The
The Continental Navy, was established in October, 1775, to support
the Continental Army during the War of Independence
(1775-83). Its main activity was to attack British merchant shipping
during the conflict. It was disbanded in 1784 but was re-established
by Congress in 1798 to protect U.S. merchant ships from pirate attacks.
The United States Navy played an important contribution to the Union
victory during the American Civil War
by mounting a blockade of Confederate seaports.
On the outbreak of the First World War, the
United States Navy, with its 300 warships, was the third largest in
the world. These warships were used to protect merchant and troopships
across the Atlantic. Some warships were also sent to the Mediterranean
but most remained on the Atlantic seaboard of the USA. The US Navy's
most serious wartime losses were the cruiser San Diego sunk
by mines from a U-boat off New York, and two destroyers lost on anti-submarine
work in European waters.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on 7th December, 1941,
Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a building
programme that eventually made it the largest navy in the world. In
1941 the United States Navy had 300,000 officers and by the end of
the war this had reached 3,000,000.
Since the Second World War the United States
Navy has maintained its position as the largest and most powerful
in the world. It built the world's first nuclear-powered submarine
in 1954 and the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in 1961.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
