack and was partially righted afterwards to clear a berth.
8. The Arizona was left on the bottom because she is the tomb of about a thousand men and was obviously beyond repair.
9. The Utah was a target ship and had no military value, so there was no point to expend the effort to salvage her.
10. The Utah was placed ‘in ordinary’ and transferred to the Pearl Harbor Base Force December 29, 1941, placed out of commission, ‘not in service’ September 5, 1944 and stricken November 13, 1944.
11. Although the ‘Dictionary of American Fighting Ships’ says the USS Utah is a tomb of an ‘unknown number of men’ some simple math shows there are 60 men inside (6 officers, 58 enlisted killed, 4 buried ashore).
12. There is a Memorial on Ford Island beside her berth.
13. The third ship that did-not return to service was the USS Oklahoma BB-37, she capsized during the attack and was righted and raised in 1943.
14. By that time there was little need for more old slow moving battleships and reconstruction would have taken to the end of the war.
15. She was decommissioned September 1, 1944 and essentially everything above the main deck was removed. Her guns were installed on the USS Pennsylvania and her hulk remained at Pearl Harbor until after the war.
16. The Oklahoma was sold as scrap December 5, 1946 and sank under tow May 17, 1947, 540 miles out from Pearl Harbor enroute to San Francisco for scrapping.
17. Two other hulls were destroyed at Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, The destroyers USS Cassin DD 372 and Downs DD 375. The ships were bombed and destroyed in dry-dock.
18. Officially the ships did not die at Pearl Harbor, as the machinery and weapons were fitted to new hulls and launched in 1943.
19. The Arizona and Utah are not the only hulks at the bottom of the harbor. Five LST's (43, 69, 179, 353 and 480) were destroyed in an ammunition handling accident and resultant explosion on May 21, 1944.
20. Their hulks still remain in the west lock of Pearl Harbor.

Trivia -
1. There were three (3) U.S. ships named "USS Arizona". Many think that the 1st and 2nd USS Arizona ships were named in honor of state of Arizona. They weren't, Why?
Answer:
The USS Arizona (BB-39) was indeed the third ship named “Arizona” BUT it is the first named after Arizona, the state. This is became Arizona was the last state in the continental U.S. to join the union in 1912, just one year before she was laid down in 1913. The other two ships were named for the Arizona Territory and they were a Civil War Side Wheel steamer and a post Civil War Steam Frigate.
btw: No other ship will ever bear the name USS Arizona out of respect.

2. Who where the first allies to join in the fight at Pearl Harbor?
Answer:
The Dutch, the crew of the Jagersfontein opened fire on the Japanese at 9am.

3. In the Japanese cluture, they don't teach much on Pearl Harbor. However they do teach about the Truk Lagoon. Why?
Answer:
They teach about Truk Lagoon. Truk Lagoon is the "Japanese Pearl Harbor". We went in there and totally destroyed the Japanese fleet. Over 60 Japanese ships and 275 airplanes were sent to the bottom of the lagoon. This area is now part of the Chuck islands, part of the Federated States of Micronesia in the Pacific Ocean.

4. The USS Arizona (BB-39) continues to leak oil into the harbor. Survivors believe that the ship will continue to leak oil till what happens?
Answer:
When every survivor has died.
We are down to 17 Sailors, and 1 Marine survivors. The survivors have stated and many really believe that the oil will stop on its own when the last one of their number dies. The National Park Service, respecting the wreck as a War Cemetery, has taken no action to stem the leaks and plans none till the last survivor indeed dies. The leak is relatively minor from an environmental point of view at only a few pints per day.

Lastly, here is some more info on Pearl Harbor.


And here you will find the Radiogram reporting the Pearl Harbor attack, from Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) to all ships in Hawaiian area, December 7, 1941>
http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/index.html?dod-d...

Here you can find the original speech:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/fdr.html

Here is the link to the FDR museum:
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/

Here are some great photos of Pearl Harbor:
http://www.navsource.org/Naval/arph.htm

The Survivors of the USS Arizona:
http://www.ussarizona.org/survivors/survivors_living.html

God bless the Sailors aboard the USS Arizona, and all others who have lost their lives in the bombing of Hawaii, December 7th, 1941.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now for more trivia:  ~ The Ship's Bell ~

Some more trivia....there were two ship's bells....one is on display at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor....the other is on the campus of the University of Arizona here in Tucson....some history...

Bell from the U.S.S. Arizona, its plaque reads:

THE PRESERVATION OF THE U.S.S. ARIZONA BELL IN THIS TOWER IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THE MEN WHO LOST THEIR LIVES ON THE BATTLESHIP ARIZONA IN THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR ON DECEMBER 7, 1941.

This bell is one of the two original bells salvaged from the U.S.S. ARIZONA in 1941. In 1944, Wilber L. Bill Bowers, UA Class of 1927, discovered this bell about to be melted down at the Puget Sound Naval Yard in Bremerton, Washington. Bowers saved the bell from destruction and was instrumental in acquiring the bell for the University of Arizona shortly after World War II.

The bell arrived on campus in July 1946. On November 17, 1951 the bell was rung for the first time in the clock tower of the then-new Memorial Student Union Building. The bell was rung on special occasions for the next 50 years until that clock tower and Student Union were razed to make way for the present day facility completed in 2002.

The bell was installed in this clock tower on August 16, 2002. Bill Bowers, at the age of 99, was given the honor of ringing the bell for the first time in its new belfry on September 11, 2002. This bell is to be rung seven times on the third Wednesday of every month at 12:07 p.m. to honor the achievements of the University of Arizona and its community. It is traditionally rung by the Student Body President on the Sunday before Pearl Harbor Day, on the Student Union’s birthday (November 18), and after Wildcat athletic victories (over any team except other Arizona schools).

Effective Wednesday, April 16, 2003, the USS Arizona Bell will be rung for significant University achievements on the third Wednesday each month. This includes academic achievements and awards for which a University of Arizona student, faculty or staff has received recognition in the previous thirty days. The USS Arizona Bell will be rung 7 times at 12:07pm in recognition of these outstanding achievements.

The other original bell is on display at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

---------------------------------------

More pictures

[Craig]

Thank you Lady H.... I will remove that from the main page and correct it with the real USS Arizona.... I just liked the blasting effect and thought it was the Arizona.  We've always got to keep this stuff correct.... We can never forget....

[Dee (CTI3 Spencer&Erin)]

EVERYONE should visit the memorial once in their life....there are no words for the emotions you feel looking at that wall of names and the rusting hulk below.

[Dee (CTI3 Spencer&Erin)]

 

From my July trip to Oahu...........

 

 

 

 

[Craig]

What is a Snipe?

In Medieval days up till the early 1800's there were no engines and no Snipes. Along about 1812 the Navy obtained their first paddle wheel steamer named the USS Fulton. To run the boiler and engine, men of steam were also acquired. They were not sailors but engineers from early land based steam engines.

From the beginning the sailors did not like or appreciate these landsmen and their foul smoky plants. They were treated with contempt and pretty much given the short end of the stick.

In spite of all this the steam engine prevailed. There were still two crews however. The Engineers and the Deck crew. Soon an Engineer Officer was appointed to each ship. He was the Engineer master and all the Engineers reported to him. The Deck sailors reported to the ships master. Curiously, the two masters were on equal footing and neither was over the other. The Deck Master though was in the best position. He controlled the quarters and rations. The Engineers were still at the mercy of the deck gang. By the height of the civil war, as steam was taking over and sails were disappearing the old Admirals that controlled the Navy were in a quandary what to do about the situation.

They accomplished a couple of things. First, they managed to make the senior Master a Captain. As Captain he was in overall command of the ship and the Engineering officer reported to him. Beings as how there were occasions that the Engineer master outranked the ships master something had to be done to keep the Engineer from becoming "Captain". To solve this problem they developed two separate Officer branches. Staff and Line. Only Line Officers could succeed to command. Staff Officers would always be subservient to Line Officers at sea. Staff Officers consisted of Surgeons, Supply and yes, Engineering officers. To this day that is still true. The second change was to make all engineers's Navy men, however they were also made junior to all deck sailors. A petty officer machinist was junior to a deck seaman third. All this went to make the life of the engineers even more miserable. They could now be flogged and harassed at will by the Deck crew.

Along about this time came an Engineer Officer by the name of John Snipes. I cannot find the name of the ship he first appeared on, but he was a different cut from the others. He demanded sleeping accommodations, and food equal to the Deck gang. He also declared that there would be no more harassment for his gang. When the ships Captain laughed at him Snipes simply had his men put out the fires in the boiler. To make a long story short, Snipes brought about the changes in the system. In time these changes extended to the entire Naval fleet. The Engineers became strictly "hands off" for the Deck gang. They became known as Snipe's men and over the years as just Snipes.

btw: The IC rating routinely gets left off a lot of list since (like below) since IC-men were not in engineering on non-steam ships, but now they are part of engineering thus snipes too

 

Left to Right:

1. DC (damage control)

2. EN (engineman)

3. MM (machinist mate)

4. EM (electricians mate)

5. MR (machinery repairman)

6. GSE (gas turbine tech)
6. GSM (gas turbine system tech)

7. HT (hull maintenence)

8. IC (interior communications) (not shown in picture)

[clockard]

Very interesting! Thanks, Craig.

[Craig]

Welcome to the Navy Trivia section. Every so often I will ask a question about the Navy or a famous sailor. Remember, its not important that you get the answer correct. What is important is that you remember this Navy information so you can pass it along to others....... GO NAVY!

What does this car have to do with the military?................

I found this interesting, and since it has to do with Pearl Harbor, I though I'd post it....

Question:
Immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor, The Secret Service was concerned over FDR's security as they figured he was now a possible target to spys or assasins. They changed his mode of Presidential transportation. What was signifigant about this new mode of transportation, I.E. what was it and where did it come from?

Answer:
Hours after Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Secret Service found themselves in a bind. President Franklin D Roosevelt was to give his infamy speech to Congress the next day, and although the trip from the White House to Capitol Hill was short, agents weren’t sure how to transport him safely.

The White House did already have a specially built limousine for the president that he regularly used, it wasn’t bulletproof, and the Secret Service realized this could be a major problem now that the country was at war. FDR’s speech was to take place at noon December 8th, and time was running out. They had to procure an armored car, and fast.

There was one slight problem. US government rules at the time restricted the purchase of any vehicle that cost more than $750 ($10,455 in today’s dollars). It was pretty obvious that they weren’t going to get an armored car that cheap, and certainly not in less than a day.

One Secret Service agent was a quick thinker. The federal government did already have in its possession a car that just might fit the bill: Al Capone’s, which had been sitting in a Treasury Department parking lot ever since it had been seized from the infamous mobster during the IRS’ tax evasion suit years earlier.

Capone’s car was a sight to behold. It had been painted black and green so as to look identical to Chicago’s police cars at the time. It also had a specially installed siren and flashing lights hidden behind the grille, along with a police scanner radio. To top it off, the gangster’s 1928 Cadillac 341A Town Sedan had 3,000 pounds of armor and inch-thick bulletproof windows. Mechanics are said to have cleaned and checked each feature of the Caddy well into the night of December 7th, to make sure that it would run properly the next day for the Commander in Chief.

And run properly it did. The car apparently preformed perfectly– so perfectly that Roosevelt kept using it– at least until his old car could be fitted with identical features (and to this day, Presidential limousines have flashing police lights hidden behind their grilles).

The old car was a 1939 Lincoln V12 Convertible built by Ford (and affectionately nicknamed the “Sunshine Special,” supposedly because FDR liked to enjoy the sun while riding around with the top down… hardly safe, although the use of presidential convertibles was not eliminated until after JFK’s assassination). Roosevelt was apparently so enamored with his convertible however that he had it bullet-proofed. The Lincoln was now undoubtedly worth more than $750, so the White House got around the spending cap regulation by making a special arrangement to lease it from Ford at the rate of $500 per year.

When he was told his car’s origin (probably on December 8th as he rode to Capitol Hill), Roosevelt reportedly quipped, “I hope Mr Capone won’t mind.”

[Craig]

Welcome to the Navy Trivia section. Every so often I will ask a question about the Navy or a famous sailor. Remember, its not important that you get the answer correct. What is important is that you remember this Navy information so you can pass it along to others....... GO NAVY!

I am a famous sailor, who am I?

Note:
At frame 00:12 is that a guy?
At frame 00:42 What does this guy have that I don't. He brings a woman home that is just a door? If I tried that, the woman would leave, and I'd never get laid. Some guys have all the luck!
At frame 00:48 What the heck is it with his gnarly teeth? This guy made $-MILLIONS-$, why can't he fix the dang teeth?

I am Rick James
American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and a United States Navy Sailor!

The third in a family of eight children, James Johnson, Jr. was born in Buffalo and raised primarily by his mother, a strict Catholic who made ends meet by running numbers for the mob. At the age of 15 he ran away from home and joined the Navy, but quickly discovered that military life conflicted with his musical ambitions. After being reported AWOL as a result of skipping out on weekend training, James fled to Toronto where he established The Mynah Birds, a band that featured future Buffalo Springfield founders Neil Young and Bruce Palmer, as well as Goldy McJohn who later became part of Steppenwolf; helped by James' family connections (his uncle was Melvin Franklin of The Temptations), a deal was secured with Motown Records, but little was recorded and nothing ever released. Upon returning to the States, James was forced to serve time for abandoning his military service and the Mynahs dissolved, its other members seeking to establish themselves in Los Angeles while James moved to Detroit.

Now working as a staff songwriter for Motown, James (having changed his name from James Johnson to Rick James after founding The Mynah Birds) traveled to London and established an R&B group called The Main Line; for most of the 1970s he maintained both situations, regularly commuting back and forth across the Atlantic. In 1977, after finally re-establishing a permanent residence in the U.S., he put together The Stone City Band and began to formulate the rock/funk hybrid for which he later became known. With a full record's worth of songs in the can, he once again approached Motown in 1978 and was immediately signed to their Gordy subsidiary. His debut album, Come Get It, materialized later that year, its singles You and I and Mary Jane reaching the #1 and #3 R&B positions, respectively.

James embarked on well-attended U.S. tours in support of his second and third releases, Bustin' Out of L Seven and Fire It Up, accompanied for the latter by a girl group he had created called the Mary Jane Girls and a still largely-unknown performer named Prince. Both support acts benefited considerably from the exposure, and the flamboyant nature of the shows attracted a great deal of media attention. With the release of Street Songs in 1981 he reached the peak of his popularity, the album itself climbing into the upper reached of both the pop and R&B charts and it's singles Give It To Me, Baby, Ghetto Life, and -- of course -- Super Freak making a similarly strong showing. In subsequent years he juggled his own music with a parallel career as a producer, organizing successful projects for acts such as The Temptations, Teena Marie, The Mary Jane Girls, and (somewhat questionably) Eddie Murphy. The 1980s also marked the rise of his problems with drug addiction, which would continue to plague him well into the 1990s.

With the 1986 release of The Flag, his 11th record for Motown, James brought an end to his long-standing relationship with the label and threw his lot in with Reprise. This new arrangement resulted two years later in his first #1 single in five years, Loosey's Rap, which featuring contributions from rapper Roxanne Shante. Following this resurgence of popularity his career went into a decline, and in the 90s he became noted less for his music and more for his drug and legal problems. Assault charges were brought against him by young women in both '91 and '92 -- the second charge resulting in a five year jail sentence (two years of which he served before his release in 1996) and a public admission from the musician that he was addicted to crack. Prior to this, a comeback of sorts had taken place in 1990 in the form of the MC Hammer single U Can't Touch This, which sampled from Super Freak; ironically, it was through this that James earned his only Grammy award. Throughout the 1990s, sampling of this kind was how the bulk of the corporate-music-buying public primarily heard James' work, bits of it turning up in material by Mary J. Blige, Jennifer Lopez, LL Cool J and Ja Rule. At the time of his death in 2004, he was in the midst of finishing an autobiography titled Memoirs of a Super Freak and a double CD of new material.

[Craig]

Welcome to the Navy Trivia section. Every so often I will ask a question about the Navy or a famous sailor. Remember, its not important that you get the answer correct. What is important is that you remember this Navy information so you can pass it along to others....... GO NAVY!

I am a famous sailor, who am I?

(next to Marilyn Monroe)

 

I am American film actor Tony Curtis and a United States Navy Sailor!

Before I became Tony Curtis, I was Bernard Schwartz, born June 3, 1925, in Bronx, New York, to Hungarian immigrants.  my only language until I was 6 was Hungarian which postponed my schooling. Although I loved my mother, when I was a child, my mom beat me up and was very aggressive and antagonistic.  My mother was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. My brother Robert was also institutionalized with the same mental illness.

When I was eight, my brother Julius and I were placed in an orphanage for a month because our parents could not afford to feed us. Four years later, Julius was struck and killed by a truck. I joined a neighborhood gang whose main crimes were playing hooky from school and minor pilfering at the local dime store.  At aged 11, a friendly neighbor saved me from what he felt would have led to a life of delinquency by sending me to a Boy Scout camp where I was able to work off my energy and settle down. I attended Seward Park High School in New York. At 16, I had his first small acting part in a school stage play.

After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, I wanted to fight in the war. After seeing Cary Grant play a submarine commander in "Destination Tokyo" and Tyrone Power in "Crash Dives," I decided to join the Navy and be a submariner.

"I knew then that I wanted to be a submariner" Curtis said in a 2004 interview during the commemoration of the 62nd anniversary of the Battle of Midway at the Navy Memorial at Washington.

As a young signalman, he reported to the submarine tender Proteus in Guam. On Proteus, he became a member of a submarine relief crew, which cleaned and repair submarines as they returned from patrol. I never got to qualify as a submariner, but I did get to witness history: Proteus was part of the armada that steamed into Tokyo Bay in August 1945 for the formal Japanese surrender.  On September 2, 1945, I witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay from my ship's signal bridge about a mile away. Following I was discharged from US Navy.  I attended City College of New York as a result of the G.I. Bill.

 

In 1948, I arrived in Hollywood aged 23. When I was placed under contract at Universal Pictures, I changed his name from Bernard Schwartz to Tony Curtis. The first name was from the novel Anthony Adverse and "Kurtz" from a surname in his mother's family.  Although Universal Pictures taught him fencing and riding, in keeping with the cinematic themes of the era, I admit my first only interested in girls and money. I wasn't hopeful fir any chances of becoming a major star. My biggest fear was having to return home to the Bronx as a failure.

 

I starred in the movie "Some Like it Hot" (1959), voted the number 1 funniest film in history from a survey done by the American Film Institute.  It costarred actor(ess) Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe.  I further starred in the movie about the Navy in the comedy Operation Petticoat (1959).  The story was about a submarine that was painted pink and had Army nurses as part of the crew, which took me back to my days when I wanted to work on submarines.  I co-starred with actor Cary Grant.

Later in life, I worked to give back to the Navy by becoming a staunch supporter of the Navy Memorial. My willingness to give back to the Navy helped me achieve my World War II goal. At the 1998 Submarine Birthday Ball, Rear Adm. Jerry Ellis, who then commanded Submarine Force Pacific, presented Curtis with his silver "Dolphins" warfare pin, along with the title "submariner".

On July 8, 2010, I suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), was hospitalized in Las Vegas after suffering an asthma attack during a book signing engagement in Henderson, Nevada at Costco.

I died at my Henderson, Nevada home on September 29, 2010, of a cardiac arrest.  In a release to the Associated Press, my daughter, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, stated:

"My father leaves behind a legacy of great performances in movies and in his paintings and assemblages. He leaves behind children and their families who loved him and respected him and a wife and in-laws who were devoted to him. He also leaves behind fans all over the world. He will be greatly missed."

I was interred at Palm Memorial Park Cemetery in Green Valley, Nevada on October 4, 2010. 

 

(1955)

My wife Janet Leigh during the filming of Houdini (1953)

(My wife actress Janet Leigh)