This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.
Naval Institute Press
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Index © 2016 by the United States Naval Institute
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First published by the Naval Institute Press in 2000.
First Naval Institute Press paperback edition published in 2016.
ISBN: 978-1-68247-154-8 (eBook)
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Cressman, Robert.
The official chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II / Robert J. Cressman
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.).
1. United States. Navy—History—World War, 1939–1945 Chronology. 2. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations, American Chronology. I. Title.
D773. C74 1999
940.54'5973'0202—dc21 99-39136
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First printing
CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgments
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Appendix
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
When I first came on board the Naval Historical Center Ship’s History Branch in May 1976, I received a copy of the United States Naval Chronology, World War II, published by the Naval History Division in 1955. Copies of the book were so scarce that I was enjoined to keep it practically under lock and key. I used that well-worn volume often over the ensuing years. When I transferred to the Contemporary History Branch to write about the Navy’s in-country operations during the Vietnam War, I little realized the detour I was about to take.
As the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II approached, Naval Historical Center staff, who knew of my interest in revising the work, asked me to undertake the task. The United States Naval Chronology, World War II was the shortest of those works produced by the major services and proved to be only a highly selective list of ship losses interspersed with cursory narrative noting significant events. The emphasis on commissioning dates for battleships and aircraft carriers served as a misleading yardstick for the growth of the Navy, especially when far more cruisers, destroyers, and amphibious ships and craft were commissioned or placed in service during World War II. In terms of coverage, the period between the onset of European hostilities in September 1939 and the attack on the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 was conspicuous by its brevity.
While the original had served its purpose as a reference work, tremendous strides made in the research and writing of World War II naval history revealed that merely republishing the old work would not suffice. Readers who compare this chronology with the earlier edition will find many additions. The original alleged omission of lost U.S. naval vessels below the size of tank-landing ships (LSTs), but motor torpedo boats (much smaller than LSTs) were mentioned while larger amphibious ships—notably tank landing craft (LCT) and infantry landing craft (LCI)—were not. Likewise district craft were slighted.
The earlier edition only recounted losses of the major combatants of the Axis navies, skewing the outcome of naval battles in which enemy ships were damaged but not sunk. For this new edition, wherever it could be ascertained what enemy ships were damaged in encounters with American ships or planes, the enemy vessel is named. The U.S. Navy’s operations against German blockade runners, largely omitted from the original, are also included. Reference to Vichy French naval vessels damaged or sunk by American submarines earned mention in the original, but the heavy losses suffered by the French in battle off Casablanca (November 1942) were not—an oversight rectified in this volume.
Because it was specifically a U.S. Navy chronology for World War II, the original editors made a conscious effort to not include the activities of merchant ships. But the continuation of trade by a neutral United States led to detention of U.S. merchantmen and the seizure of cargoes deemed contraband by belligerents. British interference with U.S. commerce during 1939 is important in comprehending the American attitude toward Great Britain at that point in the war. Incidents where U.S. merchantmen rescued British or French sailors from their torpedoed ships show that Americans sailed in dangerous seas carrying out their “business in great waters” before formal American entry into the conflict. Because historians have come to understand naval operations within the framework of a broader maritime perspective, U.S. merchant ship–related incidents have been included. While some might question broadening the scope, one cannot ignore those operations without doing disservice to the hazards faced by the oftunsung officers and enlisted men who served in the U.S. Navy’s Armed Guard detachments.
Likewise, the massive U.S. submarine campaign against Japanese merchant shipping originally was not addressed. Its omission in a U.S. Navy chronology is inexplicable when one considers that the war waged by the “Silent Service” played a significant role in disrupting Japan’s logistics to its far-flung empire.
Another aspect that proved bothersome was the vague terminology. The word “collision” seemed ambiguous when one checked ships’ war diaries and action reports, and often what was termed a “collision” was in effect no more than a nautical fender bender. Refueling at sea has always required seamanship of a high order, especially where conditions of wind and wave make it particularly hazardous. Ships occasionally come together during such encounters, as they would during reammunitioning or revictualing.
