US Navy Recruit Training Command - Keel Yearbook (Great Lakes, IL)

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Between the wars the Navy devoted its meager resources and manpower, ships and funds to research and development in aviation and submarine warfare. Stricken at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines in 1941, practically blockaded by German sub- marines operating off our East coast ports, the nation built, in three short years, the most powerful naval force in the history of the world. The indomitable spirit of our carrier dive bomber and torpedo plane pilots turned the tide of the war in the Pacific in the Battle of Midway, June 4th, 1942. From that day on, naval power in the Pacific slowly but surely drove the Japanese imperial forces into their home waters. Powerful Arn- phibious forces, protected alike by carrier air power and our submarine forces, swept the Japanese armies off the Pacific Islands. Our fast carrier task forces destroyed the Japanese Fleets. Possibly the greatest air battle in the naval annals was the Mariannas Turkey Shoot, in june 1944, in which the car- rier pilots of Admiral Marc Mitcher's Task Force 58 and anti- aircraft fire accounted for most of the 346 Japanese planes destroyed. After the war the exploits of our silent service, the men who fought under the sea in our submarines, was finally publicized. Ranging throughout the Pacific and into the very harbors of Japan itself our fighting submarines sank 214 Jap- anese naval vessels f577,626 tonsj and 1,178 merchant vessels 6,053,491 tonsj, a monument to the greatest submarine force in history. During this period the Atlantic Fleet was rapidly breaking the back of the German Navy by sweeping from the sea the greatest submarine menace ever to threaten this nation. Our convoys were supplying the allied armies in Europe and our ships were conducting landings in Sicily, Italy and finally Nor- mandy. The greatest two ocean Navy in the world had played a large part in bringing victory to America and the free world. And this war, like all wars, led to the development of new inventions, new techniques and new weapons conceived by American genius and perfected by men of vision. While industry was being welded into a mighty supply force, our Seabees, under- water demolition teams, amphibious sailors, marines and sup- porting army divisions were being welded into a team that spelled victory at sea. Added to the illustrious naval leaders of this great Navy, King, Nimitz, Halsey, Mitcher, McCain, Spruance, Lockwood, Fletcher, over three million other officers and men also served. The brainwork, the sacrifice, the devotion to duty of genera- tions past and present is the heritage on which we continue to build and improve our Navy. We are bound to the past only by the good that it has provided and the glorious traditions handed down to us. We are linked to the future by our respon- sibility to deliver to it the best we have received and the best we can produce. Victorious over Japan and Germany, there is still no world peace. Our Navy fought again in Korea for three years and the task forces are still spread across the seven seas. From Barry to Bainbridge to Burke the indomitable fighting spirit is the real strength of our naval heritage. AIR DEFENSE PACIFIC TASK FORCE OPERATION, WORLD WAR II. IRON VERSUS WOOD MARCH B, 1862, THE CSS VIRGINIA KEX USS MERRIMACIQ DEFEATS THE USS CUMBERLAND TO USHER IN THE AGE OF STEEL SHIPS.

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C Q M PA Y 3 9 9 2ND REGIMENT 22ND BATTALION LT F. J. Sullivan, USN LT R. A. Carlsen, USNFl Brigade Commander Regimental Commander Completed Training 5 September 1968 p 'Sf A ,wx .......... ,ings WO-1 D. J. Knall, USN D- L. Howerton, SFC Battalion Commander COFTYPSUY Commander James Wright Charles Talmen Ronald Williams Kenneth Stevens Allan Lombardo RPOC EPO First Platoon Leader MAA Company Clerk