On the night of October 11–12, 1942, off Cape Esperance, Guadalcanal, the U.S. Navy won its first surface victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War — two months after the catastrophic defeat at Savo Island. Rear Admiral Norman Scott's cruiser-destroyer force sank the cruiser Furutak…
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On September 23rd, 1779, off Flamborough Head, England, Captain John Paul Jones fought the Royal Navy frigate Serapis to a standstill aboard a sinking, undergunned Bonhomme Richard — and won, even as his own ship went down beneath him two days later. This episode traces Jones’s full, complicated lif…
In March 1776, a fleet of eight converted merchantmen — crewed by men who'd never fought together, commanded by a 60-year-old merchant captain, and carrying a Marine Corps that was three months old — sailed a thousand miles from Delaware to the Bahamas on a mission that wasn't even in their official…
On November 6th, 1943, off Cape Bougaroun on the Algerian coast, German bombers used the Henschel Hs 293 — the world's first operational guided anti-ship missile — to sink the American destroyer USS Beatty and the transport Santa Elena, killing seventeen men in Convoy KMF 25A. It was one of the open…
On February 20, 1942, the Action off Bougainville pitted the carrier USS Lexington against seventeen Japanese bombers from Rabaul in one of the early Pacific War's most lopsided air battles. We trace the full chain of events: Vice Admiral Wilson Brown's aborted raid on Rabaul, the morning intercepti…
In this solo personal essay, Dale argues that American submarines — not the aircraft carriers — won the Pacific War against Japan. It's one sailor, one opinion: the carriers won the headlines at Midway, but the boats did the killing, sinking over half of Japan's fleet and strangling the oil that the…
Why Nuremberg Refused to Sentence Dönitz for Submarine Warfare — And What Fleet Admiral Nimitz's Sworn Testimony Reveals About America's Pacific War?
In this solo personal essay, Dale argues that the United States' unrestricted submarine campaign against Japan in World War Two was legally and morall…
On the night of August 1st, 1943, fifteen American PT boats entered Blackett Strait with thirty torpedoes and a solid intelligence picture. By morning, they had hit nothing, lost one boat, and left eleven men in the water. This is the story of that boat — and everything that happened before and afte…
In the pre-dawn darkness of March 6, 1943, two veteran Japanese destroyers turned east into Kula Gulf after a routine supply run. They never knew what was waiting. Rear Admiral "Tip" Merrill had spent months building a doctrine around one radical premise: trust the radar completely. Four minutes aft…
In this episode, Dale and Christophe cover one of the most decisive — and most overlooked — air-sea battles of the entire Pacific War: the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, March 2–4, 1943.
In three days, Allied air power destroyed an entire sixteen-ship Japanese convoy carrying nearly 7,000 troops of the…
In this episode, Dale and Christophe cover one of the most misunderstood naval engagements of the Pacific War — the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, fought October 25–27, 1942. On paper, Japan won. A US fleet carrier sunk, another put out of action, the Japanese holding the water and the air. And y…
In this episode, Dale and Christophe cover the Battle of Midway — one of the most consequential naval engagements in American history and the decisive turning point of the Pacific War. From the catastrophic losses of the first six months following Pearl Harbor, to the codebreakers working in a windo…
The episode recounts the January 23–24, 1942 night raid at Balikpapan in the Dutch East Indies, seven weeks after Pearl Harbor, when Commander Paul Talbot led four aging Clemson-class destroyers (USS John D. Ford, Pope, Parrott, and Paul Jones) through the Makassar Strait toward burning Dutch-demoli…
In this episode, Dale and Christophe break down the U.S. Navy's role in Operation Epic Fury — the massive American military campaign launched against Iran on February 28, 2026. From the decades of tension that set the stage, to the opening Tomahawk salvo, the systematic destruction of the Iranian Na…
Dale and Christophe discuss the February 1942 Battle of Badung ("Bong/Barong") Strait in the Netherlands East Indies, framing it within Japan’s rapid early-Pacific-War offensives after Pearl Harbor and the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, and Japan’s drive to seize oil and strategic a…
Dale and Christophe discuss the First Barbary War and the 1803 loss of the 44-gun frigate USS Philadelphia, commanded by Captain William Bainbridge, after it struck an uncharted reef while pursuing a Tripolitan corsair into Tripoli Harbor and was captured with more than 300 sailors taken prisoner. W…
Dale and Christophe discuss the February 1942 German U-boat attack on Aruba and why the island’s Lago Oil and Transport Company refinery was a critical Allied fuel source, processing Venezuelan crude into high-octane aviation gasoline. They explain Operation Neuland, Germany’s coordinated Caribbean …
In this episode of the US Navy History Podcast, Dale and Christophe examine the critical Battle of the Atlantic. They discuss its impact on World War II's outcome, highlighting how control over the Atlantic Ocean was essential for the Allies. The episode covers the significant strategies employed by…
In this episode of the US Navy History Podcast, Dale and Christophe discuss the Second Barbary War, highlighting America's bold confrontation with the Barbary States in 1815. The United States, under Commodore Stephen Decanter, refused to continue paying tributes and instead launched a decisive nava…
In this episode of the US Navy History Podcast, hosts Dale and Christophe delve into the dramatic and pivotal American Carrier raids of 1942 during the early years of World War II. They explore how these daring raids by US Navy carriers, while not always resulting in immediate victories, shifted the…