100 Fun Facts About Navy

The US Navy dates its birthday to the Continental Congress authorizing two armed vessels on which date?

The Navy only settled on that birthday in 1971; the Continental Navy itself was disbanded in 1785 after the war ended.

Which captain fought HMS Serapis from the Bonhomme Richard in 1779 and is called 'Father of the American Navy'?

Born plain John Paul in Scotland, he went to sea at 13 and later served as a rear admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy.

USS Constitution became 'Old Ironsides' by capturing which British frigate in 1812?

She went on to take Java, Pictou, Cyane and Levant too, and public affection for the nickname repeatedly saved her from the scrapyard.

USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship afloat, is berthed in which city?

She was launched there in 1797 and sailed under her own power in 2012 to mark the bicentennial of her War of 1812 victories.

Who led the 1804 night raid that burned a captured American frigate in Tripoli harbor?

He sailed in on the captured ketch Intrepid, disguised as a local trader, and became a national hero at 25.

At the 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads, the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia had been rebuilt from the hulk of which burned Union steam frigate?

That is why the clash with the Union's Monitor is still popularly called the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, even though the Confederate ship had a new name.

Who ordered the 16-battleship 'Great White Fleet' to sail around the world between 1907 and 1909?

The hulls wore the Navy's white peacetime paint with gilded scrollwork on the bows, which gave the fleet its nickname.

Which commander of Japan's Combined Fleet planned the Pearl Harbor attack?

He hoped a knockout blow would let Japan grab territory quickly and negotiate peace; the three US carriers he most wanted were all at sea that morning.

Which battleship, where 1,177 died at Pearl Harbor, still lies beneath a memorial built across it?

Every other battleship sunk that day except Utah was refloated, and six of them returned to fight in the war.

How many Japanese fleet carriers were sunk at the Battle of Midway in June 1942?

Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū all went down, along with the heavy cruiser Mikuma, after US codebreakers had tipped off the Pacific Fleet.

Which US carrier, patched up in days after the Coral Sea, was the only American flattop lost at Midway?

The Japanese believed she had already been sunk at the Coral Sea, so her sudden reappearance helped throw off their planning.

Asked where the April 1942 Doolittle raiders had launched from, FDR joked they came from which fictional place?

The 16 B-25 bombers had actually flown off the carrier Hornet; the Navy later named an Essex-class carrier after the fictional valley.

The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on 2 September 1945 on the deck of which battleship?

She was the last battleship the United States ever commissioned and has been a museum ship at Pearl Harbor since 1998.

USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, made history in August 1958 by doing what?

Launched in 1954 and sponsored by Mamie Eisenhower, she has been preserved as a museum ship in Groton, Connecticut, since 1986.

Which officer, who supervised the building of USS Nautilus, is known as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy"?

He stayed on active duty until 1982, by which point he had served 63 years, longer than any other officer in Navy history.

Which 1961 carrier, the first nuclear-powered one, is still the longest naval vessel ever built at 1,123 feet?

She ran on eight reactors, was the only ship of her class, and served for over 55 years before decommissioning in 2017.

The Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team took its name from what?

The 1946 team spotted the club's advertisement in The New Yorker; the Blues are the second-oldest formal aerobatic team in the world.

Which jet did the Blue Angels switch to for their six-aircraft demonstration in 2021?

The team traded its legacy Hornets for Super Hornets for the 2021 season; each modified jet stays in fleet inventory and can return to combat duty within 72 hours. Its cargo plane is a C-130J nicknamed Fat Albert.

The first two Navy SEAL teams were commissioned in January of which year?

Team One went to Coronado, California and Team Two to Little Creek, Virginia; both grew out of the WWII-era Underwater Demolition Teams.

What does the acronym SEAL stand for in 'Navy SEALs'?

The name spells out the three environments the teams are trained to operate in; their notoriously brutal selection course includes 'Hell Week'.

Which Secretary of the Navy founded the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845 and names its giant dormitory?

He was also a noted historian; the campus sits on the grounds of the old Fort Severn where the Severn River meets Chesapeake Bay.

What is the greased obelisk Naval Academy plebes climb at the end of their first year called?

The greasing tradition began in 1955; the monument sits across from the Naval Academy Chapel, whose dome is visible across Annapolis.

What is the Naval Academy's live mascot named, adopted after Navy first beat Army in football in 1890?

Navy adopted the goat as its mascot in 1890, the year it beat Army in their very first football meeting.

The 'Navy Hymn', written by William Whiting in 1860 and inspired by Psalm 107, is known by what title?

It is also the Royal Navy's hymn and was sung at the funerals of several US presidents and of Prince Philip.

The annual Army–Navy football game, first played in 1890, is most often held in which neutral city?

It is roughly equidistant from the two academies; the game has been played every year without interruption since 1930.

TOPGUN was established in 1969 at which California naval air station?

Its first headquarters was a stolen modular trailer; the school moved to Nevada in 1996 and was immortalized by the 1986 Tom Cruise film.

The Navy's Seabees take their name from the initials of what?

The units were created after Pearl Harbor to replace civilian contractors in combat zones; John Wayne played one in the 1944 film The Fighting Seabees.

Alongside 'We build, we fight', which two-word slogan did the Seabees famously adopt as their motto?

Wartime signs added the boast that the difficult they did at once, while the impossible took a little longer.

The first Fleet Week was held in 1935 in which city, alongside an exposition it hosted?

Some 114 warships and 400 military aircraft turned up; today the best-known Fleet Weeks are in New York and San Francisco.

Which admiral, killed at Trafalgar in 1805, signalled 'England expects that every man will do his duty'?

His body came home in a cask of brandy lashed to the mainmast, and his column now dominates the London square named after the battle.

Which 104-gun ship of the line, dry-docked at Portsmouth since 1922, is the oldest naval vessel still in commission?

She has been the flagship of the First Sea Lord since 2012, and cost £57,748 to build.

Who commanded the Spanish Armada that sailed against England in 1588?

An aristocrat with little sea experience, he was ordered to link up with Parma's army in Flanders and refused to deviate from that plan.

On the night of 7–8 August 1588 the English broke up the Armada's anchorage off Calais by sending in what?

The English sacrificed eight of their own warships; the Spanish feared they were 'hellburners' packed with gunpowder like those used at the Siege of Antwerp.

Which Japanese admiral annihilated Russia's Second Pacific Squadron at Tsushima in 1905?

His flagship Mikasa is preserved as a museum ship at Yokosuka, and it was the only decisive battle ever fought between fleets of modern steel battleships.

The Russian fleet's attack on British trawlers, mistaken for Japanese warships, is named for which North Sea bank?

The Russians fired for twenty minutes; only their terrible gunnery kept the death toll low and Britain out of the war.

In May 1941 the German battleship Bismarck destroyed which British battlecruiser in the Denmark Strait?

The loss triggered a hunt by dozens of Royal Navy warships; a Swordfish torpedo bomber from Ark Royal jammed Bismarck's rudder two days later and sealed her fate.

Which country's navy had the most warships and support vessels in the world as of 2024?

The People's Liberation Army Navy was founded in April 1949 and has commissioned three aircraft carriers since 2012.

Which US submarine made the first submerged circumnavigation of the Earth in 1960?

She did it on her shakedown cruise; her unusual two-reactor plant was a key reason she was picked for the job.

Who were the two men aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste in the Challenger Deep in 1960?

The Office of Naval Research had bought the craft from its Swiss designer for $267,000 in 1958; it is preserved at the National Museum of the US Navy in Washington.

What does the prefix 'USS' before the name of a commissioned US Navy vessel stand for?

Earlier abbreviations named the vessel type, such as USF for frigate, until a 1907 executive order made the single prefix standard for commissioned ships.

Aboard a US Navy ship, the 'goat locker' is the mess and sleeping area reserved for whom?

The name goes back to sailing days, when the ship's goat lived in the chiefs' quarters; even the captain must ask permission to enter.

The eagle above the chevrons on a Navy enlisted rating badge is nicknamed what bird?

The nickname comes from its black colour on white uniforms; the design was standardised in 1894.

David Farragut's famous order 'Damn the torpedoes' was given at which 1864 battle?

The 'torpedoes' were moored mines; Farragut went on to become the first officer ever to hold the rank of admiral in the US Navy.

Which Texas-born fleet admiral led the US Pacific Fleet in WWII and named a carrier class?

His grandfather's hotel in Fredericksburg houses the National Museum of the Pacific War.

USS Indianapolis, sunk in July 1945, had just delivered components of which weapon to Tinian?

The Navy did not learn she had sunk for four days; her survivors' ordeal with sharks was later retold in Jaws.

Which US Navy ship, seized by North Korea in 1968, is still in commission but sits as a museum in Pyongyang?

She started life as an Army freighter built in Wisconsin in 1944 and was converted into an intelligence-gathering ship.

Which Japanese battleship class, the heaviest ever built, mounted nine 18.1-inch guns?

Each of the three-gun turrets weighed more than a 1930s destroyer, and the shells could travel 26 miles.

Which Virginia city is home to the world's largest naval station?

The base fills about four miles of waterfront at Sewell's Point on Hampton Roads and is the homeport of the Atlantic Fleet.

Whom did Congress appoint the Continental Navy's first commander-in-chief in December 1775?

A Rhode Islander with powerful political connections, he was later censured and dismissed by Congress in 1778.

Who commanded Britain's Grand Fleet at Jutland in 1916?

Churchill later said he was the only man on either side who could have lost the war in an afternoon.

Which future president commanded PT-109 when a Japanese destroyer cut the torpedo boat in two in 1943?

John F. Kennedy towed a badly burned crewman to safety by swimming with the man's life-jacket strap clenched between his teeth.

Since 1974 the US vice president's official residence has stood on the grounds of which Navy facility in Washington?

The Naval Observatory's grounds hold a house built in 1893 for its superintendent; Walter Mondale became the first vice president to move in.

Which disco group shot the video for their 1979 hit 'In the Navy' on the deck of the frigate USS Reasoner?

Village People's manager gave the Navy the song free for a recruiting campaign on condition that it help shoot the video, which the Navy then never used.

Sailors nicknamed the US Navy's dome-topped Phalanx anti-missile gun after which Star Wars droid?

R2-D2 lent his name to the Phalanx because of its barrel-shaped radar dome, which finds and tracks incoming missiles for a 20 mm cannon with no human aiming it.

US Navy enlisted dress blues share a nickname with which caramel popcorn snack whose box shows a sailor boy?

Cracker Jack boxes show Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo, and the bell-bottomed sailor suit picked up the name 'crackerjacks' from that mascot.

Besides bottlenose dolphins, which animals does the US Navy train to find mines and guard harbors?

Sea lions carry a clamp in their mouths and snap it around an intruding swimmer's limb like a handcuff, relying on sharp underwater hearing and low-light vision.

Flight 19, five Navy torpedo bombers that vanished off Florida in December 1945, fed the legend of which region?

The Bermuda Triangle legend grew because a Mariner flying boat sent out to search for the 14 missing airmen was also lost that night with all 13 of its crew.

Which Naval Academy graduate nicknamed 'The Admiral' won two NBA championships with the San Antonio Spurs?

David Robinson was the first pick of the 1987 NBA draft but did not play a game until 1989, because he first had to serve out his active-duty obligation as a Navy officer.

By tradition, a new US Navy ship is christened when its sponsor breaks a bottle of what across the bow?

Champagne became the usual christening drink only as the 19th century closed; in 1797 the frigate Constitution was launched with a bottle of fine old Madeira.

Which submarine officer is the only US Naval Academy graduate to become president of the United States?

Jimmy Carter, as a young lieutenant, led a Navy crew that was lowered into a crippled Canadian reactor at Chalk River to help take it apart.

Which country did the young US Navy fight in the undeclared Quasi-War of 1798 to 1800?

France's privateers had been seizing American merchant ships, and the crisis led President John Adams to appoint Benjamin Stoddert the first Secretary of the Navy.

On which lake did nine American vessels defeat and capture a British squadron of six in September 1813?

Lake Erie was won under a battle flag bearing the dying command of Captain James Lawrence of USS Chesapeake, never to give up the ship.

Which US Navy commodore's 'black ships' anchored in Edo Bay in 1853 and pressed Japan to open up to foreign trade?

Matthew Perry was sent by President Millard Fillmore and came back in 1854 to sign the Convention of Kanagawa, which ended Japan's long isolation.

Which Union ironclad, designed by John Ericsson, brought a revolving gun turret to its 1862 duel with CSS Virginia?

USS Monitor fought the Confederate ship to a stalemate, then foundered under tow in a storm off Cape Hatteras on the last day of that same year.

Which hand-cranked Confederate submarine became the first to sink a warship when it attacked USS Housatonic in 1864?

H. L. Hunley never returned from the attack, and two earlier sinkings on trial runs had already killed 13 men, among them the inventor it was named for.

The 1898 explosion of which US Navy warship in Havana harbor helped push the United States into war with Spain?

USS Maine lost more than 250 men, and American newspapers blamed Spain, though later investigators have argued that a fire in one of its own coal bunkers set off the blast.

Which victor of the 1898 Battle of Manila Bay is the only officer ever appointed to the rank Admiral of the Navy?

George Dewey received the specially created grade as a reward for the battle, and it is considered at least the equal of a five-star admiral.

Which Naval War College lecturer wrote The Influence of Sea Power upon History, an 1890 book read by navies worldwide?

Alfred Thayer Mahan became a household name in the German navy after Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered his officers to read the book.

Which animal appears on the First Navy Jack, the striped flag flown by every US warship from 2002 to 2019?

A rattlesnake stretches across 13 red and white stripes above a warning not to tread on it, and the jack returned to the fleet on September 11, 2002.

Which march did Naval Academy bandmaster Charles Zimmermann compose in 1906 for a football game against Army?

Anchors Aweigh was first played at the 1906 Army–Navy game, which Navy won 10–0 for its first win in the series since 1900.

Which converted coal ship, nicknamed the 'Covered Wagon', became the US Navy's first aircraft carrier?

USS Langley began life as the collier Jupiter, and after a Japanese air attack off Java in February 1942 it had to be scuttled.

Which civilian exhibition pilot is credited with the first aircraft takeoff from a ship and the first landing on one?

Eugene Ely stopped his Curtiss Pusher on the cruiser USS Pennsylvania in 1911 by snagging ropes laid across a platform, each weighted with 50-pound sandbags.

Which US destroyer was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat near Iceland five weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor?

USS Reuben James went down with 100 of its crew while escorting a convoy, before the United States had officially joined the war.

What was the surname of the five brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, who died when the cruiser USS Juneau sank in 1942?

The Sullivan brothers had enlisted on condition that they serve together, and two later warships were named USS The Sullivans in their memory.

Which admiral, nicknamed 'Bull' by the press, led the carrier task force that launched the 1942 Doolittle Raid?

William Halsey had spent the weeks before it leading hit-and-run carrier raids on the Gilbert and Marshall islands and on Wake, and he received a fifth star in December 1945.

Which 1944 battle off the Philippines, often ranked history's largest at sea, saw the first organized kamikaze attacks?

Leyte Gulf drew in hundreds of ships across four linked actions and included the last battle ever fought between battleships.

Which acronym named the World War II women's branch of the Naval Reserve, led by college president Mildred McAfee?

WAVES stood for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service; the woman who coined it hoped 'Emergency' would reassure older admirals that the women were only temporary.

Which mess attendant with no gunnery training earned the Navy Cross for manning a gun at Pearl Harbor?

Doris Miller first helped carry wounded shipmates to safety aboard the battleship USS West Virginia, and he became the first Black recipient of the medal.

Which nuclear attack submarine sank during deep-diving tests east of Cape Cod in April 1963, killing all 129 aboard?

USS Thresher was the first nuclear submarine lost at sea, and the disaster led the Navy to set up its rigorous SUBSAFE submarine safety program.

Which US warship's 1964 clash with North Vietnamese torpedo boats led Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?

USS Maddox was on a signals intelligence patrol when three boats attacked on 2 August; a second attack reported two nights later turned out never to have happened.

Which guided-missile destroyer was hit by a suicide boat while refueling in Yemen's Aden harbor in 2000?

USS Cole was taking on fuel when a small fiberglass boat carrying explosives and two suicide bombers blew a 40-by-60-foot gash in its side.

Which cruise missile, fired from US Navy ships and submarines, made its combat debut in the 1991 Gulf War?

Tomahawk missiles fly low at subsonic speed, and 288 of them were launched in that war, all but 12 from surface ships.

What was the official code name of the May 2011 raid in which Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan?

Neptune Spear was a nod to the trident on the SEALs' Special Warfare insignia, the three-pronged weapon carried by the Roman god of the sea.

Which Navy rear admiral, a computer pioneer who helped create COBOL, has a destroyer named in her honor?

Grace Hopper retired at 79 as the oldest active-duty commissioned officer in the Navy, at a ceremony held aboard its oldest commissioned ship.

Which future senator, the son and grandson of four-star admirals, was shot down over Hanoi in 1967?

John McCain stayed a prisoner until 1973, having refused an early release offered after his father took command of all US forces in the Vietnam theater.

Which Naval Academy graduate and naval aviator became the first American in space aboard Freedom 7 in 1961?

Alan Shepard later commanded Apollo 14 and, at 47, was the oldest of the twelve Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon.

Which Naval Academy quarterback won the 1963 Heisman Trophy and later led the Dallas Cowboys to two Super Bowl titles?

Roger Staubach was found to be color-blind at the Academy, so he was commissioned into the Supply Corps and served a tour in Vietnam before joining Dallas in 1969.

Which stealth destroyer, commissioned in 2016, had a first commanding officer named Captain James Kirk?

USS Zumwalt has a radar cross-section similar to a fishing boat's despite its size, thanks to a wave-piercing inverted bow and an inward-sloping hull.

Which admiral, nicknamed '31-Knot' while leading WWII destroyers, is the namesake of a class of Aegis destroyers?

In the usual telling, Arleigh Burke's nickname began as a taunt, after a blocked boiler tube held his squadron to 31 knots instead of the 34 or more it could make.

Which US Navy commodore, the first Jewish officer of that rank, fought to end flogging and bought Monticello?

Uriah Levy, an admirer of Thomas Jefferson, paid $2,700 for the long-neglected estate in 1834 and set about having it repaired and preserved.

Which word for a ship's left side did the US Navy adopt in 1846 because 'larboard' sounded too much like starboard?

Port replaced it two years after Britain's Royal Navy made the same change, though whalers went on saying larboard well into the 1850s.

In US Navy tradition, a 'pollywog' becomes what after an initiation ceremony on first crossing the equator?

Shellback initiations were once brutal: as late as World War II they could include jabs from an electrified piece of metal known as the Devil's Tongue.

Which two-word naval signal, sent by flag hoist or voice radio, tells a US Navy crew 'well done'?

Bravo Zulu comes from an Allied tactical signals publication, and putting the word NEGAT in front of it turns the praise into 'not well done'.

Which Navy slang word for gossip first named a cask of drinking water kept on a ship's deck?

Scuttlebutt joins 'butt', a barrel, to 'scuttle', the hole cut in it for a dipper; sailors are traditionally said to have swapped rumors around it.

Which US Navy sailors earn a pin nicknamed 'Dolphins' after about a year spent qualifying on every system aboard?

Submariners of every rank and job go through the qualification with no exemptions, and the insignia they earn comes in silver or gold.

What name do Navy SEAL candidates give the five and a half days of continuous training early in their BUD/S course?

Hell Week allows each candidate at most four hours of sleep in all, while they run more than 200 miles and train for over 20 hours a day.

Which country has leased the US Navy its oldest overseas base since 1903 but refuses to cash the rent checks?

Cuba has protested the American presence at Guantanamo Bay ever since 1959, calling the lease illegal, and leaves the yearly rent checks undeposited.

Which US Navy airship, a flying aircraft carrier for Sparrowhawk fighters, crashed off New Jersey in 1933, killing 73?

USS Akron went down in a thunderstorm with only three survivors among the 76 aboard, the greatest loss of life in any airship crash.

The Naval Academy statue nicknamed Tecumseh is a bronze copy of a ship's figurehead depicting which Lenape leader?

Tamanend was carved as the figurehead of the warship USS Delaware, and the class of 1891 paid for the bronze copy that replaced the decaying wood in 1930.

Which Secretary of the Navy banned alcohol aboard US Navy ships with General Order 99 in June 1914?

Josephus Daniels's ban outlasted national Prohibition: after 1933 the Navy went on keeping its ships dry, apart from limited access to beer.