[High Praise! to Mental Floss]
11 Things You Might Not Know About the U.S. Navy
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And some bonus trivia from “Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts” (New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1979)
Immediately after the end of the American Revolution, Congress abolished the United States Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, leaving the Congress itself the only national governmental organization. The states feared a standing army.
Several people, including the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Navy, were killed when the ten-ton gun “Peacemaker” exploded during a firing from the first propeller-driven warship, the U.S.S. Princeton, on cruise on the Potomac south of Washington in 1844. The survivors included President John Tyler and his fiancée, Miss Julia Gardiner, who were in a cabin below deck at the time of the accident.
The American ships firing steadily at the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in May, 1898, pulled off briefly at one point so that the crews could have a quiet breakfast. On returning to work, they destroyed the enemy.
During the War of 1812, much of the action took place at sea. The British had the numbers, 800 naval vessels versus the United States’ 16. However, the U.S. had three frigates, the Constitution, the President, and the United States, that were faster and better than any British vessel. Because the battles were duels between single ships, the U.S. won many notable victories.
The first U.S. Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, was confined to an upper story of Walter Reed Army Hospital, in Washington, D.C, in 1949, after physicians had diagnosed him as paranoid. He believed that he was being tracked by secret agents of Israel. As he was not properly supervised, the Secretary jumped to his death from a window. It turned out that Israeli agents had indeed been following Forrestal, in their need to know if the U.S. was making secret arrangements with Arab nations.
During World War II, the U.S. Navy had a world champion chess player, Reuben Fine, calculate — on the basis of positional probabilities — where enemy submarines might surface. Dr. Fine says, “It worked out all right.”
He was probably just trying to be cute, but I doubt four of the guys in #6 actually know the words to Anchors Aweigh. It is the US Naval Academy fight song, so Robert Heinlein probably knew it. I can’t imagine anybody else learning the words (it is mostly about football with a few nautical references).
Not to rag on perpetual civilians, but ignorance about the Navy (and all branches of the armed forces) can surprise you. Sure, you’ll see looks of disbelief when you talk about six-plus month deployments and hot racking. Sometimes it’s more basic:
My ship was at SF during fleet week in the early 90’s. We hosted tours of the ship, and on one of the tours I gave, a lady asked, quite sincerely, “Are you called ‘soldiers’?” “No, ma’am,” I responded. “We’re called sailors, although we have nothing to do with sails. The guys who go on the ground are called soldiers. The guys who go on the ground but end up on ships we call Marines.”
@2 – I agree, he was trying to be cute on #6. However, I *did* learn Anchors Aweigh in boot camp as a marching song. Or, at least, the 2nd verse of the “revised lyrics”.