This week in U.S. Naval History!

Each week, the NSCC Alumni Association is proud to bring you "This week in U.S. Navy history!"  We hope to share with you the rich heritage of the U.S. sea services.  We hope to soon bring you more of the history of the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps.

August 1 - 7

 

August 1:

1801 - U.S. schooner Enterprise captures Tripolitan ship Tripoli. (USN)

1944 - After nine days of fighting in a battle termed "the perfect amphibious operation of World War II," MajGen Harry Schmidt, commander of V Amphibious Corps, declared the island of Tinian secured. (USMC)

1952 - The Coast Guard released a photograph of unidentified flying object (UFO), taken by a 21-year old Coast Guard photographer on 16 July at the Salem Coast Guard Air Station. (USCG)

1958 - USS Nautilus (SSN-571) submerges under Arctic ice cap near Point Barrow. (USN)

August 2:

1881 - At about 8 o’clock in the morning, during a dense fog on Lake Huron, the crew of Station No 2, Tenth District (Point aux Barques, Michigan), heard the signal-whistle of a steamer to the northeast. The sharpness of the sound indicated a call for assistance.  The life-saving crew found the steamer City of Concord with the schooner L.L. Lamb in tow, bound to Port Hope. (USCG)

1943 - PT-109, under command of LTJG John F. Kennedy, cut in half by Japanese destroyer Amagiri.  (USN)

1964 - Three North Vietnamese PT boats attack USS Maddox (DD-731) in international waters in Gulf of Tonkin. Maddox sinks one. (USN)

 

August 3:

1804 - American Squadron, including USS Constitution, attacks Tripoli. (USN)

1812 - The Revenue Cutter Commodore Barry, a 98-ton schooner pierced for six guns under the command of Captain Daniel Elliott, along with the U.S. privateer Madison, were captured  by boarding parties from the British vessels Maidstone, Spartan, and Plumper on 3 August 1812 "while lying in Little River," Maine after what the New York Evening Post noted was a "severe contest, in which a number of the English were said to be killed."  The crews of both the cutter and the privateer escaped.  The British destroyed the Madison but apparently utilized Commodore Barry as a tender. (USCG)

1950 - Eight Corsairs of VMF-214, the famed "Black Sheep" squadron of World War II, launched from the USS Sicily and executed the first Marine aviation mission in the Korean War in a raid against enemy installations near Inchon. After the F4Us delivered their incendiary bombs and rockets on their targets, the Marines concluded their greeting to the Communist troops with a series of strafing runs. (USMC)

1958 - USS Nautilus (SSN-571) is first ship to reach the geographic North Pole submerged. (USN)

August 4:

1790 - Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's proposal to build ten cutters to protect the new nation's revenue (Stat. L. 145, 175).  Alternately known as the system of cutters, Revenue Service, and Revenue-Marine this service would officially be named the Revenue Cutter Service (12 Stat. L., 639) in 1863.  The cutters were placed under the control of the Treasury Department.  This date marks the officially recognized birthday of the Coast Guard. (USCG)

1846 - Sailors and Marines from USS Congress capture Santa Barbara. (USN)

1944 - Fifth Fleet carrier task forces begin air attack against Iwo Jima and the Bonin Islands. (USN)

 

August 5:

1864 - RADM David Farragut wins Battle of Mobile Bay, sealing off last Confederate port on Gulf Coast. (USN)

1882 - Authorizing of first steel warships, beginning of the modern Navy. (USN)

1935 - Congress passed the Anti-Smuggling Act, which broadened the jurisdiction of Coast Guard. (USCG)

 

August 6:

1918 - The first American lightship to be sunk by enemy action, Lightship No. 71, was lost on her Diamond Shoals station.  LS 71 had reported by radio the presence of a German submarine which had sunk a passing freighter. That message was intercepted by the submarine U-104, which then located the lightship and, after giving the crew opportunity to abandon ship in the boats, sank LS 71 by surface gunfire. The lightship's crew reached shore without injury. (USCG)

1945 - Atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima, Japan. Navy weaponeer, Captain W.S. Parsons, USN, armed the atomic bomb on the B-29 bomber, Enola Gay. (USN)

1990 - President George Bush orders Operation Desert Shield, largest overseas deployment since Vietnam, to protect Saudi Arabia after Iraqi's invasion of Kuwait.

 

August 7:

1782 - Badge of Military Merit (Purple Heart) established.
1942 - Navy Amphibious Task Force lands Marines on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands in first U.S. land offensive of World War II. (USN)

1942 - Landings at Tulagi and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands commenced.  This first Allied invasion in the Pacific proved to be a critical battle.  Coast Guard manned transports, including the USS Hunter Liggett, participated in the invasion.  Many of the landing craft were crewed by Coast Guardsmen.  A Coast Guard officer, LCDR Dwight H. Dexter, and 25 Coast Guardsmen went ashore from the Liggett with their landing craft to set up a naval operating base on Lunga Point.  Signalman 1/c Douglas Munro, later killed at Guadalcanal, was a member of Dexter's command. (USCG)

 

Please feel free to email us about any significant events that occured during your tenure in the NSCC.  We want to gather as much information as possible to preserve for the future generations of NSCC and NLCC cadets.  Did your unit win a prestigious national award?  Was a member of your unit Cadet of the Year?  Did you participate in the first training of it's kind?  Let us know!.

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