December 2 US Naval History

1775 - Congress orders first officers commissions printed.
1908 - Rear Admiral William S. Cowles submits report, prepared by LT George C. Sweet, recommending purchase of aircraft suitable for operating from naval ships on scouting and observation mission to Secretary of the Navy.
1941 - First Naval Armed Guard detachment (7 men under a coxswain) of World War II reports to Liberty ship, SS Dunboyne,
1944 - Two-day destroyer Battle of Ormoc Bay begins.
1965 - USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) and USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25) become first nuclear-powered task unit used in combat operations with launch of air strikes near Bien Hoa, Vietnam

Dec 3
1800 Battle of Hohenlinden
1912 1st Balkan War: naval Battle of Elli, Treaty signed to end the War.
1971 Indo-Pakistani War begins

December 3 US Naval History

1775 - LT John Paul Jones raises the Grand Union flag on Alfred. First American flag raised over American naval vessel.
1940 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt embarks on USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) to inspect bases acquired from Great Britain under Destroyer-for Bases agreement.
1983 - Two F-14s flying over Lebanon were fired upon.

Dec 4
1110 Crusaders sack Sidon
1676 Battle of Lund
1939 HMS Nelson damaged by mine
1942 Guadalcanal campaign: Carlson's Patrol ends
1971 Indian Navy bombards Pakistani Navy base @ Karachi

December 4 US Naval History

1918 - President Woodrow Wilson sails in USS George Washington for Paris Peace Conference.
1943 - Aircraft from USS Lexington (CV-16) and USS Independence (CVL-22) attack Kwajalein Atoll, sinking four Japanese ships and damaging five others, while only three U.S. ships suffered damage.
1944 - USS Flasher (SS-249) sinks Japanese destroyer Kishinami and damages a merchant ship in South China Sea. Flasher is only U.S. submarine to sink over 100,000 tons of enemy shipping in World War II.
1965 - Launch of Gemini 7 piloted by CDR James A. Lovell, USN. This flight consisted of 206 orbits at an altitude of 327 km and lasted 13 days and 18 hours. Recovery by HS-11 helicopters from USS Wasp (CVS-18)
1983 - Aircraft from USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) and USS Independence (CV-62) launch strike against anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon that fired on U.S. aircraft. Two U.S. Navy planes shot down.

Dec 5
1757 Battle of Leuthen
1941 Red Army counterattacks @ Moscow. U.K. declares War on Finland, Hungary & Romania

December 5 US Naval History

1843 - Launching of USS Michigan at Erie, Penn., America's first iron-hulled warship, as well as first prefabricated ship.
1941 - USS Lexington (CV-2) sails with Task Force 12 to ferry Marine aircraft to Midway, leaving no carriers at Pearl Harbor.

December 5 - Lead story:
1945 : Aircraft squadron lost in the Bermuda Triangle

At 2:10 p.m., five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base. They never returned.

Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron, who had been flying in the area for more than six months, reported that his compass and back-up compass had failed and that his position was unknown. The other planes experienced similar instrument malfunctions. Radio facilities on land were contacted to find the location of the lost squadron, but none were successful. After two more hours of confused messages from the fliers, a distorted radio transmission from the squadron leader was heard at 6:20 p.m., apparently calling for his men to prepare to ditch their aircraft simultaneously because of lack of fuel.

By this time, several land radar stations finally determined that Flight 19 was somewhere north of the Bahamas and east of the Florida coast, and at 7:27 p.m. a search and rescue Mariner aircraft took off with a 13-man crew. Three minutes later, the Mariner aircraft radioed to its home base that its mission was underway. The Mariner was never heard from again. Later, there was a report from a tanker cruising off the coast of Florida of a visible explosion seen at 7:50 p.m.

The disappearance of the 14 men of Flight 19 and the 13 men of the Mariner led to one of the largest air and seas searches to that date, and hundreds of ships and aircraft combed thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and remote locations within the interior of Florida. No trace of the bodies or aircraft was ever found.

Although naval officials maintained that the remains of the six aircraft and 27 men were not found because stormy weather destroyed the evidence, the story of the "Lost Squadron" helped cement the legend of the Bermuda Triangle, an area of the Atlantic Ocean where ships and aircraft are said to disappear without a trace. The Bermuda Triangle is said to stretch from the southern U.S. coast across to Bermuda and down to the Atlantic coast of Cuba and Santo Domingo.

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And so another story of the missing and the lost in the Bermuda Triangle occurs ........

Dec 6
1240 Mongols capture Kiev
1704 Battle of Chamkaur
1863 Monitor USS Weehawken founders after waves pour through open hatches during ammo resupply near Charleston, S.C.
1916 Central Powers capture Bucharest
1917 Muntions explosion @ Halifax N.S. kills 1900 people & destoys a large part of the town

December 6 US Naval History

1830 - Naval Observatory, the first U.S. national observatory, established at Washington, DC, under commander of Lieutenant Louis Malesherbes.
1901 - First report of Ship Model Basin at Washington Navy Yard issued by Naval Constructor David W. Taylor who designed the basin. First facility of this type in U.S. to test hull shapes.
1917 - German submarine torpedoes sink USS Jacob Jones (DD-61) off England.
1968 - Operation Giant Slingshot began in Mekong Delta