On this day in Navy history...

[LTLY]

The mission of the Navy is to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas.

—Mission statement of the United States Navy

 

On this day in Navy history...

[LTLY]

September 4th

1954 - Icebreakers, USS Burton Island (AGB-1) and USCG Northwind, complete first transit of Northwest passage through McClure Strait.

[CLS PIR 10/1/10 Ship 6 Div 946]

I was two years old when this event happened.

[Kat Q]

This is very nice. Thank you for taking the time to post this.

[LTLY]

It is my pleasure! I am enjoying learning more about the Navy!

[LTLY]

September 5th

1990 - USS Acadia (AD-42) departs San Diego for first war-time deployment of male-female crew on combat vessel.

[Elaine-PIR 10/1/10]

We arrived in San Diego about 6 months after this. I remember having a loooooong discussion with other half about what would happen if they put women on his ship. Friends of ours, also aboard a ship, let us know about the uproar in the Naval community when it was decided to do this. If I recall, a few pregnancies, but most of the scuttlebut was the women did it to either get out of the Navy or return to shore duty. Quite the conversation starter.

[LTLY]

I bet it is a conversation starter. I bet there were lots of thos looooooong conversations about this, probably still are.

[LTLY]

September 6th-

1944 - USS Independence (CVL-22) begins use of specially trained air group for night work. First time that a fully equipped night carrier operates with fast carrier task force.

[LTLY]

September 7th-

1942 - First air evacuation of casualties to hospital ships off shore occurs at Guadalcanal.

[Elaine-PIR 10/1/10]

Lots of questions about this one: Airlifted by Helicopter? How big were the hospital ships and does it say how many there were? Sorry. Maybe I need the Encyclopedia of the Military.

[LTLY]

Guadalcanal Campaign, August 1942 - February 1943
Overview and Special Image Selection



In the six months between August 1942 and February 1943, the United States and its Pacific Allies fought a brutally hard air-sea-land campaign against the Japanese for possession of the previously-obscure island of Guadalcanal. The Allies' first major offensive action of the Pacific War, the contest began as a risky enterprise since Japan still maintained a significant naval superiority in the Pacific ocean.

Nevertheless, the U.S. First Marine Division landed on 7 August 1942 to seize a nearly-complete airfield at Guadalcanal's Lunga Point and an anchorage at nearby Tulagi, bounding a picturesque body of water that would soon be named "Iron Bottom Sound". Action ashore went well, and Japan's initial aerial response was costly and unproductive. However, only two days after the landings, the U.S. and Australian navies were handed a serious defeat in the Battle of Savo Island.

A lengthy struggle followed, with its focus the Lunga Point airfield, renamed Henderson Field. Though regularly bombed and shelled by the enemy, Henderson Field's planes were still able to fly, ensuring that Japanese efforts to build and maintain ground forces on Guadalcanal were prohibitively expensive. Ashore, there was hard fighting in a miserable climate, with U.S. Marines and Soldiers, aided by local people and a few colonial authorities, demonstrating the fatal weaknesses of Japanese ground combat doctrine when confronted by determined and well-trained opponents who possessed superior firepower.

At sea, the campaign featured two major battles between aircraft carriers that were more costly to the Americans than to the Japanese, and many submarine and air-sea actions that gave the Allies an advantage. Inside and just outside Iron Bottom Sound, five significant surface battles and several skirmishes convincingly proved just how superior Japan's navy then was in night gunfire and torpedo combat. With all this, the campaign's outcome was very much in doubt for nearly four months and was not certain until the Japanese completed a stealthy evacuation of their surviving ground troops in the early hours of 8 February 1943.

Guadalcanal was expensive for both sides, though much more so for Japan's soldiers than for U.S. ground forces. The opponents suffered high losses in aircraft and ships, but those of the United States were soon replaced, while those of Japan were not. Strategically, this campaign built a strong foundation on the footing laid a few months earlier in the Battle of Midway, which had brought Japan's Pacific offensive to an abrupt halt. At Guadalcanal, the Japanese were harshly shoved into a long and costly retreat, one that continued virtually unchecked until their August 1945 capitulation.

This page features a historical overview and special image selection on the Guadalcanal Campaign, chosen from the more comprehensive coverage featured on Guadalcanal-Tulagi Invasion, 7-9 August 1942


source www.history.navy.mil

[Jane, MM Mom]

The song "Anchors Aweigh" was first played during the Army-Navy football game on Dec. 1, 1906 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. Before a crowd in excess of 30,000 Navy won the game 10-0, their first win in the match up since 1900.
The song was gradually adopted as the song of the U.S. Navy: although there is a pending proposal to make it the official song, and to incorporate protocol into Navy regulations for its performance, its status remaing unofficial as of 2006. Its lyrics were considered too specific to the Academy and not represntative of the Navy at large, and so were rewritten by George D. Lottman. Its melody was also slightly rewritten by Domnico Savino.
The song is also used in the U.S. Navy bootcamp in Great Lakes, IL, recruits when passing through an undergroudn tunnel heading away from the barracks sing the first verse and sing the second vers on the way back.
Verse 1: Stand, Navy, out to sea, Fight our battle cry: We'll never change our course, so vicious foe steer shy-y-y-y
Roll out the TNT, Anchors Aweigh. Sail on to victory and sink their bones to Davy Jones, hooray!
Bridge: Heave a ho there sailor, Everybody drink up while you may.
Heave a ho there sailor, for you're gonna sail at break of day.
Drink away, Drink away, for you sail at break off day, Hey!
Verse 2: (most commonly sung) Anchors Aweigh, my boys, Anchors Aweigh. Farewell to foreign shores, we sail at break of day, of day. Through our last night on shore, Drink to the foam, until we meet once more, Here's wishing you a happy voyage home!