United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U. S. allies or partner nations. With the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches, it has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force. The U. S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, established during the American Revolutionary War and was disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter.
The U. S. Navy played a major role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy and seizing control of its rivers, it played the central role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The US Navy emerged from World War II as the most powerful navy in the world; the 21st century U. S. Navy maintains a sizable global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, it is a blue-water navy with the ability to project force onto the littoral regions of the world, engage in forward deployments during peacetime and respond to regional crises, making it a frequent actor in U. S. foreign and military policy. The Navy is administratively managed by the Department of the Navy, headed by the civilian Secretary of the Navy; the Department of the Navy is itself a division of the Department of Defense, headed by the Secretary of Defense. The Chief of Naval Operations is the most senior naval officer serving in the Department of the Navy.
The mission of the Navy is to maintain and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas. The U. S. Navy is a seaborne branch of the military of the United States; the Navy's three primary areas of responsibility: The preparation of naval forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war. The maintenance of naval aviation, including land-based naval aviation, air transport essential for naval operations, all air weapons and air techniques involved in the operations and activities of the Navy; the development of aircraft, tactics, technique and equipment of naval combat and service elements. U. S. Navy training manuals state that the mission of the U. S. Armed Forces is "to be prepared to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations in support of the national interest." As part of that establishment, the U. S. Navy's functions comprise sea control, power projection and nuclear deterrence, in addition to "sealift" duties, it follows as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, with it, everything honorable and glorious.
Naval power... is the natural defense of the United States The Navy was rooted in the colonial seafaring tradition, which produced a large community of sailors and shipbuilders. In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had its own Massachusetts Naval Militia; the rationale for establishing a national navy was debated in the Second Continental Congress. Supporters argued that a navy would protect shipping, defend the coast, make it easier to seek out support from foreign countries. Detractors countered that challenging the British Royal Navy the world's preeminent naval power, was a foolish undertaking. Commander in Chief George Washington resolved the debate when he commissioned the ocean-going schooner USS Hannah to interdict British merchant ships and reported the captures to the Congress. On 13 October 1775, the Continental Congress authorized the purchase of two vessels to be armed for a cruise against British merchant ships. S. Navy; the Continental Navy achieved mixed results.
In August 1785, after the Revolutionary War had drawn to a close, Congress had sold Alliance, the last ship remaining in the Continental Navy due to a lack of funds to maintain the ship or support a navy. In 1972, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, authorized the Navy to celebrate its birthday on 13 October to honor the establishment of the Continental Navy in 1775; the United States was without a navy for nearly a decade, a state of affairs that exposed U. S. maritime merchant ships to a series of attacks by the Barbary pirates. The sole armed maritime presence between 1790 and the launching of the U. S. Navy's first warships in 1797 was the U. S. Revenue-Marine, the primary predecessor of the U. S. Coast Guard. Although the USRCS conducted operations against the pirates, their depredations far outstripped its abilities and Congress passed the Naval Act of 1794 that established a permanent standing navy on 27 March 1794; the Naval Act ordered the construction and manning of six frigates and, by October 1797, the first three were brought into service: USS United States, USS Constellation, USS Constitution.
Due to his strong posture on having a strong standing Navy during this period, John Adams is "often called the father of the American Navy". In 1798–99 the Navy was involved in an undeclared Quasi-War with France. From 18
Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps landed on and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The American invasion, designated Operation Detachment, had the goal of capturing the entire island, including the three Japanese-controlled airfields, to provide a staging area for attacks on the Japanese main islands; this five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the Pacific War 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 and useless to the U. S. Navy as a fleet base. However, Navy Seabees rebuilt the landing strips, which were used as emergency landing strips for USAAF B-29s; the IJA positions on the island were fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, 18 km of underground tunnels. The American ground forces were supported by extensive naval artillery, had complete air supremacy provided by U.
S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators throughout the entire battle. 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, some of whom were captured because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise disabled; the majority of the remainder were killed in action, although it has been estimated that as many as 3,000 continued to resist within the various cave systems for many days afterwards succumbing to their injuries or surrendering weeks later. Despite the bloody fighting and severe casualties on both sides, the American victory was assured from the start. Overwhelming American superiority in numbers and arms as well as complete air supremacy—coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement, along with sparse food and supplies—permitted no plausible circumstance in which the Americans could have lost the battle.
Joe Rosenthal's 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 American war effort in the Pacific. After the American capture of the Marshall Islands, the devastating air attacks against the Japanese fortress island of Truk Atoll in the Carolines in January 1944, the Japanese military leaders reevaluated their situation. All indications pointed to an American drive toward the Carolines. To counter such an offensive, the IJA and the Imperial Japanese Navy established an inner line of defenses extending northward from the Carolines to the Marianas, thence to Japan via the Volcano Islands, westward from the Marianas via the Carolines and the Palau Islands to the Philippines. 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 and Navy units in the Volcano Islands.
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; this allowed Japanese air defenses to prepare for the arrival of American bombers. After the U. S. seized bases in the Marshall Islands in the battles of Kwajalein and Eniwetok in February 1944, Japanese Army and Navy reinforcements were sent to Iwo Jima: 500 men from the naval base at Yokosuka and 500 from Chichi Jima reached Iwo Jima during March and April 1944. At the same time, with reinforcements arriving from Chichi Jima and the home islands, the Army garrison on Iwo Jima reached a strength of more than 5,000 men; the loss of the Marianas during the summer of 1944 increased the importance of the Volcano Islands for the Japanese, who were aware that the loss of these islands would facilitate American air raids against the Home Islands, disrupting war manufacturing and damaging civilian morale.
Final Japanese plans for the defense of the Volcano Islands were overshadowed by several factors: The Imperial Japanese Navy had lost all of its power, it could not prevent American landings. Aircraft losses throughout 1944 had been so heavy that if war production were not affected by American air attacks, combined Japanese air strength was not expected to increase to 3,000 warplanes until March or April 1945; these aircraft could not be used from bases in the Home Islands against Iwo Jima because their range was not more than 900 km. Available warplanes had to be hoarded to defend Taiwan and the Japanese Home Islands from any attack. There was a serious shortage of properly trained and experienced pilots and other aircrew to man the warplanes Japan had—because such large numbers of pilots and crewmen had perished fighting over the Solomon Islands and during the Battle of the Philippine Sea in mid-1944. In a postwar study, Japanese staff officers described the strategy, used in the defense of Iwo Jima in the following terms: In the light of the above situation, seeing that it was impossible to conduct our air and gro
John Basilone
John Basilone was a United States Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant, killed in action during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for heroism above and beyond the call of duty during the Battle for Henderson Field in the Guadalcanal Campaign, the Navy Cross posthumously for extraordinary heroism during the Battle of Iwo Jima, he was the only enlisted Marine to receive both of these decorations in World War II. He enlisted in the Marine Corps on June 3, 1940, after serving three years in the United States Army with duty in the Philippines, he was deployed to Guantánamo Bay, in August 1942, he took part in the invasion of Guadalcanal. In October, he and two other Marines used machine guns to hold off an attack by a far numerically superior Japanese force. In February 1945, he was killed in action on the first day of the invasion of Iwo Jima, after he single-handedly destroyed an enemy blockhouse and led a Marine tank under fire safely through a minefield, he has received many honors including being the namesake for streets, military locations, two United States Navy destroyers.
Basilone was born in his parents' home on November 4, 1916, in New York. He was the sixth of ten children, his five older siblings were born in Raritan, New Jersey, before the family moved to Buffalo when John was born. His father, Salvatore Basilone, emigrated from Colle Sannita, in the region of Benevento, Italy in 1903 and settled in Raritan. Basilone's mother, Theadora Bencivenga, was born in 1889 and grew up in Manville, New Jersey, but her parents and Catrina came from Benevento. Basilone's parents married three years later. Basilone grew up in the nearby Raritan Town. After completing middle school at the age of 15, he dropped out prior to attending high school. Basilone worked as a golf caddy for the local country club before joining the military. Basilone enlisted in the United States Army in July 1934 and completed his three-year enlistment with service in the Philippines, where he was a champion boxer. In the Army, Basilone was assigned to the 16th Infantry at Fort Jay, before being discharged for a day and being assigned to the 31st Infantry.
After he was released from active duty, Basilone returned home and worked as a truck driver in Reisterstown, Maryland. After driving trucks for a few years, he wanted to go back to Manila and believed he could get there faster by serving in the Marines than in the Army, he enlisted in the Marine Corps from Baltimore, Maryland. He went to recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, followed by training at Marine Corps Base Quantico and New River; the Marines sent him to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba for his next assignment, to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands as a member of "D" Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. In October 1942, during the Battle for Henderson Field, his unit came under attack by a regiment of about 3,000 soldiers from the Japanese Sendai Division. On October 24, Japanese forces began a frontal attack using machine guns and mortars against the American heavy machine guns. Basilone commanded two sections of machine guns which fought for the next two days until only Basilone and two other Marines were left standing.
Basilone moved an extra gun into position and maintained continual fire against the incoming Japanese forces. He repaired and manned another machine gun, holding the defensive line until replacements arrived; as the battle went on, ammunition became critically low. Despite their supply lines' having been cut off by enemies in the rear, Basilone fought through hostile ground to resupply his heavy machine gunners with urgently needed ammunition; when the last of it ran out shortly before dawn on the second day, using his pistol and a machete, held off the Japanese soldiers attacking his position. By the end of the engagement, Japanese forces opposite their section of the line had been annihilated. For his actions during the battle, Basilone received the United States military's highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor. Afterwards, Private First Class Nash W. Phillips, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, recalled from the battle for Guadalcanal: Basilone had a machine gun on the go for three days and nights without sleep, rest, or food.
He was in a good emplacement, causing the Japanese lots of trouble, not only firing his machine gun, but using his pistol. In 1943, Basilone participated in war bond tours, his arrival was publicized, his hometown held a parade in his honor when he returned. The homecoming parade occurred on Sunday, September 19 and drew a huge crowd with thousands of people, including politicians and the national press; the parade made national news in Fox Movietone News. After the parade, Basilone toured the country raising money for the war effort and achieved celebrity status. Although he appreciated the admiration, he felt out of place and requested to return to the operating forces fighting the war; the Marine Corps told him he was needed more on the home front. He was offered a commission, which he turned down, was offered an assignment as an instructor, but refused this as well; when he requested again to return to the war, the request was approved. He left for Camp Pendleton, for training on December 27.
On July 3, 1944, he reenlisted in the Marine Corps. While stationed at Camp Pendleton, Basilone met his future wife, Lena Mae Riggi, a Sergeant in the Marine Corps Women's Reserve, they were married at St. Mary's Star of the Sea Church in Oceanside, Cal
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chūichi Nagumo, Nobutake Kondō near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that proved irreparable. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare"; the Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped another demoralizing defeat would force the U. S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific.
Luring the American aircraft carriers into a trap and occupying Midway was part of an overall "barrier" strategy to extend Japan's defensive perimeter, in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. This operation was considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji and Hawaii itself; the plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions. Most American cryptographers were able to determine the date and location of the planned attack, enabling the forewarned U. S. Navy to prepare its own ambush. Four Japanese and three American aircraft carriers participated in the battle; the four Japanese fleet carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū, part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier—were all sunk, as was the heavy cruiser Mikuma. The U. S. lost a destroyer. After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's capacity to replace its losses in materiel and men became insufficient to cope with mounting casualties, while the United States' massive industrial and training capabilities made losses far easier to replace.
The Battle of Midway, along with the Guadalcanal Campaign, is considered a turning point in the Pacific War. After expanding the war in the Pacific to include Western outposts, the Japanese Empire had attained its initial strategic goals taking the Philippines, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies; because of this, preliminary planning for a second phase of operations commenced as early as January 1942. There were strategic disagreements between the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy, infighting between the Navy's GHQ and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's Combined Fleet, a follow-up strategy was not formed until April 1942. Admiral Yamamoto succeeded in winning the bureaucratic struggle with a thinly veiled threat to resign, after which his plan for the Central Pacific was adopted. Yamamoto's primary strategic goal was the elimination of America's carrier forces, which he regarded as the principal threat to the overall Pacific campaign; this concern was acutely heightened by the Doolittle Raid on 18 April 1942, in which 16 U.
S. Army Air Forces B-25 Mitchell bombers launched from USS Hornet bombed targets in Tokyo and several other Japanese cities; the raid, while militarily insignificant, was a shock to the Japanese and showed the existence of a gap in the defenses around the Japanese home islands as well as the accessibility of Japanese territory to American bombers. This, other successful hit-and-run raids by American carriers in the South Pacific, showed that they were still a threat, although reluctant to be drawn into an all-out battle. Yamamoto reasoned that another air attack on the main U. S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor would induce all of the American fleet to sail out to fight, including the carriers. However, considering the increased strength of American land-based air power on the Hawaiian Islands since the 7 December attack the previous year, he judged that it was now too risky to attack Pearl Harbor directly. Instead, Yamamoto selected Midway, a tiny atoll at the extreme northwest end of the Hawaiian Island chain 1,300 miles from Oahu.
This meant that Midway was outside the effective range of all of the American aircraft stationed on the main Hawaiian islands. Midway was not important in the larger scheme of Japan's intentions, but the Japanese felt the Americans would consider Midway a vital outpost of Pearl Harbor and would therefore be compelled to defend it vigorously; the U. S. did consider Midway vital: after the battle, establishment of a U. S. submarine base on Midway allowed submarines operating from Pearl Harbor to refuel and re-provision, extending their radius of operations by 1,200 miles. In addition to serving as a seaplane base, Midway's airstrips served as a forward staging point for bomber attacks on Wake Island. Typical of Japanese naval planning during World War II, Yamamoto's battle plan for taking Midway was exceedingly complex, it required the careful and timely coordination of multiple battle groups over hundreds of miles of open sea. His design was predicated on optimistic intelligence suggesting that USS Enterprise and USS Hornet, forming Task Force 16, were the only carriers available to the U.
S. Pacific Fleet. During the Battle of the Coral Sea one month earlier, USS Lexington had been sunk and USS Yorktown suffered considerable damage such that the Japanese believed she too had
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' formal entry into World War II the next day; the Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, as Operation Z during its planning. Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the United States Pacific Fleet from interfering with its planned military actions in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States. Over the course of seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U. S.-held Philippines and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya and Hong Kong. Additionally, from the Japanese viewpoint, it was seen as a preemptive strike; the attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time; the base was attacked by 353 Imperial Japanese aircraft in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers.
All eight U. S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but USS Arizona were raised, six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war; the Japanese sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, one minelayer. 188 U. S. aircraft were destroyed. Important base installations such as the power station, dry dock, shipyard and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building, were not attacked. Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured. Japan declared war on the United States on December 8. According to historians David M. Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen: The sneak attack aroused and united America as nothing else could have done. To the day of the blowup, a strong majority of Americans still wanted to keep out of war, but the bombs that pulverized Pearl Harbor blasted the isolationists into silence. The only thing left to do, growled isolationist Senator Wheeler, was to'lick hell out of them.'
The following day, December 8, Congress declared war on Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy each declared war on the U. S; the U. S. responded with a declaration of war against Italy. There were numerous historical precedents for the unannounced military action by Japan, but the lack of any formal warning while peace negotiations were still ongoing, led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy"; because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, the attack on Pearl Harbor was judged in the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime. War between Japan and the United States had been a possibility that each nation had been aware of, planned for, since the 1920s; the relationship between the two countries was cordial enough. Tensions did not grow until Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931. Over the next decade, Japan expanded into China, leading to the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Japan spent considerable effort trying to isolate China, endeavored to secure enough independent resources to attain victory on the mainland.
The "Southern Operation" was designed to assist these efforts. Starting in December 1937, events such as the Japanese attack on USS Panay, the Allison incident, the Nanking Massacre swung Western public opinion against Japan. Fearing Japanese expansion, the United States, United Kingdom, France assisted China with its loans for war supply contracts. In 1940, Japan invaded French Indochina, attempting to stymie the flow of supplies reaching China; the United States halted shipments of airplanes, machine tools, aviation gasoline to Japan, which the latter perceived as an unfriendly act. The United States did not stop oil exports, however because of the prevailing sentiment in Washington: given Japanese dependence on American oil, such an action was to be considered an extreme provocation. In mid-1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Hawaii, he ordered a military buildup in the Philippines, taking both actions in the hope of discouraging Japanese aggression in the Far East.
Because the Japanese high command was certain any attack on the United Kingdom's Southeast Asian colonies, including Singapore, would bring the U. S. into the war, a devastating preventive strike appeared to be the only way to prevent American naval interference. An invasion of the Philippines was considered necessary by Japanese war planners; the U. S. War Plan Orange had envisioned defending the Philippines with an elite force of 40,000 men. By 1941, U. S. planners expected to abandon the Philippines at the outbreak of war. Late that year, Admiral Thomas C. Hart, commander of the Asiatic Fleet, was given orders to that effect; the U. S. ceased oil exports to Japan in July 1941, following the seizure of French Indochina after the Fall of France, in part because of new American restrictions on domestic oil consumption. Because of this decision, Japan proceeded with plans to take the oil-rich Dutch East Indies. On August 17, Roosevelt warned Japan that America was prepared to take opposing steps if "neighboring countries" were attacked.
The Japanese wer
Douglas Albert Munro
Douglas Albert Munro was an American Coast Guardsman, posthumously decorated with the Medal of Honor for an act of "extraordinary heroism" during World War II. As of 2019, he is the only person to have received the medal for actions performed during service in the United States Coast Guard. Born in Canada to an expatriate American father and a British émigré mother, Munro's family repatriated to the United States when he was a child, he was raised in South Cle Elum and attended Central Washington College of Education before leaving to volunteer for military service shortly before U. S. entrance into World War II. Along with his shipmate Raymond Evans he was known as one of the "Gold Dust Twins", so-called due to the duo's inseparability. During the Second Battle of the Matanikau in September 1942, Munro was tasked with leading the extrication of a force of United States Marines, overrun, he died of a gunshot wound in 1942 at the age of 22 while using the boat he was piloting to shield a landing craft filled with Marines from Japanese fire.
Numerous ships and buildings have been named after Munro, several memorials and monuments dedicated to him. The anniversary of his death is annually observed in Cle Elum, Washington and at the Coast Guard Training Center Cape May, his grave has been designated a historical site by Washington State, he is the namesake of the "Douglas Munro March", the Navy League's Douglas A. Munro Award, the Coast Guard Foundation's Douglas Munro Scholarship Fund, the Veterans of Foreign Wars' Douglas Munro-Robert H. Brooks Post, he is the only non-Marine to have his name enshrined on the Wall of Heroes of the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Douglas Munro was born in 1919 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to James Munro and Edith Thrower Munro, he was baptized at the Holy Nativity Episcopal Church in South Cle Elum. Munro and Fairey had been married in 1914 at Vancouver's Christ Church Cathedral. S. naturalization laws at the time, Fairey automatically assumed American citizenship upon her marriage to James Munro, himself an expatriate American.
James Munro, born in California as James Wilkins, had lived in Canada since age 8, his parents having divorced and his mother remarrying a Canadian citizen whose surname he took. After his own marriage to Fairey, James Munro repatriated his family from Canada to the United States in 1922 settling in South Cle Elum, Washington where he was employed as an electrician. During World War II he served as a captain in the Washington State Guard, a home guard raised by Washington due to its "insecurities over its exposed location" and a concern by Governor of Washington Clarence D. Martin that the state would be unable to defend itself from invasion while the Washington National Guard was mustered into federal service. Douglas Munro's mother, Edith Thrower, was born in Liverpool, England and—in childhood—relocated with her family to Canada, her father, William Joseph Thrower Fairey, served in the British Army's 15th Lancashire Rifles. Her brother, Francis Fairey, was a military chaplain in World War I and was commanding officer of the Irish Fusiliers of Canada.
From 1953 to 1957 Francis Fairey sat in the House of Commons of Canada representing Victoria, British Columbia as a member of the Liberal Party. He would serve as deputy minister of education in the British Columbia provincial government. Following the death of her son 48 year-old Edith Munro joined the Coast Guard Women's Reserve, she was trained at the U. S. Coast Guard Academy and commissioned lieutenant junior grade on May 27, 1943 commanding the Coast Guard women's barracks in Seattle, her commissioning oath was administered by Rear Admiral Lloyd Chalker, Vice Commandant of the United States Coast Guard. In youth, Munro showed a high level of musical aptitude, mastering percussion and harmonica. Munro performed in a drum and bugle corps sponsored by the American Legion, the Sons of the American Legion Drum and Bugle Corps becoming the corps' drill master. Munro was a member of Cle Elum's Boy Scout Troop 84, he attended Cle Elum High School. Following his 1937 high school graduation, Munro enrolled in the Central Washington College of Education due to its proximity to Cle Elum, so that he could continue performing in the Sons of the American Legion.
At Central Washington College of Education, Munro was a yell king. In 1939, with the threat of war growing, Munro decided to withdraw from university and enlist in the military. Munro told his sister he had chosen the Coast Guard since its primary mission was saving lives. Due to his slight frame, Munro spent the week before his induction eating large amounts of food in order meet the Coast Guard's minimum weight standard, he spent most of his last night in Cle Elum with his friend Marion "Mike" Cooley with whom, according to Williams, Munro had been "almost inseparable" since childhood. Munro underwent entrance processing in Seattle during which he met and became friends with Ray Evans. Munro would spend the rest of his Coast Guard career with Evans and the pair became known to shipmates by the moniker "the Gold Dust Twins". Munro and Evans received recruit training at Coast Guard Air Station Port Angeles, they were both subsequently assigned to the Treasury-class cutter USCGC Spencer, serving aboard the vessel until 1941.
During the course of his military service, Munro received high marks on his performance evaluations and – according to Evans – expressed a desire to become a career coast guardsman. In mid-1941, prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the government began emergency mobilization and the United States Department of the Treasury surrendered authority for the Coast Gu
High Commissioner for the Western Pacific
The High Commissioner for the Western Pacific was the chief executive officer of the British Western Pacific Territories, a British colonial entity, which existed from 1877 through 1976. Numerous colonial possessions were attached to the Territories at different times, the most durable constituent colonies being Fiji and the Solomon Islands; the office of High Commissioner never existed independently, but was always filled ex officio by the Governor of one of the constitutive British islands colonies. The High Commissioners were concurrently Governor of Fiji from 1877 to the end of 1952, although the office was suspended from 1942 through 1945, with most of the islands under British military rule and others, namely the Solomon Islands, Gilbert Islands and Phoenix Islands, under Japanese occupation. From 1 January 1953 to 1976, when the office was abolished, the Governor of the Solomon Islands doubled as High Commissioner, they administered from Honiara, respectively. WorldStatesmen Deryck Scarr, Fragments of Empire.
A History of the Western Pacific High Commission. 1877-1914, Canberra: Australian National University Press & London: C. Hurst & Co. 1967
