1 June
1813 – HMS Shannon captures USS Chesapeake, Capt. James Lawrence. As the mortally wounded Lawrence was carried below, he ordered, “Tell the men to fire faster! Don’t give up the ship!” These words would live on in naval history. Oliver Hazard Perry honored his dead friend Lawrence when he had the motto sewn onto the private battle flag flown during the Battle of Lake Erie, Sept. 10, 1813.
1871 – Rear Adm. Rodgers lands in Korea with a party of Sailors and Marines and captures five forts to secure protection for U.S. citizens after Americans were fired upon and murdered.
1914 – General Order 99 prohibits alcohol aboard naval vessels, or at navy yards or stations.
1939 – Director of the Naval Research Laboratory, Capt. Hollis M. Cooley, proposes research in atomic energy for future use in nuclear powered submarine.
1944 – ZP-14 Airships complete first crossing of Atlantic by non-rigid lighter-than-air aircraft.
1954 – First test of steam catapult from USS Hancock (CV/CVA 19).
2 June
1941 – First escort carrier, USS Long Island (CVE 1), commissioned.
3 June
1785 – Order received to sell last ship remaining in Continental Navy, frigate Alliance. No other Navy were ships authorized until 1794.
1898 – Collier Merrimac sunk in channel leading to Santiago, Cuba in unsuccessful attempt to trap Spanish fleet. The crew was captured and later received the Medal of Honor.
1949 – Wesley A. Brown becomes the first African-American to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy.
1966 – Launch of Gemini 9, piloted by Lt. Cmdr. Eugene A. Cernan. The mission included 45 orbits over three days. Recovery was by USS Wasp (CVS 18).
4 June
1934 – USS Ranger (CV 4), first ship designed from the keel up as a carrier, is commissioned at Norfolk, Va.
1942 – Battle of Midway (June 4-6) begins. During battle, the four Japanese carriers which attacked Pearl Harbor are sunk; this decisive U.S. victory is a turning point in the Pacific war.
1944 – Hunter-killer group USS Guadalcanal (CVE 60) captures German submarine, U 505.
5 June
1794 – First officers of the U.S. Navy under the Constitution are appointed. The first six captains appointed to superintend the construction of new ships were John Barry, Samuel Nicholson, Silas Talbot, Joshua Barney, Richard Dale, and Thomas Truxtun.
1917 – First military unit sent to France, First Naval Aeronautical Detachment, reaches France aboard USS Jupiter (AC 3).
1945 – Typhoon off Okinawa damages many U.S. Navy ships.
6 June
1944 – In Operation Overlord, Allied invasion fleet (more than 2,700 ships and craft) land troops on Normandy beaches, the largest amphibious landing in history.
7 June
1819 – Lt. John White on merchant ship Franklin, anchored off Vung Tau, is first U.S. naval officer to visit Vietnam.
1917 – U.S. subchasers arrive at Corfu for anti-submarine patrols.
1942 – Battle of Midway ends with loss of USS Yorktown (CV 10).
1944 – Construction of artificial harbors and sheltered anchorages begins off Normandy coast.
1991 – Joint Task Force Sea Angel ends relief operations in Bangladesh after Cyclone Marian.
8 June
1830 – Sloop-of-war Vincennes becomes first U.S. warship to circle the globe.
1853 – Commodore Matthew Perry arrives at Uraga, Japan, to begin negotiations for a treaty with Japan.
1880 – Congress authorizes the Office of Judge Advocate General.
1937 – Observation of total eclipse of the sun by U.S. Navy detachment commanded by Navy Capt. J. F. Hellweg, participating in the National Geographic Society – United States Navy Eclipse Expedition at Canton Island in the Phoenix Islands, Pacific Ocean. USS Avocet (AVP 4) was assigned to this expediton.
1958 – Navy and post office deliver first official missile mail when USS Barbero (SS 317) fired Regulus II missile with 3,000 letters 100 miles east of Jacksonville, Fla., to Mayport, Fla.
1960 – Helicopters from USS Yorktown (CVS 10) rescue 54 crewmen of British SS Shunlee, grounded on Pratus Reef in South China Sea.
1962 – Medical team from Naval Hospital, Bethesda, Md.; Naval Medical Research Institute, Bethesda, Md.; and Naval Preventative Medicine Unit No. 2 Norfolk, Va., sent to San Pedro Sula, Honduras to fight epidemic of infectious gastroenteritis.
1967 – USS Liberty (AGTR 5) attacked by Israeli forces in Mediterranean.
1990 – Cmdr. Rosemary Mariner becomes first Navy women to command fleet jet aircraft squadron.
9 June
1882 – Establishment of Office of Naval Records of the War of the Rebellion (became part of Naval Historical Center).
1942 – First Navy photograhic interpretation unit set up in the Atlantic.
1959 – Launching of USS George Washington (SSBN 598), first nuclear powered fleet ballistic missile submarine, at Groton, Conn.
10 June
1854 – U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., holds first formal graduation exercises. Previous classes graduated without ceremony.
1896 – Authorization of first experimental ship model tank.
1943 – Operation Husky, Allied landing on Sicily.
11 June
1853 – Five Navy ships leave Norfolk, Va., on three-year exploring expedition to survey the far Pacific
1927 – USS Memphis arrives at Washington, D.C., with Charles Lindbergh and his plane, Spirit of St. Louis, after his non-stop flight across the Atlantic.
1944 – U.S. battleships off Normandy provide gunfire support.
1953 – Navy ships evacuate 20,000 Koreans from West Coast Islands to safety south of 17th parallel.
12 June
1944 – Four U.S. Carrier Groups (15 carriers) begin attack on Japanese positions in the Marianas.
1948 – The Women’s Armed Forces Integration Act provides for enlistment and appointment of women in the Naval Reserve.
1970 – After earthquake in Peru, USS Guam (LPH 9) begins 11 days of relief flights to transport medical teams and supplies, as well as rescue victims.
13 June
1881 – USS Jeannette crushed in Arctic ice pack.
1967 – Operation Great Bend in Rung Sat Zone, Vietnam.
14 June
1777 – John Paul Jones takes command of Ranger.
1777 – Continental Congress adopts design of present U.S. Flag.
1847 – Commodore Matthew Perry launches amphibious river operations by Sailors and Marines on Tabasco River, Mexico.
1940 – Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Naval Expansion Act to construct ships to increase Navy’s tonnage by 11 percent.
1985 – Steelworker 2nd Class Robert D. Stethem of Underwater Construction Team 1 was killed by militant Shi’ite hijackers of TWA Flight 847. He later received a Bronze Star for his heroism.
15 June
1944 – Fifth Fleet lands Marines on Saipan, under the cover of naval gunfire, in conquest of Marianas.
1963 – Launching of combat store ship, Mars (AFS 1), first of new class of underway replenishment ships.
1991 – Two battle groups and amphibious ships evacuate dependents and Air Force personnel from Clark Air Force Base after Mount Pinatubo erupts in Philippines.
16 June
1898 – U.S. squadron bombards Santiago, Cuba.
1965 – Navy Department schedules reactivation of hospital ship Repose (AH 16), first hospital ship activated for Vietnam conflict.
17 June
1833 – USS Delaware enters drydock at Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk, Va., the first warship to enter a public drydock in the United States.
1870 – USS Mohican burns Mexican pirate ship Forward.
1898 – Navy Hospital Corps established.
1940 – Chief of Naval Operations asks Congress for money to build two-ocean Navy.
18 June
1812 – U.S. declares war on Great Britain for impressment of Sailors and interference with commerce.
1942 – First African-American officer, Bernard W. Robinson, commissioned in Naval Reserve.
1957 – Chief of Naval Operations approves ship characteristics of the Fleet Ballistic Missile submarine.
19 June
1864 – USS Kearsarge sinks Confederate raider Alabama off France.
1944 – Battle of the Philippine Sea begins (“The Marianas Turkey Shoot”).
1948 – Chief of Naval Operations assigns three destroyers to U.N. mediator for the Palestine truce.
20 June
1813 – Fifteen U.S. gunboats engage three British ships in Hampton Roads, Va.
1815 – Trials of Fulton I, built by Robert Fulton, are completed in New York. This ship would become the Navy’s first steam-driven warship.
1898 – U.S. forces occupied Guam, which became first colony of United States in the Pacific.
1913 – First fatal accident in naval aviation, Ensign W. D. Billingsley killed at Annapolis, Md.
1934 – Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet Adm. Frank Upham reports to Chief of Naval Operations that based on analyses of Japanese radio traffic, “Any attack by (Japan) would be made without previous declaration of war or intentional warning.”
1944 – Battle of Philippine Sea ends with Japanese losing two aircraft carriers and hundreds of aircraft.
21 June
1898 – USS Charleston captures island of Guam from Spain.
1945 – Okinawa declared secure after most costly naval campaign in history. United States had 30 ships sunk and 223 damaged, mostly from kamikaze attacks, with 5,000 dead and 5,000 wounded, while the Japanese lost 100,000 dead.
22 June
1807 – HMS Leopard attacks USS Chesapeake.
1865 – Confederate raider Shenandoah fires last shot of Civil War in Bering Strait.
1884 – Navy relief expedition under Cmdr. Winfield S. Schley rescues Lt. A.W. Greely, USA, and six others from Ellesmere Island, where they were marooned for three years on Arctic island.
1898 – Adm. Sampson begins amphibious landing near Santiago, Cuba.
23 June
1933 – Commissioning of USS Macon, Navy’s last dirigible.
1961 – Navy’s first major low frequency radio station commissioned at Cutler, Maine.
1972 – Navy helicopter squadron aids flood-stricken residents in Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, and Pittstown area of Pennsylvania.
24 June
1833 – USS Constitution enters drydock at Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston for overhaul. The ship was saved from scrapping after public support rallied to save the ship following publication of Olive Wendell Holmes’ poem, “Old Ironsides.”
1926 – Office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy set up to foster naval aeronautics; aircraft building increased.
1948 – Berlin airlift initiated to offset the Soviet Union’s blockade access of United States, France, and Great Britain to their sectors of Berlin.
25 June
1917 – Navy convoy of troopships carrying American Expeditionary Forces arrives in France.
1950 – North Korea invades South Korea beginning Korean Conflict.
26 June
1884 – Congress authorizes commissioning of Naval Academy graduates as Ensigns.
1918 – Marine brigade captures Belleau Wood.
1959 – Twenty-eight naval vessels sail from Atlantic to Great Lakes, marking the formal opening of Saint Lawrence Seaway to seagoing ships.
1962 – Naval Facilites Engineering Command Cape Hatteras makes first Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) detection of a Soviet diesel submarine.
1973 – Navy Task Force 78 completes minesweeping of North Vietnamese ports.
27 June
1813 – USS President anchors in Bergen, Norway.
1950 – To support United Nations call to assist South Korea, President Harry S. Truman authorizes U.S. naval and air operations south of 38th Parallel, Korea.
28 June
1794 – Joshua Humphreys appointed master builder to build Navy ships at an annual salary of $2,000.
1814 – USS Wasp captures HMS Reindeer.
1865 – CSS Shenandoah captures 11 American whalers in one day.
1970 – USS James Madison (SSBN 627) completes conversion to Poseidon missile capability.
29 June
1925 – Ships and men from 11th and 12th Naval Districts assist in relief after earthquake at Santa Barbara , Calif.
1950 – President Harry S. Truman authorizes sea blockade of the Korean coast.
1950 – USS Juneau (CLA 119) fires first naval shore bombardment of Korean Conflict.
30 June
1815 – USS Peacock takes HMS Nautilus, last action of the War of 1812.
1943 – 3rd Fleet Amphibious Force lands troops on Rendova Island while naval gunfire silences Japanese artillery.
1951 – Naval Administration of Marianas ends.