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Creation by the Continental Congress of the Continental Navy
Glenn Grasso, former instructor at the United States Coast Guard Academy talks about the creation of the Continental Navy during America’s war for independence. Grasso analyzes the U.S. strategy of privateering vessels to raid British commerce and supply ships.Historically the Unites States Navy recognizes October 13, 1775 as the date of its official establishment. Naval history dates all the way back to the pilgrims who first settled the New World. As a colony of England, maritime commerce was of primary importance. Their main goal was to intercept shipments from the British and disrupt the maritime commercial trade. Success was rare with little funding, a lack of resources with primarily a fleet of converted merchantmen with little naval training. -
Treaty of Paris Ratified by Congress
This treaty, signed on Sept. 3, 1783, between the American colonies and Great Britain, ended the American Revolution and formally recognized the United States as an independent nation. The talks began in April 1782 and the treaty is named for the city in which it was negotiated and signed. This is significant in the determining which direction the country would lean toward in the coming years. It appeared there was nothing to fear on any front. Peace and prosperity were the thoughts of the day. -
Naval Disarmament
Early congress wanted to dissolve the Navy. They wanted to get rid of the navy because there was a change of goals from war to peace, more domestic and fewer foreign interests and no fund. There were approximately 65 vessels that served at one time or another with the Continental Navy, of those only 11 survived the war without having been destroyed, sunk, or captured. and by 1785 the Continental Navy was disbanded and the remaining ships were sold. It was done and peace was the order of the day. -
Naval Act of 1794
The Naval Act of 1794 was signed in March of 1794, with the House of Representatives and the Senate passing the "Act to provide a Naval Armament." It authorized the President to acquire six frigates, four of 44 guns each and two of 36 guns each, by purchase or otherwise.. It also specified how many crew members would be necessary and what their pay and daily rations would be. American ships were being captured; this had not been a problem prior because we were protected by the British Empire. -
Treaty of Mortefontaine
A treaty between France and the USA signed on Sept. 30, 1800, in Mortefontaine, France.Ended a long conflict between the two countries, during which ships of the French fleet had constantly attacked American vessels, especially after the conclusion in 1794 of an Anglo-American treaty. The Quasi War was an undeclared war mostly fought on the seas against the French Republic and was sometimes referred to the Pirate Wars. After the break with Britian the US declared neutrality with regard to the tensions between the French and British. -
War of 1812
It was on inland waters, however, that the American navy achieved its most notable triumphs—victories that had an important bearing on the course of the war.War of 1812, armed conflict between the United States and Great Britain. This war followed a period of great stress between the two nations as a result of the treatment of neutral countries by both France and England. The Navy fought its best on the seas and took the fight all the way to the British shores. It was, however, the first months of 1814 held litte hope for the Americans. The finances of the government had been somewhat restored in 1813, but there was no guarantee of future supplies. -
Opening of the Naval Academy
In 1850 the Naval School became the United States Naval Academy. A new curriculum went into effect requiring midshipmen to study at the Academy for four years and to train aboard ships each summer.Through the efforts of the Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, the Naval School was established without Congressional funding, at a 10-acre Army post named Fort Severn in Annapolis, Maryland, on October 10, 1845, with a class of 50 midshipmen and seven professors. The curriculum included mathematics and navigation, gunnery and steam, chemistry, English, natural philosophy, and French. -
Civil War
[During the Civil War, several important naval actions made major impacts on the course of the war. By the end of the war, the Union Navy had about 1041 ships and other craft.[](U.S. Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. 30 Volumes. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1894–1922. National Archives Microfilm Publication M275. Digital versions: Internet Archives. Family History Books. FHL book 973 M2unr; films 1490058–88.)In the spring of 1861, decades of simmering tensions between the northern and southern United States over issues including states' rights versus federal authority, westward expansion and slavery exploded into the American Civil War. The election of the anti-slavery Republican Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede from the Union to form the Confederate States of America; four more joined them after the first shots of the Civil War were fired. -
Decline of Navy Again
By the 1870s, the U.S. Navy was a collection of antiquated, obsolescent men-of-war, notable for their quaintness rather than their prowess as warshipsAfter the Civil War, the Navy began a drawdown period. A year and a half after the war, the number of Navy ships declined, with only 56 in active service. World conditions made our Country aware that the Navy was small and technologically outdated. In addition, while wooden ships were easier to build but iron ships that were steam powered were much more efficient. This decline in the Navy was, in part, due to the interest above the seas thus prompting the first ship to launch air balloons. -
The New Navy: Beginning of the Oceanic Period
U.S. policymakers saw commerce as the lifeblood of a modern industrializing nation.The "New Navy" began its mission known as the Oceanic Period in the early 1980's. The U.S. Navy would no longer serve only the interests of the commercial community but would protect the nation as a whole. A strong navy would allow the US to command the shores to the continent and prevent threats from European powers and would also allow the US to play a more forceful role in the Far East, keeping open the door of commercial opportunity. The U.S. Navy quickly found itself assigned new missions. -
Spanish American War
The Spanish-American War helped define the new roles of the navy.The Spanish-American War was a brief, intense conflict that effectively ended Spain's worldwide empire and gained the US several new possessions in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Preceded by a naval tragedy, the explosion of USS Maine at Havana, Cuba, the Spanish-American War featured two major naval battles, one in the Philippines and the other off Cuba, plus several smaller naval clashes.The Navy also provided essential support for U.S. Army and Marine Corps on shore. -
The Great White Fleet
The Great White Fleet was the popular nickname for the United States Navy battle fleet that completed a circumnavigation of the globe from 16 December 1907 to 22 February 1909 by order of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. It consisted of 16 battleships divided into two squadrons, along with various escorts. Roosevelt sought to demonstrate growing American military power and blue-water navy capability.In the years after the war, it was felt that with the new aquisitions of land the US needed to stregthen its Naval Fleet. Under President Theodore Roosevelt, US Navy built eleven new battleships between 1904 and 1907. The growing tensions with Japan was the catalyst for the fleet circulating the globe in a good will mission. This was not met with unanimous approval. Some felt it was not wise to have the fleet gone so long while others did not think there was enough funding for such an adventure. -
World War I
By 1913, when Woodrow Wilson became president, support for a strong navy had become a bipartisan issue. Behind a shield provided by U.S. naval power, Wilson held the European powers at bay while naval and ground forces sought to preserve order in the Western Hemisphere. In 1914 U.S. marines and sailors returned to Veracruz. That same year, as the Panama Canal finally opened, allowing the Atlantic and Pacific fleets to become mutually reinforceable, World War I began in Europe.The European war threatened U.S. freedom of the seas. Wilson tried to maintain a position of neutrality and bring waring factions to the bargaining table. By 1916 the US was frustrated with the actions of the powers overseas and launched a massive naval building program with the goal of making the Navy second to none. Germany rejecting peace tried to goad the Mexicans into a conflict with the US. Our reaction was to declare war. U.S. Navy forces were sent overseas to ensure allied success. -
Retrenchment and Expansion
<ahref='http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/30478480#pstart2473445' >Vice-Admiral Sir William Creswell, speak-ing at a meeting of the Navy League to-night, said that navy reductions should not be of a kind that would kill any portion of the navy, root or branch. A nucleus should be left for expansion when times improved.</a>The period between the world wars was generally a time of retrenchment and stagnation for US Navy. By 1921, more than 375 ships had been decommissioned and the shore enlistment was quickly declining. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, money was appropriated for naval construction, which made improvements in shore facilities while providing desperately needed jobs for unemployed civilians. When the WWIIbroke out in overseas in 1939, there fewer than 200 officers on active duty. -
Pearl Harbor Attacked
the Japanese continued the struggle until the entry of the Soviet Union into the war and the dropping of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki shocked Japan into surrender.After the attach on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, this act of war prompted the naval construction level to go full force expanding far beyond continental boundaries. More than 10,000 reserve officers were recruited from the civilian population in the first half of the 1940s. Civilian workers were replaced with recruited construction workers overseas creating the force known as the Seabees. Without the Seabees, the extensive advanced base construction program would not have been possible. -
End of World War II
In the Pacific Ocean, the United States fought what was primarily a naval conflict. For the U.S. Navy the war against Japan marked the service's final coming of age. Having operated for nearly a century and a half in the shadow of the Royal Navy, the U.S. Navy now secured for itself the mantle of naval leadership. In July 1945, the heads of government in Britain, Soviet Union and the United States conferred and were told that Japan was willing to negotiate a peace, but unwilling to accept unconditional surrender. An ultimatum was issued, calling for unconditional surrender and a just peace. When Japan ignored the ultimatum, the United States decided to use the atomic bomb.With the defeat of the Germans, the US turned its complete attention to the Pacific campaign. It was decided by the Allied Forces that it would be necessary to quash the German army so all focus could be on Japan and the war in the Pacific. The US Navy was used mostly for transportation of the Marines to beach fronts. Many submarines were lost in the war. When the European theater ended attention was turned to the Pacific. After many battles, atomic bombs were dropped and Japan surrendered. -
Korean War
Though America's Armed Forces had suffered from several years' of punishing fiscal constraints, the end of World War II just five years earlier had left a vast potential for recovery. U.S. materiel reserves held large quantities of relatively modern ships, aircraft, military equipment and production capacity that could be reactivated in a fraction of the time necessary to build them anew. More importantly, the organized Reserve forces included tens of thousands of trained people, whose World War II experiences remained reasonably fresh and relevant.In 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea, this act brought about a military intervention against the aggressors which was the catalyst for immediate military and naval involvement by the US. Surprising in it's length, this “police action” caused the Cold War to increase in intensity. Just when it looked as if things were going well for the UN forces after an amphibious invasion, China and the Soviet Union stepped in on the side of their Communist neighbor. Continued... -
Korean War Continued
Negotiations began and lasted for two more years while the US Navy provided extensive air and gunfire support, minesweeping along with amphibious and logistics efforts. -
Vietnam War
The Navy's ability to project it fire power on shore was important to the strategic use of the US military power. In addition, the ability to control the coastal waters and provide major logistical support ensured the a significant role and presence of the US Navy in the Vietnam War; making a huge effort on both operational and tactical levels. Carriers played a major role in the defense of South Vietnam with the bombing of strategic targets stopping necessary supplies from reaching the North. -
Cold War
Over the course of the Cold War, cynicism toward Washington would grow. Fights over civil rights, welfare, and environmentalism in the 1950s and 60s would collide with corrupt government, a bad economy, and a weak military in the 1970s. By the 1980s, when mid-life Baby Boomers were full stakeholders in American life, patriotism was renewed. America spoke with increased confidence at home and abroad. And by decade’s end the Iron Curtain crumbled. In its dust, Americans, who had grown up knowing little but a divided world, were The Cold War was a constant state of political and military tension between powers of the United States and NATO (the Western Bloc) and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact (Eastern Bloc). While there were not the only governments involved, they were the predominant players in the Cold War. The constant weight of this war of will has given much rise to the technological advances within the Navy. Continued... -
Cold War Continued
President Reagan promised to build a supreme navy and began this mission immediately after his inauguration with Naval shipbuilding and air craft procurement increasing two fold with increases in pay and weapons modernization the Navy was well on its way to being an assertive Navy with a new strategy. -
Global War on Terrorism
Under the National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD-41), we are continuing to cultivate relationships and develop capabilities to maximize the advantage that operating in the maritime domain brings to homeland security. Because more than 90 percent of the world’s commerce moves by sea, protection of merchant shipping from potential terrorist networks is critical. United States naval forces are well trained to carry out the mission of deterring, delaying, and disrupting the movement of terrorists and terrorist-related material at sea. However, the United States cannot accomplish this monumental task alone. We are broadening our relationship with the navies of international allies to prosecute the GWOT. We are expanding the Proliferation Security Initiative to other countries and working bilateral boarding initiatives in all hemispheres.The future of maritime security depends more than ever on international cooperation and understanding. There is no one nation that can provide a solution alone. A global maritime partnership is required that unites maritime forces, port operators, commercial shippers, and international, governmental and non-governmental agencies to address mutual concerns. Ongoing discussions of a “1,000-ship navy” continue. The name itself captures the scope of the effort. Continued... -
Global War on Terrorism Continued...
The concept is not actually about having 1,000 international ships at sea. Rather, it is more about capabilities, such as
speed, agility and adaptability. Membership in this navy is purely voluntary and has no legal or encumbering ties. It is a free-form, self-organizing network of maritime partners – good neighbors interested in using the power of the sea to unite, rather than to divide.
