John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician and journalist who served as the 35th president of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. He served at the height of the Cold War, the majority of his presidency dealt with managing relations with the Soviet Union. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the U. S. House of Representatives and Senate prior to becoming president. Kennedy was born in Brookline, the second child of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy. He graduated from Harvard University in 1940 and joined the U. S. Naval Reserve the following year. During World War II, he commanded a series of PT boats in the Pacific theater and earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his service. After the war, Kennedy represented the 11th congressional district of Massachusetts in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953, he was subsequently elected to the U. S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 to 1960.
While in the Senate, he published his book Profiles in Courage, which won a Pulitzer Prize for Biography. In the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy narrowly defeated Republican opponent Richard Nixon, the incumbent vice president. At age 43, he became the second-youngest man to serve as president, the youngest man to be elected as U. S. president, as well as the only Roman Catholic to occupy that office. He was the first president to have served in the U. S. Navy. Kennedy's time in office was marked by high tensions with communist states in the Cold War, he increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam by a factor of 18 over President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In April 1961, he authorized a failed joint-CIA attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, he subsequently rejected Operation Northwoods plans by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to orchestrate false flag attacks on American soil in order to gain public approval for a war against Cuba.
However his administration continued to plan for an invasion of Cuba in the summer of 1962. In October 1962, U. S. spy planes discovered. Domestically, Kennedy presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps and supported the civil rights movement, but was only somewhat successful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Texas. Pursuant to the Constitution, Vice President Lyndon Johnson automatically became president upon Kennedy's death. Marxist Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the state crime, but he was killed by Jack Ruby two days and so was never prosecuted. Ruby was sentenced to death and died while the conviction was on appeal in 1967. Both the FBI and the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald had acted alone in the assassination, but various groups challenged the findings of the Warren Report and believed that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy. After Kennedy's death, Congress enacted many of his proposals, including the Civil Rights Act and the Revenue Act of 1964.
Kennedy continues to rank in polls of U. S. presidents with historians and the general public. His personal life has been the focus of considerable public fascination following revelations regarding his lifelong health ailments and alleged extra-marital affairs, his average approval rating of 70% is the highest of any president in Gallup's history of systematically measuring job approval. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, at 83 Beals Street in suburban Brookline, Massachusetts, to businessman/politician Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy and philanthropist/socialite Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald Kennedy, his paternal grandfather P. J. Kennedy was a member of the Massachusetts state legislature, his maternal grandfather and namesake John F. Fitzgerald served as a U. S. Congressman and was elected to two terms as Mayor of Boston. All four of his grandparents were children of Irish immigrants. Kennedy had an elder brother, Joseph Jr. and seven younger siblings: Rosemary, Eunice, Robert and Edward.
As of 2019, he has been the only Catholic U. S. President. Kennedy lived in Brookline for the first ten years of his life and attended the local St. Aidan's Church, where he was baptized on June 19, 1917, he was educated at the Edward Devotion School in Brookline, the Noble and Greenough Lower School in nearby Dedham and the Dexter School through the 4th grade. His father's business had kept him away from the family for long stretches of time, his ventures were concentrated on Wall Street and Hollywood. In September 1927, the family moved from Brookline to the Riverdale neighborhood of New York City. Young John attended the lower campus of Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys, from 5th to 7th grade. Two years the family moved to suburban Bronxville, New York, where Kennedy was a member of Boy Scout Troop 2 and attended St. Joseph's Church; the Kennedy family spent summers and early autumns at their home in Hyannis Port and Christmas and Easter holidays at their winter retreat in Palm Beach, Florida purchased in 1933.
In September 1930, Kennedy—then 13 years old—attended the Canterbury School in New Milford, for 8th grade. In April 1931, he had an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury and recuperated at home. In September 1931, Kennedy started attending Choate, a prestigious board
Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of the nation of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. The island is covered in dense tropical rainforest and has a mountainous interior. Guadalcanal's discovery by westerners was under the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña in 1568; the name comes from the village of Guadalcanal, in the province of Seville, in Andalusia, birthplace of Pedro de Ortega Valencia, a member of Mendaña's expedition. During 1942–43, it was the scene of the Guadalcanal Campaign and saw bitter fighting between Japanese and US troops; the Americans were victorious. At the end of World War II, Honiara, on the north coast of Guadalcanal, became the new capital of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. A Spanish expedition from Peru under the command of Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira discovered the island in the year 1568. Mendaña's subordinate, Pedro de Ortega Valencia, named the island after his home town Guadalcanal in Andalusia, Spain.
The name comes from the Arabic Wādī l-Khānāt, which means "Valley of the Stalls" or "River of Stalls", referring to the refreshment stalls which were set up there during Muslim rule in Andalusia. In the years that followed the discovery, the island was variously referred to as Guadarcana, Guarcana and Guadalcanar, which reflected different pronunciations of its name in Andalusian Spanish. European settlers and missionaries began to arrive in the 18th and 19th centuries, in the year 1893, the British Solomon Islands Protectorate was proclaimed which included the island of Guadalcanal. In 1932, the British confirmed the name Guadalcanal in line with the town in Spain. In the months following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Japanese drove the Americans out of the Philippines, the British out of British Malaya, the Dutch out of the East Indies; the Japanese began to expand into the Western Pacific, occupying many islands in an attempt to build a defensive ring around their conquests and threaten the lines of communication from the United States to Australia and New Zealand.
The Japanese reached Guadalcanal in May 1942. When an American reconnaissance mission spotted construction of a Japanese airfield at Lunga Point on the north coast of Guadalcanal, the situation became critical; this new Japanese airfield represented a threat to Australia itself, so the United States as a matter of urgency, despite not being adequately prepared, conducted its first amphibious landing of the war. The initial landings of US Marines on 7 August 1942 secured the airfield without too much difficulty, but holding the airfield for the next six months was one of the most hotly contested campaigns in the entire war for the control of ground and skies. Guadalcanal became a major turning point in the war. After six months of fighting, the Japanese ceased contesting the control of the island, they evacuated the island at Cape Esperance on the north west coast in February 1943. After landing on the island, the US Navy Seabees began finishing the airfield begun by the Japanese, it was named Henderson Field after a Marine aviator killed in combat during the Battle of Midway.
Aircraft operating from Henderson Field during the campaign were a hodgepodge of Marine, Army and allied aircraft that became known as the Cactus Air Force. They defended the airfield and threatened any Japanese ships that ventured into the vicinity during daylight hours. However, at night, Japanese naval forces were able to shell the airfield and deliver troops with supplies, retiring before daylight; the Japanese used fast ships to make these runs, this became known as the Tokyo Express. So many ships from both sides were sunk in the many engagements in and around the Solomon Island chain that the nearby waters were referred to as Ironbottom Sound; the Battle of Cape Esperance was fought on 11 October 1942 off the northwest coast of Guadalcanal. In the battle, United States Navy ships intercepted and defeated a Japanese formation of ships on their way down'the Slot' to reinforce and resupply troops on the island, but suffered losses as well; the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November marked the turning point in which Allied Naval forces took on the experienced Japanese surface forces at night and forced them to withdraw after sharp action.
Some Japanese viewpoints consider these engagements, the improving Allied surface capability to challenge their surface ships at night, to be just as significant as the Battle of Midway in turning the tide against them. After six months of hard combat in and around Guadalcanal and dealing with jungle diseases that took a heavy toll of troops on both sides, Allied forces managed to halt the Japanese advance and dissuade them from contesting the control of the island by driving the last of the Japanese troops into the sea on 15 January 1943. American authorities declared Guadalcanal secure on 9 February 1943. Two US Navy ships have been named for the battle: USS Guadalcanal, a World War II escort carrier. USS Guadalcanal, an amphibious assault ship. To date, the only Coast Guardsman recipient of the Medal of Honor is Signalman 1st Class Douglas Albert Munro, awarded posthumously for his extraordinary heroism on 27 September 1942 at Point Cruz, Guadalcanal. Munro provided a shield and covering fire, helped evacuate 500 besieged Marines from a beach at Point Cruz.
During the Battle for Guadalcanal, the Medal of Honor was awarded to John Basilone who died on Iwo Jima. After the Second World War, the capital of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate was moved to Honiara on Guadalcanal from its previous location
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
Rob Roy Island
Rob Roy Island, native name Velaviru, is an island in the Solomon Islands located off the South East coast of Choiseul Island. The island is covered with coconut jungle; the island has a summit elevation of 150m. Nagosele Passage divides Rob Roy Island from Choiseul Island NotesRob Roy - Bird Checklists for 440 Melanesian Islands
Russell Islands
See Russell Island. The Russell Islands are two small islands, as well as several islets, of volcanic origin, in the Central Province of Solomon Islands, they are located 48 kilometres northwest of Guadalcanal. The islands are covered in coconut plantations, have a copra and oil factory at Yandina. Yandina has basic services, including a store, post office, airport; the Lavukal people live on these islands. Their language is Lavukaleve. There is a settlement of Polynesians, resettled from Tikopia, that lives in Nukufero on the west side of the larger island, Pavuvu. In 1956 the Levers company donated 80 acres for use for this resettlement, added another 125 acres in the 1960s; this land was subdivided into 4 acre lots for each family. Five hundred people from Tikopia had migrated there by 1965. Te Ariki Taumako, the third Chief of Tikopia, made an official visit to Nukufero in 1965. In Yandina, people from all over the Solomon Islands have come to work for the plantation. In addition to their native languages, they speak Solomon Island Pijin, the lingua franca of the Solomon Islands.
In March 1943, as part of American military operations during the Solomons campaign of World War II, the islands were occupied by U. S. troops. Remnants of the U. S. presence, such as concrete slabs and large metal storage sheds, still exist. Unexploded ordnance was left behind, including land mines, bounding anti-personnel mines. Two barges are sunk off the wharf; the Yandina police station was the scene of one of the opening events of recent ethnic tensions, where a group of men raided the armoury and stole some high-powered weapons and ammunition. The group involved became known as the Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army, as the Isatabu Freedom Movement. Yandina was the site of a RAMSI post. Havuna Primary School and Yandina Community High School are in the Russell Islands. In 2013 members of the Australian Navy HMAS Tarakan rebuilt class rooms in the high school. At that time the principal was Augustine Olibuma. HMAS Diamantina and HMAS Huon sailors visited the high school in 2016. At one time the Yandina Plantation Resort provided tourist accommodation for scuba divers.
It opened in October 2000 with 12 guest rooms. North of the western island Pavuvu are the islets Mane Island, Leru Island, Marulaon Island, Hanawisi. South of Pavuvu is Boloka, Alokan Island. Eastwards from Mbanika is Loun Island, Telin Island, Moie, Laumuan Island. Northeast of Mbanika is Kaukau Island. Other localities on the large island are Pipisala. On Pavuvu in addition to Yandina, there is Suun "Search Russel Islands". Solomon Star. Retrieved 15 January 2017. "Solomon Is Broadcasting stories". SIBC. Retrieved 15 January 2017
Guadalcanal Campaign
The Guadalcanal Campaign known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by American forces, was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theater of World War II. It was the first major offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan. On 7 August 1942, Allied forces, predominantly United States Marines, landed on Guadalcanal and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands, with the objective of denying their use by the Japanese to threaten Allied supply and communication routes between the United States and New Zealand; the Allies intended to use Guadalcanal and Tulagi as bases in supporting a campaign to capture or neutralize the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain. The Japanese defenders, who had occupied those islands since May 1942, were outnumbered and overwhelmed by the Allies, who captured Tulagi and Florida, as well as the airfield – named Henderson Field –, under construction on Guadalcanal.
Surprised by the Allied offensive, the Japanese made several attempts between August and November to retake Henderson Field. Three major land battles, seven large naval battles, daily aerial battles culminated in the decisive Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in early November, with the defeat of the last Japanese attempt to bombard Henderson Field from the sea and to land with enough troops to retake it. In December, the Japanese abandoned their efforts to retake Guadalcanal, evacuated their remaining forces by 7 February 1943, in the face of an offensive by the U. S. Army's XIV Corps; the Guadalcanal campaign was a significant strategic Allied combined-arms victory in the Pacific theater. While the Battle of Midway was a crushing defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy, it did not stop Japanese offensives, which continued both at sea and on the ground; the victories at Milne Bay, Buna–Gona, Guadalcanal marked the Allied transition from defensive operations to the strategic initiative in the theater, leading to offensive campaigns in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, the Central Pacific, which resulted in the surrender of Japan, ending World War II.
On 7 December 1941, Japanese forces attacked the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory. The attack crippled much of the U. S. precipitated an open and formal state of war between the two nations. The initial goals of Japanese leaders were to neutralize the U. S. Navy, seize possessions rich in natural resources, establish strategic military bases to defend Japan's empire in the Pacific Ocean and Asia. To further those goals, Japanese forces captured the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, Wake Island, Gilbert Islands, New Britain and Guam. Joining the U. S. in the war against Japan were the rest of the Allied powers, several of whom, including the United Kingdom and the Netherlands had been attacked by Japan. The Japanese made two attempts to continue their strategic initiative, offensively extend their outer defensive perimeter in the south and central Pacific to where they could threaten Australia and Hawaii or the U. S. West Coast; those efforts were thwarted at the naval battles of Coral Midway respectively.
Coral Sea was a tactical stalemate, but a strategic Allied victory which became clear only much later. Midway was not only the Allies' first clear major victory against the Japanese, it reduced the offensive capability of Japan's carrier forces, but did not change their offensive mindset for several crucial months in which they compounded mistakes by moving ahead with brash brazen decisions, such as the attempt to assault Port Moresby over the Kokoda trail. Up to this point, the Allies had been on the defensive in the Pacific but these strategic victories provided them an opportunity to take the initiative from Japan; the Allies chose the Solomon Islands the southern Solomon Islands of Guadalcanal and Florida Island, as the first target, designated Task One, with three specific objectives. The objectives were the occupation of the Santa Cruz Islands, "adjacent positions". Guadalcanal, which became the focus of the operation, was not mentioned in the early directive and only took on the operation-name Watchtower.
The Imperial Japanese Navy had occupied Tulagi in May 1942 and had constructed a seaplane base nearby. Allied concern grew when, in early July 1942, the IJN began constructing a large airfield at Lunga Point on nearby Guadalcanal—from such a base Japanese long-range bombers would threaten the sea lines of communication from the West Coast of the Americas to the populous East Coast of Australia. By August 1942, the Japanese had about 900 naval troops on Tulagi and nearby islands and 2,800 personnel on Guadalcanal; these bases would protect Japan's major base at Rabaul, threaten Allied supply and communication lines and establish a staging area for a planned offensive against Fiji, New Caledonia and Samoa. The Japanese planned to deploy 60 bombers to Guadalcanal. In the overall strategy for 1942 these aircraft could provide air cover for Japanese naval forces advancing farther into the South Pacific; the Allied plan to invade the southern Solomons was conceived by U. S. Admiral Ernest King, Commander in Chief, United States Fleet.
He proposed the offensive to deny the
Fishing fleet
A fishing fleet is an aggregate of commercial fishing vessels. The term may be used of all vessels operating out of a particular port, all vessels engaged in a particular type of fishing, or all fishing vessels of a country or region. Although fishing vessels are not formally organized as if they were a naval fleet often the constraints of time and weather are such that they must all leave or return together, thus creating at least the appearance of an organized body. Fishermen operating a particular type of vessel or in a particular port belong to a local association which disseminates information and may be used to coordinate activities, such as how best to prevent overfishing in particular areas. In 2002 the world fishing fleet numbered about four million vessels. About one-third were decked; the remaining undecked boats were less than 10 metres long, 65 percent were not fitted with mechanical propulsion systems. The FAO estimates; the average size of decked vessels is about 20 gross tons. Only one percent of the world fishing fleet is larger than 100 gross tons.
China has half of these larger vessels. There is no international instrument in force concerning the safety of fishing vessels. International conventions and agreements awaiting ratification which concern safety at sea are exclusively aimed at vessels 24 metres in length and over, therefore do not apply to artisan vessels in developing countries. Safety regulations for all fishing vessels are left entirely to national discretion; the fishing fleet was an ironic reference to the shipping of unmarried young women from the UK to India during the middle and latter years of the Raj, for the purposes of becoming married to colonial administrators and plantation supervisors. FAO: CWP Handbook of Fishery Statistical Standards: Section L: Fishery Fleet FAO: Fishing vessels
