Lt. Edward Henry (“Butch”) O’Hare took off from the aircraft
carrier Lexington in a raid against the Japanese position at
Rabaul and minutes later became America’s first WWII flying
ace, shooting down five enemy bombers.

    
President Franklin D. Roosevelt congratulates Lieutenant
(j.g.) Edward H. O’Hare, United States Navy, on being
presented the Medal of Honor (below) at the White
House, Washington, D.C., 21 April 1942.         
       

Lieutenant Commander Edward Henry O’Hare
(March 13, 1914 – November 26, 1943

O’Hare went missing in action on November 26, 1943, and
was declared dead a year later. His widow Rita received
her husband’s posthumous decorations, a Purple Heart
and the Navy Cross on November 26, 1944.       
 

HONOLULU (AP) — Warren ‘Red’ Upton, the oldest living
survivor of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and
the last remaining survivor of the USS Utah, has died. He
was 105. 

Kathleen Farley, of the California state chair of the Sons
and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors said Upton died
Wednesday at a hospital in Los Gatos, California, after
suffering a bout of pneumonia.

The Utah, a battleship, was moored at Pearl Harbor when
Japanese planes began bombing the Hawaii naval base 
in the early hours of Dec. 7, 1941, the attack propelled
the U.S. into World War II.

At 2:10 p.m. on December 5, 1945, five U.S. Navy Avenger
torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 took off from the Ft.
Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-
hour training mission.

After having completed their objective, the flight was to go
due east for an additional 67 miles, then turn north for 73
miles, and back to the air station after that, totaling a
distance of 120 miles. They never returned.

Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron,
who had been flying in the area for more than six months,
reported that his compass and backup compass had failed
and that his position was unknown.

After two more hours of confused messages from the fliers,
a distorted radio transmission from the squadron leader was
heard at 6:20 p.m., apparently calling for his men to prepare
to ditch their aircraft simultaneously because of lack of fuel.

The Naval School was founded in Annapolis, Maryland in the wake
of a shocking scandal at sea on this day in history, Oct. 10, 1845.

The renowned military institute was renamed the U.S. Naval
Academy in 1850.

The school was established following the discovery of a planned
mutiny on the Atlantic Ocean aboard U.S. Navy brig Somers. 

U.S. Naval Academy in 1853.

The 17th U.S. Secretary of the Navy
(1845 – 1846)

Civil War hero Admiral David Dixon Porter
became superintendent in 1865.

USS Constitution and Santee tied up in the background.
Other ships not identified.

    
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963)

In the early hours of August 2, 1943, a Japanese destroyer
rammed an American PT (patrol torpedo) boat, No. 109,
slicing it in two. The destruction is so massive other
American PT boats in the area assume the crew is dead.

Two crewmen were, in fact, killed, but 11 survived, including
Lt. John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy’s actions in saving his surviving crew after PT-109
was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer earned him
several commendations and made him a war hero.

A torpedo from John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 rests some 1,200
feet (360 meters) underwater in the Solomon Islands. Key
details from the torpedo and its nearby launching tube
helped identify this wreck site as that of the World War II
boat.