US Naval History Podcast

The fighting now begins!

This is the story of a battle, of a disastrous retreat, and the conspiracy which followed.

This was a naval disaster of epic scale. More than American forty warships and transport vessels were destroyed. Another America naval disaster of this scale would not be repeated until the Pearl Harbor attacks on December 7, 1941, more than 162 years later.

This is the story of a battle, of a disastrous retreat, and the conspiracy which followed.

This was a naval disaster of epic scale. More than American forty warships and transport vessels were destroyed. Another America naval disaster of this scale would not be repeated until the Pearl Harbor attacks on December 7, 1941, more than 162 years later.

This is the story of a battle, of a disastrous retreat, and the conspiracy which followed.

This was a naval disaster of epic scale. More than American forty warships and transport vessels were destroyed. Another America naval disaster of this scale would not be repeated until the Pearl Harbor attacks on December 7, 1941, more than 162 years later.

Today the United States can drone strike it's enemies almost anywhere in the world with non-explosive Hellfire missiles that deploy blades to slice through a target with almost no risk to nearby civilians. It is the latest-and-greatest expression of an American quest for precision strike that began in WWI, carried through (with sometimes disastrous results) WWII, into the nuclear era of the Cold War, and continues today in the drone age.

Mines! Torpedoes! Improvised Explosive Devices at sea!

When the War of 1812 broke out there was no way that the United States could sustainably go toe-to-toe with the far larger royal Navy, and so Congress authorized “An Act to encourage the destruction of the armed vessels of war of the enemy.”

The Torpedo Act promised one-half the value of any ship to any private citizen or groups who used “torpedoes, submarine instruments, or any other destructive machine whatever” to destroy a British warship.

The act encouraged private citizens with financial incentives to attack the Royal Navy in new and spectacular fashion, and not just merely prey upon the British merchant marine like privateers.

Of course, The Torpedo Act also created a significant problem: it blurred the lines of who was a legal combatant and who was not by allowing civilians to change the methods of naval war. If American civilians launched attacks against Royal Navy warships, would British commanders respond in kind?

find out all of these answers and more in my conversation with Andrew Fageal.

Six years after the First Sumatran Expedition, another attack on American pepper traders occurred. The US East India Station squadron responded with what can only be called a "vigorous" enforcement of American interests on the Sumatran coastline (aka we bombarded and burned the offending village of Muckie to the ground).

Email me at usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com

The AUKUS pact between the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia aims to increase naval cooperation between the three countries in the face of a rising China. A major component involves the US and UK operating nuclear-powered submarines out of Australia by 2027, with plans to eventually transfer nuclear submarine technology to enable Australia to have its own nuclear submarine fleet.

Together with Megan Eckstein, naval warfare reporter at Defense News, and Bryant Harris, Congress reporter at Defense News we discuss the goals, benefits, challenges, and political dimensions around AUKUS including building up the submarine and naval industrial bases, training Australian sailors on nuclear reactor operations, congressional concerns around protecting technology, and the role of export controls. We also discuss the pact hopes to boost interoperability and enhanced deterrence to counter China's growing naval capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region.

I talk with guest Sal Mercogliano about fuel logistics during World War Two in the Pacific theater. We discuss the Japanese decision not to target fuel tanks at Pearl Harbor, how the US Navy adapted to fuel shortages in the early years of the war, and compare World War Two naval logistics capabilities to those of the US and Chinese navies today.

WWII naval aviation was miracle on many levels. The industrial output was immense. The technology evolved by leaps and bounds over the course of just a few years. The pilots got the glory, but the enlisted aviation maintenance rates were the men who kept the planes in the air. Before the war there was no real system to train these men, it was a small community of a few thousand men who learned on the job. But in the first three years of WWII the demands for this skilled labor exploded. The community expanded by more than 20x in three years and developed the complex systems naval aviation continues to rely on today to keep planes in the sky.

It has been an... exciting week in US Navy news and this episode breaks down the two big events:

1 - The USS Carney shot down 15 drones and 9 cruise missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen heading towards Israel.

2- The US currently has two carrier battle groups deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean in addition to other high end military assets to deter Iran from entering the broader conflict. Iranian proxy's have already launched drone attacks and missiles ar US bases across the Middle East and there is a non-trivial chance the US gets pulled into another Middle East conflict.

In this episode I have on James Ellman, the author of “MacArthur Reconsidered,” for an exploration of General Douglas MacArthur's military prowess (or should I say- lack thereof). James challenges the prevailing notion of MacArthur as a military genius as we delve into pivotal moments in MacArthur's career, including WWII and the Korean War. We analyze MacArthur's battlefield performance, examining both victories and defeats, and shed light on how his ability to shape public perception significantly impacted his legacy.

Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/MacArthur-Reconsidered-Look-Supreme-Commander/dp/081177158X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=187N7QMQRVK00

Ok, so it's not American Naval History, but this episode is too interesting not to post. With Professor Bret Devereaux I discuss the essentially non-Mahanian nature of ancient naval warfare. Because galleys were both cheap to build (but expensive to maintain) and had very limited operational endurance, the missions they could perform and the strategic use of galley navies was extremely different than Age of Sail and modern navies. For anyone used to thinking about naval power in the modern era this is going to be a paradigm shifting discussion!

Note: This is the short version of this episode which cuts out about 20 minutes of interesting side discussions. If you want to listen to a version with a few interesting tangents, check out the long version of this episode, it should be in your podcast feed immediately after this episode.

Ok, so it's not American Naval History, but this episode is too interesting not to post. With Professor Bret Devereaux I discuss the essentially non-Mahanian nature of ancient naval warfare. Because galleys were both cheap to build (but expensive to maintain) and had very limited operational endurance, the missions they could perform and the strategic use of galley navies was extremely different than Age of Sail and modern navies. For anyone used to thinking about naval power in the modern era this is going to be a paradigm shifting discussion!

Note: This is the long version of this episode containing about 20 minutes of interesting side discussions. If you want to listen to a more compact discussion, check out the short version of this episode, it should be in your podcast feed immediately before this episode.

Using a 36-foot motor launch, the 18 sailors, led by Lieutenant Commander John Morrill began their 2,000-mile journey through Japanese infested waters. With only a watch, compass, homemade sextant and a few maps it was an incredible feat of navigation. Their story is one of great audacity, where the generosity and bravery of the Filipino people, along with sheer luck played an integral role in the outcome of events.

Right after the Barbary Wars finished up, a new threat to American commerce emerged, this time around the world in Southeast Asia. This is the story of the expedition that was sent more than 12,000 miles across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans to conduct America's first military expedition in Asia to avenge the capture of the Friendship and slaughter of her crew.

In this episode of the U.S. Naval History Podcast, we tell the story of the sinking of the USS Memphis (/Tennessee!), recounting the tragic events leading to the ship's demise as it was dashed against the rocks of the Dominican Republic by rogue waves. Heroic acts by the crew saved most aboard, and this episode highlights the three sailors who earned Medals of Honor for their actions that day.

Released on the anniversary of her wrecking.

For a brief, glorious moment, the US Navy in 1865 was the biggest and most advanced in the world. It was an inflection moment in the history of naval shipbuilding. Sails were out, steam power, armor, and modern gunnery was in. But post-war, the United States took a 20-year innovation hiatus allowing the rest of the world to pass us by during this technological inflection point, only to begin to roar back in the 1880s, build a Navy worthy of the nation, defeated the Spanish, and became one of the great powers of the world. This is that story.

Join us on the U.S. Naval History Podcast as we explore the lesser-known prelude to World War Two in the North Atlantic. The not-so-neutral "neutrality patrols" in the North Atlantic were the United States Navy's prelude to WWII. They resulted in an escalating but undeclared shooting war with the German Kriegsmarine before the attack on Pearl Harbor. We talk about the strategic decisions, political implications, and how President Roosevelt and senior U.S. political leaders grappled with the possibility of the Royal Navy falling into German hands. These intense patrols featured the first confrontations between American and German naval forces, from the first exchange of live ammunition to Roosevelt's fiery declaration of shooting first.

On 29 July 1967, the USS Forrestal experienced a severe fire while operating on Yankee Station off the coast of North Vietnam that killed 134 Sailors, injured 161 more, and destroyed 21 aircraft. This was (and remains) the second worst loss of life on a U.S. Navy ship since World War II. The disaster resulted in a very long list of lessons learned -many of which can be better classified as “lessons forgotten” from carrier fires during World War II. This time, there was a very intentional institutional effort to cement these lessons into the Navy’s damage control psyche, training, and procedures which transformed the U.S. Navy’s approach to firefighting, damage control, and ordnance handling in the 50 years since the Forrestal disaster.

In this episode I answer a few questions that someone sent me via email on the concept of "unsinkable aircraft carriers" in the context of both WWII and China's artificial islands in the South China Sea. I elaborate on the parallels with WWII, explore how Japan's strategy of using islands as unsinkable carriers ultimately failed due to logistical challenges and limited plane production, and how that will differ from a US-China war. The episode also examines the advantages and disadvantages of islands compared to traditional carriers, considering factors such as repairability, defense, logistics, vulnerability, and concentration of forces.

RADM Mike Studeman, the the Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Director of the National Maritime Intelligence Integration Office talks about China’s grand plan for the South China Sea, Xi Jinping and the psychology of authoritarian states, how the Chinese military may have been the tail wagging the dog in China’s recent border skirmishes with India, who would/would not side with the United States in a fight over Taiwan, the consequences for China if they do invade Taiwan, and a whole lot more.

In this episode of the US Naval History podcast's South China Sea miniseries, we delve into the Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) and China's illegal maritime claims. I dissect the misleading claims made by the China Global Television Network and explore the significance of different maritime features, such as islands, rocks, and low tide elevations, and the rights they grant to countries under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Discover why China's artificial islands fail to establish legal entitlements and how FONOPs aim to uphold international maritime rules.

What force wears uniforms, has their boats built by the government, are paid by the government, and attacks an enemy's boats and ships? No...not the Navy. We're talking about China's Maritime Militia in the South China Sea. The maritime militia is inextricably aligned with Xi Jinping's rise to power and assertion of China's "rights" to all of the territory inside of the nine dashed lines. Pushing back against the maritime militia (technically "innocent fishermen") has been a ige challenge for the United States and every other country in the region over the past 30 years. This is the story of the rise of China's maritime militia, and other gray zone tactics in the South China Sea. Enjoy.

The South China Sea is home to numerous disputed islands, reefs, and shoals, which have been the subject of territorial claims and military standoffs between China and its neighboring countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Malaysia. In this episode, we will delve into the complex history of the South China Sea conflict, exploring its origins, key events, and the current state of affairs, as well as the geopolitical and economic implications of this ongoing dispute.

This is an breaking news podcast episode giving my brief thoughts and fears about the news that China will begin to inspect ships in Taiwan Strait. Taiwan says won't cooperate as this would be a major sovereignty violation. This has ling been my feared most-likely scenario for the beginnings of a US/China hot war over the Taiwan Strait. I really hope this is not the start of something hot, but looking back in 100 years, this may be noted as the day things started to go really off the rails for Cold War 2.0, if we're even lucky enough to call it a Cold War.

Link to Reuters article:

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-inspect-ships-taiwan-strait-taiwan-says-wont-cooperate-2023-04-06/

In  this episode I talk with Rear Admiral Terry McKnight about his time combating Somali piracy off the Gulf of Aden. Admiral McKnight was the first commander of CTF 151, the multinational naval task force set up to combat the threat of piracy for the first time since almost two centuries. We talk about the causes of piracy in Somalia, the strategies used to combat it, international politics surrounding the effort, a few spectacular heists, and new emerging pirate threats around the world.   

RADM McKnight's book, Pirate Alley: https://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Alley-Commanding-Force-Somalia/dp/1612511341

I have gotten a few questions which amount to "what will happen if China invades Taiwan?" and this is my attempt at an answer. It's obviously a lot of guesswork, but I think that it is fair to say that a massive worldwide economic and geopolitical upheaval is likely. Supply chains will be massively disrupted and a deep recession or even Great Depression 2.0 are likely outcomes. If China does manage to take Taiwan, they will probably face a insurgency that I'm sure the US government will be happy to help along, in addition to dealing with massive sanctions. 

The second half of the episode is a guest post by the excellent podcast ChinaTalk. The episode talks with Michael  O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and director of research at Brookings where  specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, and  American national security policy about: 

The limits of scenarios that predict the outcome of a China-Taiwan conflict.

What are intercontinental rail guns?

How sports teams that play each other in the same year can have different outcomes - and what this says about predictability.

Given all this, what’s the point of modelling exercises?

Go subscribe to ChinaTalk if you have not already, it's a great podcast for anyone interested in Chinese-American relations. 

In  this episode I talk with Professor David Silbey about the strategic rationale behind the Spanish American War, the Philippine Insurgency and the anti-guerrilla tactics the army honed on the frontier against Native Americans to fight the insurgency, and the boxer Rebellion in China. We discuss how the Boxer Rebellion echoes in Chinese policy towards the world today and dive into some of the strategic calculus that the Chinese government and military may be making today, and why they feel they need a navy and zone of influence.  Tune in for a fascinating discussion. 

In this episode I talk with historian Eric Jay Dolin about his research on the first decades of America's relationship with China as a new nation. It is the story of global markets, exploration, desperation, drugs, and war which set against the course of America's rise and China's decline in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, setting the stage for this third season of the US Naval History Podcast. 

The Soviet Union crumbled and left the United States Navy the undisputed greatest naval power on earth. Our naval might surpassed every other nation's combined. Naval might allowed the combined arms masterpiece of the first Gulf War, lightening-fast deployment to Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but these small wars proved to be disastrous to the surface fleet which saw underinvestment and readiness fall, even as SEAL Teams honed their deadly craft on America’s enemies around the world. 


On September 29, 2006, Michael Monsoor and three SEAL snipers watched vigilantly for enemy activity from their rooftop post in Ar Ramadi, Iraq. When a grenade thrown from insurgents bounced off Michael's chest, he could have escaped. Instead, he threw himself onto the live grenade, shielding his fellow soldiers from the immediate  explosion. Michael died thirty minutes later, having made the ultimate  sacrifice.

This is a somewhat unusual episode of the US Naval History Podcast- it is the first time I am not covering a specific era but a person, and the first time I have guests on the podcast. this episode discusses the life, mission, and ongoing legacy of one of our nation's great heroes is Rose Rea, co-author of Defend Us in Battle and retired US Navy CAPT Scott Smith who previously the commissioning Commanding Officer of the USS Michael Monsoor, one of three ultra-modern Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyers. 

This episode  tells the story of the the submarine force during the Cold War, where it was the coldest of cold forces, often operating in the Arctic waters off the Soviet coastline and far from the traditional Cold War hotspots. This is the story of a conventional force turning into a nuclear one, led by Admiral Rickover, with all of the genius and eccentricities he brought with him. Under his watch, the submarine force was transformed into the nation's primary nuclear deterrence shield and a covert espionage platform that spied on and played deadly games of cat-and-mouse with their Soviet counterparts.  

This episode tells the story of the the post-Vietnam Navy, an era where we were outgunned and outnumbered by the newly resurgent Soviet Navy. During the Soviet naval building boom between 1966 and 1970, when the US was unable to match it due to the resource drain of the Vietnam War, the Soviets commissioned 209 ships to the US Navy’s 88. The WWII era of ships which had sustained the US fleet since the end of the last world war were at the end of their useful life and were not being replaced. By contrast, the entire Soviet fleet was practically new, built for modern weapon systems and with none of the resource-draining end-of-life maintenance issues that plagued the US Navy. By 1978 the Soviet fleet boasted 740 major warships to the US Navy’s 289. It was a multi-decade effort culminating the The Maritime Strategy to regain parity with the Soviet fleet. 

This episode tells the story of the the Vietnam War brownwater operations, the fighting in the marshes, rivers, the deltas, and creeks of North and South Vietnam. This is also the story of the birth and formative operations of Navy SEAL teams in Vietnam, from daring POW rescue operations, to hostage snatch-and-grab operations taken beneath covering naval gunfire from destroyers offshore. 

This is that story...

This episode tells the story of the the Vietnam War at sea, of the most intense air battles of the Cold War, of bombardments against the Vietnamese coastline, and the politics  and history behind a war that was unpopular from day one and split the nation in two. 

This episode finishes the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. 

This episode starts Season 2 of the United States Naval History podcast, covering the Cold War, an era of small wars and big bombs looming over a geopolitical tinderbox balanced between east and west, between totalitarian communism and more or less liberal, more or less democracy. 

This episode finishes the story of the greatest naval war in world history, stretching across tens of millions of square miles of ocean, involving thousands of warships, dozens of carrier battles, submarine ambushes, bloody beach landings and harrowing night actions on land and at sea.

WWII in the Pacific tells the story of the greatest naval war in world history, stretching across tens of millions of square miles of ocean, involving thousands of warships, dozens of carrier battles, submarine ambushes, bloody beach landings and harrowing night actions on land and at sea.

Starting more than two years before the United States entered WWII following the attack on Pearl Harbor, this episode tells the story of WWII in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theaters, covering the Battle of the Atlantic, the Sinking of the Bismarck, the breaking of the Enigma codes, and all the way up to D-Day, the invasion of northern France on June 6th, 1944.

After WWI ended in November of 1918, the victorious world powers looked around realized that even the winners were losers. Yea, Britain and France gained a bunch of colonies and protectorates from the defeated Central Powers, and yeah they were theoretically going to get a reparations payday down the road, but HOLY SHIT, if you’ll excuse the language, it was not freaking worth it. France alone suffered over a million killed in action with another more than four million wounded. Europe’s economy was destroyed, governments had taken on mind-boggling amounts of debt to fight the war, and the fundamental problem of Great Power competition which led to the war had not been fundamentally altered.

This episode covers the United States as it emerges as a great power on the world stage. We took colonies from Spain and under young President Theodore Roosevelt the Navy expands to match out new Great Power status.