Navy Trivia
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100 free Navy trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Navy trivia questions with answers. From two armed vessels authorized in October 1775 to nuclear supercarriers longer than three football fields, the US Navy has a history packed with great stories, and this quiz runs through the best of them. You will meet John Paul Jones and Old Ironsides, the burning of a captured frigate at Tripoli, the first duel of ironclads, the Great White Fleet, Pearl Harbor and Midway, the surrender aboard a battleship in Tokyo Bay, the first nuclear submarine under the North Pole, the SEALs, the Blue Angels, Annapolis traditions and the odd bits of Navy slang like the goat locker. The world's other navies get their turn too: Nelson at Trafalgar, the Spanish Armada and its fireships, Tsushima, Jutland, the hunt for the Bismarck and the question of who has the biggest fleet today. There are questions here for a sailor, a veteran, a history buff or anyone who has watched Top Gun a few too many times. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and primary sources before it went in, so you can argue about them at the bar with confidence.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The US Navy dates its birthday to the Continental Congress authorizing two armed vessels on which date?
October 13, 1775
The Navy only settled on that birthday in 1971; the Continental Navy itself was disbanded in 1785 after the war ended.
Q 02Which captain fought HMS Serapis from the Bonhomme Richard in 1779 and is called 'Father of the American Navy'?
John Paul Jones
Born plain John Paul in Scotland, he went to sea at 13 and later served as a rear admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy.
Q 03USS Constitution became 'Old Ironsides' by capturing which British frigate in 1812?
HMS Guerriere
She went on to take Java, Pictou, Cyane and Levant too, and public affection for the nickname repeatedly saved her from the scrapyard.
Q 04USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship afloat, is berthed in which city?
Boston
She was launched there in 1797 and sailed under her own power in 2012 to mark the bicentennial of her War of 1812 victories.
Q 05Who led the 1804 night raid that burned a captured American frigate in Tripoli harbor?
Stephen Decatur
He sailed in on the captured ketch Intrepid, disguised as a local trader, and became a national hero at 25.
Q 06At the 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads, the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia had been rebuilt from the hulk of which burned Union steam frigate?
USS Merrimack
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.
Q 07Who ordered the 16-battleship 'Great White Fleet' to sail around the world between 1907 and 1909?
Theodore Roosevelt
The hulls wore the Navy's white peacetime paint with gilded scrollwork on the bows, which gave the fleet its nickname.
Q 08Which commander of Japan's Combined Fleet planned the Pearl Harbor attack?
Isoroku Yamamoto
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.
Q 09Which battleship, where 1,177 died at Pearl Harbor, still lies beneath a memorial built across it?
USS Arizona
Every other battleship sunk that day except Utah was refloated, and six of them returned to fight in the war.
Q 10How many Japanese fleet carriers were sunk at the Battle of Midway in June 1942?
4
Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū all went down, along with the heavy cruiser Mikuma, after US codebreakers had tipped off the Pacific Fleet.
Q 11Which US carrier, patched up in days after the Coral Sea, was the only American flattop lost at Midway?
USS Yorktown
The Japanese believed she had already been sunk at the Coral Sea, so her sudden reappearance helped throw off their planning.
Q 12Asked where the April 1942 Doolittle raiders had launched from, FDR joked they came from which fictional place?
Shangri-La
The 16 B-25 bombers had actually flown off the carrier Hornet; the Navy later named an Essex-class carrier after the fictional valley.
Q 13The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on 2 September 1945 on the deck of which battleship?
USS Missouri
She was the last battleship the United States ever commissioned and has been a museum ship at Pearl Harbor since 1998.
Q 21Which Secretary of the Navy founded the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845 and names its giant dormitory?
George Bancroft
He was also a noted historian; the campus sits on the grounds of the old Fort Severn where the Severn River meets Chesapeake Bay.
Q 22What is the greased obelisk Naval Academy plebes climb at the end of their first year called?
Herndon Monument
The greasing tradition began in 1955; the monument sits across from the Naval Academy Chapel, whose dome is visible across Annapolis.
Q 23What is the Naval Academy's live mascot named, adopted after Navy first beat Army in football in 1890?
Bill
Navy adopted the goat as its mascot in 1890, the year it beat Army in their very first football meeting.
Q 14USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, made history in August 1958 by doing what?
Passing submerged beneath the North Pole
Launched in 1954 and sponsored by Mamie Eisenhower, she has been preserved as a museum ship in Groton, Connecticut, since 1986.
Q 15Which officer, who supervised the building of USS Nautilus, is known as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy"?
Hyman Rickover
He stayed on active duty until 1982, by which point he had served 63 years, longer than any other officer in Navy history.
Q 16Which 1961 carrier, the first nuclear-powered one, is still the longest naval vessel ever built at 1,123 feet?
USS Enterprise
She ran on eight reactors, was the only ship of her class, and served for over 55 years before decommissioning in 2017.
Q 17The Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team took its name from what?
A New York nightclub
The 1946 team spotted the club's advertisement in The New Yorker; the Blues are the second-oldest formal aerobatic team in the world.
Q 18Which jet did the Blue Angels switch to for their six-aircraft demonstration in 2021?
F/A-18 Super Hornet
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.
Q 19The first two Navy SEAL teams were commissioned in January of which year?
1962
Team One went to Coronado, California and Team Two to Little Creek, Virginia; both grew out of the WWII-era Underwater Demolition Teams.
Q 20What does the acronym SEAL stand for in 'Navy SEALs'?
Sea, Air, and Land
The name spells out the three environments the teams are trained to operate in; their notoriously brutal selection course includes 'Hell Week'.
Q 24The 'Navy Hymn', written by William Whiting in 1860 and inspired by Psalm 107, is known by what title?
Eternal Father, Strong to Save
It is also the Royal Navy's hymn and was sung at the funerals of several US presidents and of Prince Philip.
Q 25The annual Army–Navy football game, first played in 1890, is most often held in which neutral city?
Philadelphia
It is roughly equidistant from the two academies; the game has been played every year without interruption since 1930.
Q 26TOPGUN was established in 1969 at which California naval air station?
NAS Miramar
Its first headquarters was a stolen modular trailer; the school moved to Nevada in 1996 and was immortalized by the 1986 Tom Cruise film.
Q 27The Navy's Seabees take their name from the initials of what?
Construction Battalion
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.
Q 28Alongside 'We build, we fight', which two-word slogan did the Seabees famously adopt as their motto?
Can Do
Wartime signs added the boast that the difficult they did at once, while the impossible took a little longer.
Q 29The first Fleet Week was held in 1935 in which city, alongside an exposition it hosted?
San Diego
Some 114 warships and 400 military aircraft turned up; today the best-known Fleet Weeks are in New York and San Francisco.
Q 30Which admiral, killed at Trafalgar in 1805, signalled 'England expects that every man will do his duty'?
Horatio Nelson
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.