NEWS
By Mark Silva | January 16, 2009
WASHINGTON - President Bush, delivering a televised farewell to the nation last night, attempted to summon a collective sense of "gratitude" for years of safety following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that shaped his presidency. In a measure of the impact the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon had on his administration, Bush touted one signal success during his time in office: No further attacks occurred. The president acknowledged that his anti-terror policies had prompted "legitimate debate."
NEWS
By From Sun news services | January 11, 2009
Somali pirates drown after getting ransom 3 MOGADISHU, Somalia : Five of the pirates who hijacked a Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a $3 million ransom, a relative said yesterday, a day after the bundle of cash was apparently dropped by parachute onto the deck of the ship. The Sirius Star and its 25 crew sailed safely away Friday at the end of a two-month standoff in the Gulf of Aden, where pirates attacked over 100 ships last year. The drowned pirates' boat overturned in rough seas, and family members were still looking for four missing bodies, said Daud Nure, a pirate who knew the men involved.
NEWS
By Frederick N. Rasmussen | July 4, 2007
Kilmer S. Bortz, a decorated World War II naval aviator whose flying skills helped sink a Japanese aircraft carrier and battleship, died of heart failure Wednesday at his Lutherville home. He was 87. Mr. Bortz was born in Akron, Ohio, and moved with his family to Washington, where he graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School. His college studies at Duke University were interrupted when he enlisted in the Navy in 1941. After completing flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, Mr. Bortz was assigned to Bombing Squadron 11 or VB-11, where he flew Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers during the Guadalcanal campaign.
NEWS
March 27, 2007
CHASE J. NIELSEN, 90 `Doolittle Raider' Lt. Col. Chase J. Nielsen, a member of the famed "Doolittle Raiders" who bombed Japan in 1942, died Friday at his home in Brigham City, Utah, his family said. He was a navigator in one of the most daring air raids in American history, when 16 B-25 bombers took off from an aircraft carrier and bombed Tokyo on April 18, 1942. Colonel Nielsen and his crew ditched their plane, which was running out of fuel, off the coast of China, and he spent more than three years as a Japanese prisoner of war. He was one of four POWs from the raid to survive.
NEWS
By Sara Neufeld | October 21, 2006
A year after a Pentagon task force recommended that the U.S. Naval Academy promote women to address historic problems with sexual harassment, the academy named its first female to serve in its No. 2 post yesterday. As commandant of midshipmen, Capt. Margaret D. Klein will oversee the academy's 4,200 midshipmen in a position equivalent to dean of students at a civilian university. The 49-year-old native of Weymouth, Mass., was a member of the second class to admit women at the 161-year-old academy.
NEWS
January 10, 2005
THE QUICK DISPATCH of not one but two U.S. aircraft carriers to the Indian Ocean relief effort demonstrates the formidable reach of the American military -- still. The infantry may be tied down in Iraq, the Army Reserve may be heading toward the breaking point -- as The Sun's Tom Bowman reported last week -- but there's plenty of firepower in reserve. The Navy has been dealing out food, water and medicine this time rather than missiles, but there can be no mistaking its ability to act when called upon.
NEWS
By Scott Shane | July 14, 2004
In a ceremony recalling the sacrifices of Cold War intelligence gathering, top National Security Agency officials yesterday honored the seven crew members killed when their Navy surveillance aircraft crashed while landing on an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea in 1987. As sunlight broke through heavy morning clouds, several hundred people gathered for the dedication of a Navy EA-3B Skywarrior electronic spy plane placed in NSA's National Vigilance Park, which honors the more than 180 Americans who have died on duty collecting intelligence from the air. A short walk from the eavesdropping and code-breaking agency's glass towers at Fort Meade, the park was created in 1997 to honor the sacrifices of those who flew secret missions along the borders of the Soviet Union and other hostile countries.
NEWS
By LAURA VECSEY | December 5, 2003
WE LOOK OUT to sea this winter's day and wonder how to keep faith alive. Our little skipjack of a baseball team is off the radar. It might be in danger. Up north, a wildly inequitable and imperfect storm is in full brew. It's a menace to any vessel that's not an aircraft carrier (Yankees) or supertanker (Red Sox). Hurricane George is whipping up whitecaps that threaten to capsize our little skipjack as it trudges cautiously out to free-agent sea. "Is that an iceberg, Mike?" Admiral Beattie calls.
NEWS
By Ariel Sabar | October 15, 2003
When most schools need extra classroom space, they wheel in a couple of trailers. At the Naval Academy, they brought in a barge. In its search for temporary replacements for classrooms flooded by Tropical Storm Isabel, the academy called in a gargantuan vessel that had just wrapped up a tour housing more than 1,000 sailors from a dry-docked aircraft carrier in Florida. A tugboat hauled the ship - more of a floating five-story hotel and office complex - up to the school's Severn River seawall last week.
NEWS
By Tony Perry | September 13, 2003
SAN DIEGO - After 41 years, 21 overseas deployments and eight combat tours, the aircraft carrier Constellation left San Diego Bay yesterday for the final time for a long, slow journey into retirement. For sailors who had served aboard the giant ship known as "Connie," it was a sorrowful occasion. "Connie is my girl," said Chief Petty Officer Efren Ponce, one of a group of sailors who sang "Anchors Aweigh" as the ship departed. "She's where I learned how to be a sailor. I'll miss her." Tugboats pushed the 1,069-foot-long, 80,000-ton ship away from the dock at North Island Naval Air Station.