Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
June 23, 2005 HMAS Cessnock (FCPB 210), a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Fremantle-class patrol boat, was decommissioned following more than two decades of service. This vessel was named after the city of Cessnock in the Hunter Region of the Australian state of New South Wales. She was the second RAN vessel to bear the name... Continue Reading →
March 21, 2022 After more than a quarter-century of service, the patrol ship USS Whirlwind (PC-11) was decommissioned at the U.S. Navy base Naval Support Activity Bahrain. (That military installation in the Kingdom of Bahrain serves as home to both U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the U.S. Fifth Fleet.) Whirlwind had been built at... Continue Reading →
January 6, 1919 A little less than two months after the armistice ending World War I had gone into effect, USS Kestrel II (SP-529) – which served as a patrol vessel for the U.S. Navy during that military conflict – was decommissioned. Kestrel II was originally a private motor yacht that had been built in... Continue Reading →
June 14, 1930 The twin-screw diesel yacht Lotosland was formally delivered by her manufacturer Pusey & Jones, a Delaware-based shipbuilder, to renowned industrialist and electrical engineer Edward A. Deeds. On that date, this newly completed vessel was registered with U.S. Official Number 229875 and signal MHWN. The handover of Lotosland to Deeds took place nearly... Continue Reading →
March 15, 1902 In the English market town and civil parish of Beverley, a vessel constructed there by the shipbuilding company Cook,Welton & Gemmell was launched. This 149-foot (45-meter)-long vessel was named King Edward, the country’s reigning monarch at the time, and her original owner was James Holliday. In 1911, this vessel ended up in... Continue Reading →
March 7, 1925 After more than a quarter-century of service in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the U.S. Navy tugboat USS Iroquois (AT-46) was decommissioned. This steam tugboat was the second Navy vessel named after a confederacy of Native Americans and First Nations peoples originally based in the northeastern part of North America. The... Continue Reading →
June 14, 1917 A little over two months after the United States entered World War I on the side of the Allied Powers, the steam yacht Legonia II was commissioned in Baltimore for service in the U.S. Navy. This vessel had been purchased only eight days earlier from William B. Hurst, a prominent Baltimore resident.... Continue Reading →
March 22, 1937 USCGC Chelan, a U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) cutter under the command of Captain Lyndon Spencer, was among the vessels to respond to distress calls from the Norwegian steamship SS Bjerkli in the North Atlantic. Bjerkli, stranded 660 nautical miles (1,220 kilometers) east of Boston, was being pounded by an 80-mile (128.8-kilometer) gale.... Continue Reading →
January 3, 1942 Just a little less than a month after the United States entered World War II on the side of the Allies, a yacht was acquired by the U.S. Navy from William F. Ladd for use in that global conflict. (Ladd had been adjutant general of Connecticut between 1930 and 1939 and would... Continue Reading →
September 21, 2007 The multi-purpose, single-engine helicopter Alouette III was formally retired from service with the Irish Air Corps. Over the course of more than four decades, a total of eight of these helicopters had been used by the Irish Air Corps for various high-priority tasks. The Irish Air Corps, which traces its origins to... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 