This weekend I did a lot of channel surfing. Each Memorial Day, we are treated to a variety of war movies - mainly World War II movies. It w...

My grandfather was a coal miner. He started working in the mines in 1902, as soon as he turned 16. There weren't any other jobs in P...

Watching the news this evening reminded me of the first time I saw Cuba. It was 1955, I was aboard USS Iowa (BB-61) for a training cruise - ...

April 18, 1942, 16 US Army B-25 Medium Bombers took off from the Navy Carrier Hornet to attack the Japanese home islands. This was one of...

Fifty years ago, my ship was boring holes in the South China Sea, firing projectiles into the jungles of South Vietnam at targets we couldn...

Japan was in dire straits. Her navy fast disappearing. But it was not in disarray. Far from it. As US forces assaulted the Phillipines at Le...

USS Houston, assigned to RADM Bogen's Task Group 38.2, left Eniwetok August 30 to screen aircraft carriers against Japanese aircraft whi...

Last week I neglected to call attention to the fiftieth anniversary of the supposed night time attack by North Vietnamese PT boats on US Nav...

The Navy aviators had decimated Japanese Naval Air in the "Marianas Turkey Shoot" and sunk three of Japan's remaining carriers...

What's going on here? USS Manila Bay, a US Navy escort carrier with a deck load of US Army P-47 fighter planes, attacked by Japanese a...

When last we checked on USS Houston, she was on her way with two other cruisers of her cruiser division, two battleships and seven destroyer...

The crew of USS Houston, lying at anchor at Majuro Atoll as they prepared for the next big operation against Japan, probably never thought o...

May 23rd, 1944. The training was over. Drills would never be over. Gun firing drills, damage control drills, man overboard drills, abandon s...

In May, 1944, USS Houston (CL-81) was at Pearl Harbor getting ready for action in the Pacific. The Cleveland Class cruiser fired its six-inc...

Here are some of the best photos I have seen of maintenance and repair of WWII Naval Aircraft and the people who did the work: Click on the ...

Here are photos of what the US Navy looked like during the Spanish American War: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-it-was-like-in-the...

USS HOUSTON (CL-81) Boston, MA April 15, 1944, Newly commissioned Cleveland-class light cruiser Houston, after completing shakedo...

Department of "History Begins When I Was Born." Yesterday's News and Observer printed an AP report about the Christening of US...

As April began, USS Houston (CL-81) was preparing to be deployed to the Pacific. Over the next weeks and months I will try to explain what w...

This was Mark Twain's take on the lessons of history. Ukraine's travails of the past three months and Russia's intervention re...