The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle fought between
June 4 and June 7, 1942, six months after Japan’s attack on
Pearl Harbor.

The battle is considered one of the most significant naval
battles in history, as it shifted the balance of power in the
Pacific in favor of the United States.

During the four-day sea-and-air battle, the outnumbered U.S.
Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft
carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown, to
the previously invincible Japanese navy.

When the Battle of Midway ended, Japan had lost four carriers,
a cruiser and 292 aircraft, and suffered an estimated 2,500
casualties.

On this day in 1862, the US Navy formally commissions its
first hospital ship, the Red Rover. A captured Confederate
side-wheel steamer, it treats 374 patients in its first seven
months of service on the Mississippi, 332 of whom were
discharged; 37 die and five desert.

PT-109 was a US Navy patrol torpedo boat commanded by
Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy during World War
II in the Solomon Islands.

His actions in rescuing his crew after the sinking earned him
a Navy and  Marine Corps Medal and contributed to his later
political career.             
         
        
   
     
       
         
     
       
        
       

PT-109, a film dramatizing this story, starring Cliff
Robertson as Kennedy, opened in 1963.

LONDON (AP) — When a schoolboy going for a run found the
ribs of a wooden ship poking through the dunes of a remote
Scottish beach, it sparked a hunt by archaeologists, scientists
and local historians to uncover its story.

Through a mix of high-tech science and community research,
they have an answer. Researchers announced Wednesday that
the vessel is very likely the Earl of Chatham, an 18th-century
warship that saw action in the American War of Independence
before a second life hunting whales in the Arctic — and then a
stormy demise.

“I would regard it as a lucky ship, which is a strange thing to
say about a ship that’s wrecked,” said Ben Saunders, senior
marine archaeologist at Wessex Archaeology, a charity that
helped community researchers conduct the investigation.

Saunders said “I think if it had been found in many other
places, it wouldn’t necessarily have had that community
drive, that desire to recover and study that material, and
also the community spirit to do it.”
 

On July 17, 1944, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine near San
Francisco experienced a catastrophic explosion when two
ammunition ships, the SS E.A. Bryan and the SS Quinault
Victory, detonated while loading munitions for Pacific troops.