Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
April 18, 1917 Less than two weeks after the United States entered World War I on the side of the Allied Powers, a private motorboat designated as Patrol No. 4 was commissioned for service in the U.S. Navy. This vessel was owned by a Virginia resident named Guy Norman and, three days after her commissioning,... Continue Reading →
March 14, 1918 The first seagoing American ship made out of concrete was introduced. This ship, a steamer called SS Faith, was launched from Redwood City, California. Concrete ships had been around since 1848, when one was built in France. In addition, the first ocean-worthy vessel of that type made her debut in Norway in 1917. SS... Continue Reading →
March 7, 1889 Pioneering naval aviator Godfrey de Courcelles Chevalier was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1910 and then embarked on a comparatively short-lived but significant aviation career. Chevalier, who would be described in one news account as “one of the navy’s most daring aviators,” took to the... Continue Reading →
Approximately 12,000 Native Americans served in the U.S. military during World War I. These servicemen, according to records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, included more than 2,000 who were in the U.S. Navy. One of those Navy sailors was Joseph Lewey (sometimes spelled as Lewy), a member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe in Maine. He... Continue Reading →
September 7, 1918 USS Falcon (AM-28), the third U.S. Navy vessel bearing that name, was launched at the yard of the shipbuilding firm collectively known at the time as the Gas Engine & Power Company and Charles L. Seabury Company. (That shipbuilding firm had been formed by the merger of the Gas Engine & Power... Continue Reading →
August 5, 1917 Four months after the United States entered World War I on the side of the Allied Powers, a motorboat known as Riette was commissioned into the U.S. Navy at the New York Navy Yard in the northwest section of Brooklyn. (That shipyard is now officially called the Brooklyn Navy Yard.) Chief Boatswain’s... Continue Reading →
August 3, 1921 The one-time German ship SS George Washington embarked on her first voyage as an American ocean liner. This reconditioned ship left Hoboken, New Jersey, just before two o’clock in the afternoon for European destinations that included Plymouth, England; Cherbourg, France; and Bremen, Germany. That transatlantic trip took place a little over two-and-a-half years after... Continue Reading →
March 28, 1918 A milestone in the short but eventful U.S. Navy service of the vessel USS Aphrodite took place when she was assigned to convoy escort duty with a higher-than-average risk along the French coast during World War I. Aphrodite had made her debut a couple of decades earlier in decidedly more luxurious circumstances.... Continue Reading →
October 2, 1922 Over a year after the first segment of the Boulevard of the Allies made its debut, the entire route in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was opened to traffic. The road, which links downtown Pittsburgh with the city’s Oakland neighborhood, was named in honor of the Allied Powers that had fought against Germany and the other... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 