World War II
1939-1945The war that was won at sea. Convoy battles in the Atlantic, island-hopping in the Pacific, and the largest amphibious invasion in history. Naval power determined the outcome.
Context
WWII was the last war where naval supremacy meant everything. Control the sea lanes, and you control the supply lines. Lose the Atlantic, and Britain starves. Lose the Pacific, and Japan holds an empire. The vessels built during this era were produced in quantities that seem impossible today. The United States built 2,710 Liberty Ships in four years. Kaiser's shipyard in Richmond could assemble a ship in 42 days.
Defining characteristics
- Mass production
- Submarine warfare
- Amphibious operations
- Carrier aviation
- Convoy systems
Vessels (8)
Fletcher-class Destroyer
The Fletcher class was the destroyer that won the Pacific. 175 built, more than any other destroyer class in history, and they did everything. Convoy escort in the Atlantic. Shore bombardment at Normandy. Surface actions in the Solomons. Radar picket duty at Okinawa, where they were positioned as sacrificial early-warning stations against kamikaze attacks. Nineteen Fletchers were lost during the war. They weren't glamorous. They were the ships that showed up everywhere, did the ugly work, and took casualties doing it.
Gato-class Submarine
The Gato class fought the submarine war that strangled Japan. American submarines comprised less than 2% of the Navy's personnel and sank over 55% of Japan's merchant tonnage. The cost was staggering. 52 US submarines were lost during the war. 3,505 submariners killed. That's a 22% casualty rate, the highest of any branch of the US military in any war. One in five men who went on patrol in a fleet submarine did not come home. The Gato class bore the brunt of this campaign, running long patrols from Pearl Harbor and Australia into Japanese-controlled waters, operating alone, with no rescue if things went wrong.
Higgins Boat (LCVP)
Eisenhower said Andrew Higgins was 'the man who won the war for us.' The LCVP — Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel — was the boat that put soldiers on the beach. At Normandy, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, North Africa, Sicily. The bow ramp was Higgins' innovation, borrowed from boats he'd seen in the Louisiana bayou. When that ramp dropped, you were looking at the beach, and the beach was looking at you. 23,398 were built. Without them, no amphibious invasion was possible.
Liberty Ship (EC2-S-C1)
The Liberty Ship was the disposable lighter of maritime warfare. President Roosevelt called them 'ugly ducklings.' They were designed to be built fast, loaded fast, and sunk fast — with the expectation that America could build them faster than U-boats could sink them. That bet paid off. 2,710 Liberty Ships were built in four years. Kaiser's Richmond shipyard assembled SS Robert E. Peary in 4 days, 15 hours, and 29 minutes as a publicity stunt. The ships won the war of logistics. The merchant mariners who sailed them had the highest casualty rate of any U.S. service.
PT-109
PT-109 is the most famous small vessel in American military history because a future president survived its sinking. On August 2, 1943, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri cut PT-109 in half in the Blackett Strait. Lt. John F. Kennedy towed a badly burned crew member by clenching the strap of his life jacket in his teeth and swimming for four hours. The crew survived six days on a deserted island. PT boats were fast, fragile, and expendable. Their crews knew it.
USS Enterprise (CV-6)
USS Enterprise earned 20 battle stars, more than any other US warship in World War II. She fought at Midway, the Eastern Solomons, the Santa Cruz Islands, Guadalcanal, the Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. She was in the fight from two weeks after Pearl Harbor to the Japanese surrender. The Japanese reported sinking her three times. She kept coming back. Enterprise was the ship that proved the aircraft carrier had replaced the battleship as the dominant weapon in naval warfare. Her air groups sank more enemy tonnage than any other carrier's. And when the war ended, she was sold for scrap. No museum. No memorial. The most decorated warship in American history was cut apart for razor blades and rebar. It remains one of the great preservation failures in naval history.
USS Indianapolis
USS Indianapolis delivered the components of the atomic bomb that would destroy Hiroshima. On the return trip, without escort, a Japanese submarine sank her with two torpedoes. Of 1,196 crew, roughly 900 made it into the water. They floated for four and a half days before rescue. Sharks, dehydration, salt water poisoning, and exposure killed approximately 580 men. Only 316 survived. It remains the worst shark attack in recorded history and the single largest loss of life from a single ship in U.S. Navy history. Captain McVay was court-martialed — the only U.S. Navy captain court-martialed for losing a ship to enemy action during WWII. He killed himself in 1968.
USS Missouri
USS Missouri is where World War II ended. On September 2, 1945, the Japanese delegation came aboard and signed the instrument of surrender on her deck in Tokyo Bay. That single event made Missouri the most historically significant warship of the 20th century, but it shouldn't overshadow what she actually was: an Iowa-class battleship, the most powerful surface warship class ever built by the United States. She served in Korea, shelling coastal positions, and was recommissioned in the 1980s as part of Reagan's 600-ship Navy, refitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles and Harpoon anti-ship missiles. She fired Tomahawks and her 16-inch guns in Desert Storm in 1991. She is the last American battleship to have fired her guns in combat.