1.
Ulithi
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Ulithi is an atoll in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, about 191 km east of Yap. It consists of 40 islets totalling 4.5 km2, surrounding a lagoon about 36 km long and it is administered by the state of Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia. Ulithis population was 773 in 2000, there are four inhabited islands on Ulithi Atoll. They are Falalop, Asor, Mogmog, and Fedarai, Falalop is the most accessible with an air strip, a small resort hotel, gas dealership, store and one of three public high schools in Yap state. Mogmog is the seat of the chief of Ulithi Atoll though each island has its own chief. Other important islands are Losiap, Sorlen, and Potangeras, the atoll is in the westernmost of the Caroline Islands,360 miles southwest of Guam,850 miles east of the Philippines and 1,300 miles south of Tokyo. It is a volcanic atoll, with a coral reef, white sand beaches. Ulithis forty small islands barely rise above the sea, with the largest being only one-half square mile in area, however the reef runs roughly twenty miles north and south, by ten miles across, enclosing a vast anchorage with an average depth of 80 to 100 feet. Ulithi was a staging area for the U. S. Navy in the final year of the Second World War. Several sunken warships rest at the bottom of the Ulithi lagoon, including the USS Mississinewa, the sunken tanker was found to be seeping oil into the lagoon. The United States Navy responded, locating the tanker, tapping her storage tanks, the cleanup operation was completed in February 2003. The atoll offers good fishing and diving, though recent typhoons have eroded some of the reefs, census records can be misleading because population can fluctuate during the year because it is common for Ulithians to leave for work or school abroad and to return. This is particularly true during festive times like the Outer Island High School graduation ceremony, additionally, during events like weddings and funerals, Yasors population may double. Electricity is now available on islands, and the advent of video players. Occasional diving and adventure tours visit Ulithi from Yap, the first European to find Ulithi was the Portuguese navigator Diego da Rocha, for four months in 1525. Its visit was recorded by Spanish navigator Álvaro de Saavedra on board of ship Florida on 1 January 1528 and he named them Islas de los Reyes because of the sighting happening on the eve of Epiphany. It was later charted by the Spaniards as Islas de los Garbanzos and it was also visited by the Spanish expedition of Ruy López de Villalobos on 26 January 1543. Germany purchased the islands from Spain in 1899 and they were occupied in 1914 by Japan at the outset of the First World War
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Battle of Iwo Jima
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The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the War in the Pacific of World War II, after the heavy losses incurred in the battle, the strategic value of the island became controversial. It was useless to the U. S. Army as a staging base, however, Navy Seabees rebuilt the landing strips, which were used as emergency landing strips for USAAF B-29s. The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions. The American ground forces were supported by naval artillery, and had complete air supremacy provided by U. S. Navy. Japanese combat deaths numbered three times the number of American deaths, although uniquely among Pacific War Marine battles, American total casualties exceeded those of the Japanese. Of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner, despite the bloody fighting and severe casualties on both sides, the Japanese defeat was assured from the start. Joe Rosenthals Associated Press photograph of the raising of the U. S. flag on top of the 169 m Mount Suribachi by six U. S, Marines became an iconic image of the battle and the American war effort in the Pacific. All indications pointed to an American drive toward the Mariana Islands, in March 1944, the Japanese 31st Army, commanded by General Hideyoshi Obata, was activated to garrison this inner line. The commander of the Japanese garrison on Chichi Jima was placed nominally in command of Army, after the American conquest of the Marianas, daily bomber raids from the Marianas hit the mainland as part of Operation Scavenger. Iwo Jima served as an early warning station that radioed reports of incoming bombers back to mainland Japan and this allowed Japanese air defenses to prepare for the arrival of American bombers. At the same time, with reinforcements arriving from Chichi Jima and the home islands, in addition, it was used by the Japanese to stage air attacks on the Mariana Islands from November 1944 through January 1945. The capture of Iwo Jima would eliminate these problems and provide an area for Operation Downfall – the eventual invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. The distance of B-29 raids could be cut in half, American intelligence sources were confident that Iwo Jima would fall in one week. In light of the intelligence reports, the decision was made to invade Iwo Jima. American forces were unaware that the Japanese were preparing a complex and deep defense, by June 1944, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi was assigned to command the defense of Iwo Jima. While drawing inspiration from the defense in the Battle of Peleliu, takeichi Nishis armored tanks were to be used as camouflaged artillery positions. This network of bunkers and pillboxes favored the defense, for instance, The Nanpo Bunker, which was located east of Airfield Number 2, had enough food, water and ammo for the Japanese to hold out for three months
4.
Pearl Harbor
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Pearl Harbor is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base and it is also the headquarters of the United States Pacific Fleet. The U. S. government first obtained exclusive use of the inlet, the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan on December 7,1941, was the immediate cause of the United States entry into World War II. Pearl Harbor was originally a shallow embayment called Wai Momi or Puʻuloa by the Hawaiians. Puʻuloa was regarded as the home of the goddess, Kaʻahupahau. Making due allowance for legendary amplification, the estuary already had an outlet for its waters where the present gap is, during the early 19th century, Pearl Harbor was not used for large ships due to its shallow entrance. The interest of United States in the Hawaiian Islands grew as a result of its whaling, shipping and trading activity in the Pacific. As early as 1820, an Agent of the United States for Commerce and these commercial ties to the American continent were accompanied by the work of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. American missionaries and their families became a part of the Hawaiian political body. Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, many American warships visited Honolulu, in most cases, the commanding officers carried letters from the U. S. Government giving advice on governmental affairs and of the relations of the island nation with foreign powers. In 1841, the newspaper Polynesian, printed in Honolulu, advocated that the U. S. establish a base in Hawaii for protection of American citizens engaged in the whaling industry. The British Hawaiian Minister of Foreign Affairs Robert Crichton Wyllie, remarked in 1840 that and my opinion is that the tide of events rushes on to annexation to the United States. In 1865, the North Pacific Squadron was formed to embrace the western coast, lackawanna in the following year was assigned to cruise among the islands, a locality of great and increasing interest and importance. This vessel surveyed the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands toward Japan, as a result, the United States claimed Midway Island. The Secretary of the Navy was able to write in his report of 1868. This increased activity caused the permanent assignment of at least one warship to Hawaiian waters and it also praised Midway Island as possessing a harbor surpassing Honolulus. In the following year, Congress approved an appropriation of $50,000 on March 1,1869, after 1868, when the Commander of the Pacific Fleet visited the islands to look after American interests, naval officers played an important role in internal affairs. They served as arbitrators in disputes, negotiators of trade agreements and defenders of law
5.
Pacific War
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The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in the Pacific and East Asia. It was fought over a vast area that included the Pacific Ocean and islands, the South West Pacific, South-East Asia, and in China. The Pacific War saw the Allied powers pitted against the Empire of Japan, the formal and official surrender of Japan took place aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. In Allied countries during the war, The Pacific War was not usually distinguished from World War II in general, or was known simply as the War against Japan. Japan used the name Greater East Asia War, as chosen by a decision on 10 December 1941. Japanese officials integrated what they called the Japan–China Incident into the Greater East Asia War, in Japan, the Fifteen Years War is also used, referring to the period from the Mukden Incident of 1931 through 1945. The Phayap Army sent troops to invade and occupy northeastern Burma, also involved were the Japanese puppet states of Manchukuo and Mengjiang, and the collaborationist Wang Jingwei regime. The official policy of the U. S. Government is that Thailand was not an ally of the Axis, Japan conscripted many soldiers from its colonies of Korea and Formosa. To a small extent, some Vichy French, Indian National Army, Germany and Italy both had limited involvement in the Pacific War. The German and the Italian navies operated submarines and raiding ships in the Indian, the Italians had access to concession territory naval bases in China, while the Germans did not. After Japans attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war, mexico, Free France and many other countries also took part, especially forces from other British colonies. Between 1942 and 1945, there were four main areas of conflict in the Pacific War, China, the Central Pacific, South East Asia, U. S. sources refer to two theaters within the Pacific War, the Pacific theater and the China Burma India Theater. However these were not operational commands, in the Pacific, the Allies divided operational control of their forces between two supreme commands, known as Pacific Ocean Areas and Southwest Pacific Area. In 1945, for a period just before the Japanese surrender. By 1937, Japan controlled Manchuria and was ready to move deeper into China, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937 provoked full-scale war between China and Japan. In August 1937, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to fight about 300,000 Japanese troops in Shanghai, the Japanese continued to push the Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanking in December 1937 and committed which was known as Nanking Massacre. In March 1938, Nationalist forces won their first victory at Taierzhuang, but then the city of Xuzhou was taken by Japanese in May. In June 1938, Japan deployed about 350,000 troops to invade Wuhan, the Japanese achieved major military victories, but world opinion—in particular in the United States—condemned Japan, especially after the Panay incident
6.
Marc Mitscher
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Mitscher was born in Hillsboro, Wisconsin on January 26,1887, the son of Oscar and Myrta Mitscher. Mitschers grandfather, Andreas Mitscher, was a German immigrant from Traben-Trarbach and his other grandfather, Thomas J. Shear, was a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. During the western land boom of 1889, when Marc was two old, his family resettled in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where his father. His uncle, Byron D. Shear, would become mayor. Mitscher attended elementary and secondary schools in Washington, D. C and he received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland in 1904 through Bird Segle McGuire, then U. S. An indifferent student with a sense of military deportment, Mitschers career at the naval academy did not portend the accomplishments he would achieve later in life. Nicknamed after Annapoliss first midshipman from Oklahoma, Peter Cassius Marcellus Cade, soon he was referred to as Oklahoma Pete, with the nickname shortened to just Pete by the winter of his youngster year. Having amassed 159 demerits and showing poorly in his class work, at the insistence of his father, Mitscher re-applied and was granted reappointment, though he had to re-enter the academy as a first year plebe. This time the stoic Mitscher worked straight through, and on June 3,1910, following graduation he served two years at sea aboard USS Colorado, and was commissioned ensign on March 7,1912. In August 1913, he served aboard USS California on the West Coast, during that time Mexico was experiencing a political disturbance, and California was sent to protect U. S. interests and citizens. Mitscher took an early interest in aviation, requesting a transfer to aeronautics while aboard Colorado in his last year as a midshipman, after graduating he continued to make requests for transfer to aviation while serving on the destroyers USS Whipple and USS Stewart. Mitscher was in charge of the room on USS Stewart when orders to transfer to the Naval Aeronautic Station in Pensacola. Mitscher was assigned to the armored cruiser USS North Carolina, which was being used to experiment as a platform for aircraft. The ship had been fitted with a catapult over her fantail, Mitscher trained as a pilot, earning his wings and the designation Naval Aviator. Mitscher was one of the first naval aviators, receiving No.33 on June 2,1916, almost a year later, on April 6,1917, he reported to the renamed armored cruiser USS West Virginia for duty in connection with aircraft catapult experiments. At this early date the Navy was interested in using aircraft for scouting purposes, lieutenant Mitscher was placed in command of NAS Dinner Key in Coconut Grove, Florida. Dinner Key was the second largest naval air facility in the U. S. and was used to train seaplane pilots, on July 18,1918, he was promoted to lieutenant commander. In February 1919, he transferred from NAS Dinner Key to the Aviation Section in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, on May 10,1919, Mitscher was among a group of naval aviators attempting the first transatlantic crossing by air
7.
John S. McCain Sr.
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John Sidney McCain, Sr. nicknamed Slew, was a U. S. Navy admiral. He held several assignments during the Pacific campaign of World War II. McCain was a pioneer of aircraft carrier operations and he died four days after the formal Japanese surrender ceremony. He was the father of Admiral John S. McCain Jr. they became the first father-son pair ever to four star admiral rank in the U. S. Navy. He was the grandfather of U. S, Senator from Arizona and 2008 Republican presidential nominee Navy Captain John S. McCain III and the great-grandfather of John S. McCain IV. All four generations graduated from the United States Naval Academy, McCain was born in Carroll County, Mississippi, the son of planter John Sidney McCain and wife Elizabeth-Ann Young, who married in 1877. His grandparents were William Alexander McCain and Mary Louisa McAllister, who were married in 1840. To practice for its entrance exams, he decided to take the ones for the United States Naval Academy, in doing so, he would leave behind his Mississippi plantation and adopt the Navys itinerant life. At the Naval Academy, his performance was lackluster and he failed his annual physical on account of defective hearing, but the condition was waived due to the great need for officers. When he graduated in 1906, he ranked 79 out of 116 in his class, and he married Catherine Davey Vaulx, who was eight years his senior, on August 9,1909, at Colorado Springs, Colorado. Soon after earning his commission, McCain sailed aboard the Great White Fleets world cruise from 1907 to 1909 and his next assignment was to the Asiatic Squadron, after which the Navy ordered him to the naval base at San Diego, California. During 1914 and 1915 he was officer and engineering officer aboard the armored cruiser USS Colorado. In September 1915, he joined the armored cruiser USS San Diego, with U. S. entry into World War I, McCain and San Diego served on convoy duty in the Atlantic, escorting shipping through the first dangerous leg of their passages to Europe. Based out of Tompkinsville, New York, and Halifax, the San Diego operated in the weather-torn, McCain left the San Diego in May 1918, two months before she was sunk, when he was assigned to the Bureau of Navigation. In the 1920s and early 1930s, McCain served aboard the USS Maryland, the USS New Mexico, and his first command was the USS Sirius. In 1935, McCain enrolled in flight training, graduating at 52 in 1936, he became one of the oldest men to become a naval aviator and from 1937 to 1939 he commanded the aircraft carrier the USS Ranger. In January 1941, after promotion to admiral, he commanded the Aircraft Scouting Force of the Atlantic Fleet. Physically short in stature and of rather thin frame, McCain was known for being gruff and very profane, he liked to drink and he also showed courage and was regarded as a natural, inspirational leader of men
8.
Aircraft carrier
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An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the ship of a fleet, as it allows a naval force to project air power worldwide without depending on local bases for staging aircraft operations. Aircraft carriers are expensive to build and are critical assets, there is no single definition of an aircraft carrier, and modern navies use several variants of the type. These variants are sometimes categorized as sub-types of aircraft carriers, Aircraft carriers may be classified according to the type of aircraft they carry and their operational assignments. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, former head of the Royal Navy, has said, To put it simply, as of April 2017, there are 37 active aircraft carriers in the world within twelve navies. The United States Navy has 10 large nuclear-powered fleet carriers, the largest carriers in the world, the Royal Navy of Great Britain is building two 280-m / 920-ft carriers, the Queen Elizabeth, and the Prince of Wales scheduled to go into service in 2020-2023. These are the largest carriers capable of fast speeds, by comparison, escort carriers were developed to provide defense for convoys of ships. They were smaller and slower with lower numbers of aircraft carried, most were built from mercantile hulls or, in the case of merchant aircraft carriers, were bulk cargo ships with a flight deck added on top. Light aircraft carriers were fast enough to operate with the main fleet, three nations currently operate carriers of this type, ten by the United States, and one each by France and Brazil for a total of twelve in service. Short take-off but arrested-recovery, these carriers are generally limited to carrying lighter fixed-wing aircraft with more limited payloads, currently, Russia, China, and India possess commissioned carriers of this type. Short take-off vertical-landing, limited to carrying STOVL aircraft and this type of aircraft carrier is currently in service with Italy. Some also count the nine US amphibious assault ships in their secondary light carrier role boosting the total to thirteen. Helicopter carrier, Helicopter carriers have an appearance to other aircraft carriers. Some are designed for addition of, or may include, a ski jump ramp allowing for STOVL operations or may have a ski jump installed before retirement of STOVL aircraft. In the past, some conventional carriers were converted and called commando carriers by the Royal Navy, some helicopter carriers with a resistant flight surface can operate STOVL jets. Currently the majority of carriers, but not all, are classified as amphibious assault ships. The US has nine of this type, France and Japan three, Australia two, the UK one, the Republic of Korea one and Spain one, the US and Spains amphibious assault ships operate STOVL jets in normal deployment. Supercarrier Fleet carrier Light aircraft carrier Escort carrier Several systems of identification symbol for aircraft carriers, two months later, on 18 January 1911, Ely landed his Curtiss pusher airplane on a platform on the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay
9.
Destroyer
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Before World War II, destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for unattended ocean operations, typically a number of destroyers and a single destroyer tender operated together. After the war, the advent of the missile allowed destroyers to take on the surface combatant roles previously filled by battleships. This resulted in larger and more powerful guided missile destroyers more capable of independent operation, the emergence and development of the destroyer was related to the invention of the self-propelled torpedo in the 1860s. A navy now had the potential to destroy an enemy battle fleet using steam launches to launch torpedoes. Fast boats armed with torpedoes were built and called torpedo boats, the first seagoing vessel designed to fire the self-propelled Whitehead torpedo was the 33-ton HMS Lightning in 1876. She was armed with two drop collars to launch these weapons, these were replaced in 1879 by a torpedo tube in the bow. By the 1880s, the type had evolved into small ships of 50–100 tons, in response to this new threat, more heavily gunned picket boats called catchers were built which were used to escort the battle fleet at sea. The anti-torpedo boat origin of this type of ship is retained in its name in other languages, including French, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Greek, Dutch and, up until the Second World War, Polish. At that time, and even into World War I, the function of destroyers was to protect their own battle fleet from enemy torpedo attacks. The task of escorting merchant convoys was still in the future, an important development came with the construction of HMS Swift in 1884, later redesignated TB81. This was a torpedo boat with four 47 mm quick-firing guns. At 23.75 knots, while still not fast enough to engage torpedo boats reliably. Another forerunner of the torpedo boat destroyer was the Japanese torpedo boat Kotaka, designed to Japanese specifications and ordered from the London Yarrow shipyards in 1885, she was transported in parts to Japan, where she was assembled and launched in 1887. The 165-foot long vessel was armed with four 1-pounder quick-firing guns and six torpedo tubes, reached 19 knots, in her trials in 1889, Kotaka demonstrated that she could exceed the role of coastal defense, and was capable of accompanying larger warships on the high seas. The Yarrow shipyards, builder of the parts for the Kotaka, the first vessel designed for the explicit purpose of hunting and destroying torpedo boats was the torpedo gunboat. Essentially very small cruisers, torpedo gunboats were equipped with torpedo tubes, by the end of the 1890s torpedo gunboats were made obsolete by their more successful contemporaries, the torpedo boat destroyers, which were much faster. The first example of this was HMS Rattlesnake, designed by Nathaniel Barnaby in 1885, the gunboat was armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats. Exactly 200 feet long and 23 feet in beam, she displaced 550 tons, built of steel, Rattlesnake was un-armoured with the exception of a 3⁄4-inch protective deck
10.
Cruiser
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A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundred years, and has had different meanings throughout this period. In the middle of the 19th century, cruiser came to be a classification for the intended for cruising distant waters, commerce raiding. Cruisers came in a variety of sizes, from the medium-sized protected cruiser to large armored cruisers that were nearly as big as a pre-dreadnought battleship. With the advent of the battleship before World War I. The very large battlecruisers of the World War I era that succeeded armored cruisers were now classified, along with dreadnought battleships, in the later 20th century, the obsolescence of the battleship left the cruiser as the largest and most powerful surface combatant after the aircraft carrier. The role of the cruiser varied according to ship and navy, often including air defense, during the Cold War, the Soviet Navys cruisers had heavy anti-ship missile armament designed to sink NATO carrier task forces via saturation attack. The U. S. Adams guided-missile destroyers tasked with the air defense role. Indeed, the newest U. S. Navy destroyers are more heavily-armed than some of the cruisers that they succeeded, currently only three nations operate cruisers, the United States, Russia, and Peru. The term cruiser or cruizer was first commonly used in the 17th century to refer to an independent warship, Cruiser meant the purpose or mission of a ship, rather than a category of vessel. However, the term was used to mean a smaller, faster warship suitable for such a role. The Dutch navy was noted for its cruisers in the 17th century, while the Royal Navy—and later French and Spanish navies—subsequently caught up in terms of their numbers, during the 18th century the frigate became the preeminent type of cruiser. A frigate was a small, fast, long range, lightly armed ship used for scouting, carrying dispatches, the other principal type of cruiser was the sloop, but many other miscellaneous types of ship were used as well. During the 19th century, navies began to use steam power for their fleets, the 1840s saw the construction of experimental steam-powered frigates and sloops. By the middle of the 1850s, the British and U. S. Navies were both building steam frigates with very long hulls and a gun armament, for instance USS Merrimack or Mersey. The 1860s saw the introduction of the ironclad, the first ironclads were frigates, in the sense of having one gun deck, however, they were also clearly the most powerful ships in the navy, and were principally to serve in the line of battle. In spite of their speed, they would have been wasted in a cruising role. The French constructed a number of smaller ironclads for overseas cruising duties, starting with the Belliqueuse and these station ironclads were the beginning of the development of the armored cruisers, a type of ironclad specifically for the traditional cruiser missions of fast, independent raiding and patrol
11.
Fast battleship
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A fast battleship was a battleship which emphasised speed without – in concept – undue compromise of either armor or armament. Most of the early World War I-era dreadnought battleships were built with low design speeds. The extra speed of a fast battleship was normally required to allow the vessel to carry out additional roles besides taking part in the line of battle, such as escorting aircraft carriers. A fast battleship was distinguished from a battlecruiser in that it would have expected to be able to engage hostile battleships in sustained combat on at least equal terms. The requirement to deliver increased speed without compromising fighting ability or protection was the challenge of fast battleship design. Technological advancements such as improvements and light, high-strength armor plating were required in order to make fast battleships feasible. Unlike battlecruiser, which became official Royal Navy usage in 1911, the warships of the Queen Elizabeth class were collectively termed the Fast Division when operating with the Grand Fleet. Otherwise, fast battleships were not distinguished from conventional battleships in official documentation, there is no separate code for fast battleships in the US Navys hull classification system, all battleships, fast or slow, being rated as BB. The Warrior herself, at over 14 knots under steam, was the fastest warship of her day as well as the most powerful, due to the increasing weight of guns and armour, this speed was not exceeded until Monarch achieved 15 knots under steam. In these late pre-dreadnought designs, the speed may have been intended to compensate for their lesser staying power. From about 1900, interest in the possibility of an increase in the speed of Royal Navy battleships was provoked by Sir John Fisher. War games conducted by the General Board of the US Navy in 1903 and 1904 came to similar conclusions. Fisher appears to have been unimpressed by these demonstrations, and continued to press for radical increases in the speed of battleships. His ideas ultimately came to at least partial fruition in the Dreadnought of 1906, like Warrior before her, Dreadnought was the first major warship powered by turbines. She also included a number of features indicating an increased emphasis on speed, An improved hull form was developed. The thickness of the belt was reduced to 11 inches. The belt terminated at the deck, the usual upper belt being deleted The forecastle was raised. In the decade following the construction of the Dreadnought, the Royal Navys lead in capital ship speed was eroded, as a result, a number of potentially significant fast battleship designs failed to achieve fruition
12.
William Halsey Jr.
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William Frederick Halsey Jr. GBE, known as Bill Halsey or Bull Halsey, was an American fleet admiral in the United States Navy. At the start of the War in the Pacific Halsey commanded the task force centered on the carrier Enterprise in a series of raids against Japanese-held targets. He was made commander, South Pacific Area and led the Allied forces over the course of the Battle for Guadalcanal, in 1943 he was made commander of the Third Fleet, the post he held through the rest of the war. Halsey was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on October 30,1882 and his father was a descendant of Senator Rufus King, who was an American lawyer, politician, diplomat, and Federalist. After waiting two years to receive an appointment to the United States Naval Academy, Halsey decided to study medicine at the University of Virginia and he chose Virginia because his best friend, Karl Osterhause, was there. While there, Halsey joined the Delta Psi fraternity and was also a member of the secretive Seven Society, after his first year, Halsey received his appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, and entered the Academy in the fall of 1900. Halsey graduated from the Naval Academy on February 2,1904, after lettering in football as a fullback and earning several athletic honors. He spent his service years in battleships and sailed with the main battle fleet aboard the battleship USS Kansas as Roosevelts Great White Fleet circumnavigated the globe from 1907 to 1909. Halsey was on the bridge of the battleship USS Missouri on Wednesday, April 13,1904, No explosion occurred, but the rapid burning of the powder burnt and suffocated to death 31 officers and men. This resulted in Halsey dreading the 13th of every month, especially when it fell on a Friday, after his service on the Missouri, Halsey served aboard torpedo boats, beginning with USS Du Pont in 1909. Halsey was one of the few officers who was promoted directly from Ensign to full lieutenant, at that time, the destroyer and the torpedo boat, though extremely hazardous, were the most effective way to bring the torpedo into combat against capital ships. Lieutenant Commander Halseys World War I service, including command of USS Shaw in 1918, in October 1922, he was the naval attaché at the American Embassy in Berlin, Germany. One year later, he was given additional duty as naval attaché at the American Embassies in Christiana, Norway, Copenhagen, Denmark and he then returned to sea duty, again in destroyers in European waters, in command of USS Dale and USS Osborne. In 1934 the chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, Navy Admiral Ernest King, offered Halsey command of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, Captain Halsey elected to enroll as a cadet for the full 12-week Naval Aviator course rather than the simpler Naval Aviation Observer program. I thought it better to be able to fly the aircraft itself than to just sit back and be at the mercy of the pilot. Halsey earned his Naval Aviators Wings on May 15,1935, at the age of 52 and he went on to command the Saratoga, and later the Naval Air Station Pensacola at Pensacola, Florida. Halsey considered airpower an important part of the navy, commenting, The naval officer in the next war had better know his aviation. Captain Halsey was promoted to admiral in 1938
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United States
United States Navy
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