The United States Navy is 240 Years Old
Please click here to see the blog post celebrating the U.S. Marine Corps birthday.
On October 13, 1775, only a few months after the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress established the Continental Navy. Initially, it was no match for the powerful British Royal Navy, but a few years later, with the aid of its French allies, the Continental Navy achieved some naval victories. After the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, the Continental Navy was disbanded.
According to the U.S. Navy’s historical timeline, “Piracy, aggression by other nations, and the need for a stronger national defense led to the Naval Act of 1794 by Congress. Six ships were constructed, including “Old Ironsides” herself, the USS Constitution.” Between 1798 and 1800, an undeclared war — also known as the Quasi-War — broke out on the high seas between the United States and France. “Concerns over how the Department of War managed the Navy during the Quasi-War led to the creation of the Department of The Navy.”
During the American Civil War the U.S. Navy used blockades to seize control of rivers held by the Confederacy. The U.S. Navy was instrumental in the defeat of Japan during World War II. The 21st century U.S. Navy is the largest, most powerful blue-water navy in the world and deploys to areas all over the world including East Asia, Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. As of September 2015, the U.S. Navy has 14 aircraft carriers, 272 combat ships, more than 3,700 aircraft and 328,186 personnel on active duty around the world.
The VLB Voices of Veterans oral history program contains many interviews with U.S. Navy Veterans including L.D. Cox, Victor Egger, Robert Hebert and Hunter Hayes.
Seaman First Class L.D. Cox
L.D. Cox, a member of the Navy from August 1944 to March 1946, served as a helmsman aboard the USS Indianapolis and took part in the battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. He was also part of the crew that delivered the atomic bomb aboard the USS Indianapolis. The Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and sunk, leaving Cox and his fellow shipmates to spend five harrowing days at sea before being rescued.
Lieutenant Commander Victor Egger
Victor Egger was born in El Paso in 1921 and from the age of 13, he dreamed of becoming a naval officer. He joined the U.S. Navy in September 1939 and attended basic training at the Naval Base San Diego in California. By November of 1939, he was assigned to a Brooklyn-class light cruiser called the USS Philadelphia where he served for two years.
“When I reported to the Philadelphia, I was a junior sailor and we had to sleep in hammocks. We could put up our hammocks at 10 o’clock at night, in the mess hall, and had to take them down at 5 o’clock in the morning, so we didn’t get much sleep. We had the admiral aboard, it was a flagship. The officers were very formal and everything was up to Navy standards,” remembered Mr. Egger.
In 1941, Egger was promoted to 3rd class petty officer while aboard the USS Hornet, an 825 foot Yorktown-class aircraft carrier. He was present on the USS Hornet when the Doolittle Raiders began their daring mission to bomb mainland Japan for the first time during WWII on April 18, 1942. Egger continued to serve in the U.S. Navy until his retirement as a lieutenant commander in 1959.
Gunner’s Mate Robert Hebert
Robert Hebert was born and raised in Houston, Texas. Hebert’s grandfather was a Veteran, and his father served in the Navy during World War II in the Pacific theater. Inspired by his family’s service, Hebert considered it an honor and a duty to join the military himself. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Navy in February, 1969, and attended basic training in San Diego, California.
Hebert excelled at marksmanship and after graduating from basic training as a Gunner’s Mate, he was assigned to Long Beach, California to train on coastal patrol boats. Only a year after starting boot camp, Hebert was in Vietnam on a swift boat patrolling the Cua Viet river on the southern border of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. Hebert served until 1971 and went on to a full career as a Houston police officer before retiring.
HM3 Hunter Hayes
Hunter “Doc” Hayes grew up in Lufkin, Texas and joined the U.S. Navy in the summer of 2001. He was in boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Facility during the September 11th attacks.
“My ultimate goal was to be a doctor. My grandfather was in the Navy during World War II, and it’s just an attractive service because there’s so many things that you can do in the Navy. You can be on the ground, on a boat or a sub, you can fly, it’s really the best service,” said Hayes in his Voices of Veterans interview.
In July 2004, Hayes deployed to Iraq and served as a Navy Corpsman with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines. Hayes saw extensive combat and treated many badly wounded Marines. He returned to Texas and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin.
The VLB Voices of Veterans oral history program seeks to record the stories of Texas Veterans and archive the transcripts for future researchers, historians, genealogists and the general public. For more information visit www.VoicesofVeterans.org or contact the program coordinator, Monica Brown, at 1–800–252-VETS (8387) or monica.brown@glo.texas.gov.
