Stories
Six Destroyers Held Off a Pocket Battleship on New Year's Eve. Hitler Scrapped His Navy.
A one-eyed destroyer captain, a convoy to Murmansk, and the New Year's Eve battle that made Hitler try to scrap every warship Germany had.
A Battleship Accidentally Shelled a Cathedral. The Shell Never Exploded.
A gunnery error sent a 381mm armor-piercing shell from HMS Malaya through the roof of a 12th-century cathedral. It punched through the nave, hit the floor, and just sat there.
The Strait Where Fifty Ships Went to Die
Between August 1942 and February 1943, the narrow strait between Guadalcanal and Savo Island swallowed more than fifty warships from both sides. The sailors called it Ironbottom Sound.
The Admiral Who Attacked with Nothing Left
Rear Admiral Karel Doorman commanded a fleet that spoke four languages, had no air cover, and had never trained together. He attacked anyway. 2,300 dead.
Ships That Disappeared Without a Trace
USS Cyclops. SS Waratah. MV Joyita. USS Scorpion. These ships sailed out of port with hundreds of people aboard and were never seen again. Some left no wreckage. Some left no explanation. Here are the ones that still have neither.
Cruiser vs Destroyer vs Battleship: What's Actually the Difference?
Battleships carried the biggest guns. Cruisers could go anywhere. Destroyers were built to kill submarines and die trying. Here's how they actually differed.
The Worst Naval Disasters in History, Ranked by Death Toll
The Wilhelm Gustloff killed more people than the Titanic, Lusitania, and Indianapolis combined. Most people have never heard of it.
Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition
USS New Orleans was dead in the water at Pearl Harbor when the attack started. No power, no hoists, no ammunition at the guns. Her chaplain's shout became one of the war's most famous phrases. Frank Loesser turned it into a No. 1 hit.
The Navy Ship That's Been Held Hostage Since 1968
USS Pueblo was captured by North Korea in 1968. The crew spent 11 months as prisoners. In propaganda photos, they flipped off the camera and told guards it was a Hawaiian good luck sign. The ship is still in Pyongyang.
The Largest Carrier Ever Built Lasted Seventeen Hours
IJN Shinano was a converted Yamato-class hull displacing 72,000 tons. She left Yokosuka on the evening of November 28, 1944. A single American submarine sank her before breakfast. 1,435 dead.
They Packed a Destroyer With Five Tons of Explosives and Rammed It Into a German Drydock
HMS Campbeltown was an old American lend-lease destroyer. The British disguised her as a German torpedo boat, filled her bow with depth charges, and drove her into the Normandie Dock at St Nazaire. The explosives went off ten hours later while German officers were inspecting the wreck.
The Night French Cavalry Rode Across a Frozen Sea and Captured a Fleet
In January 1795, French hussars wrapped their horses' hooves in cloth, crossed a frozen harbor, and boarded 14 Dutch warships. No shots fired. The only time in history cavalry captured a fleet.
A Cruiser Sank With 465 Gold Bars. Five of Them Are Still Down There.
The light cruiser HMS Edinburgh was torpedoed three times in the Arctic while carrying 465 gold bars from the Soviet Union. The cruiser fought back, crippled a German destroyer, and went down with the gold. Thirty-nine years later, divers cut into the wreck and pulled out 431 bars.
The Navy Built 27 of These Cruisers, Then Couldn't Stop Them From Tipping Over
The Cleveland class was the largest cruiser class ever built. They were also dangerously top-heavy. The Navy pulled off catapults, restricted ammo, and added ballast. Nine more hulls became aircraft carriers instead.
The Royal Navy Put Steam Engines in Submarines and Lost More Boats to Themselves Than to the Enemy
The British K-class submarines were steam-powered, 339 feet long, and needed five minutes to dive. None were sunk by the enemy. Six sank anyway.
China Bought a Soviet Aircraft Carrier to Build a Casino. The Casino Never Existed.
A former PLA basketball player bought an unfinished Soviet carrier for $20 million, told everyone it was for a casino, towed it around Africa when Turkey blocked the shortcut, and delivered China its first aircraft carrier. He spent $120 million. China never paid him back.
The Ship That Survived Pearl Harbor and Was Sunk Forty Years Later by a Torpedo Older Than Itself
USS Phoenix escaped Pearl Harbor untouched, fought the entire Pacific war, was sold to Argentina, renamed twice, and sunk in 1982 by a British submarine using torpedoes designed thirteen years before the ship was launched. 323 dead. The captain said the British were right.
The US Navy Dumped 200 Tons of Pig Iron Into This Cruiser Just to Stop Her From Tipping Over
USS Wichita was a one-of-a-kind prototype — too top-heavy to sail without 200 tons of pig iron in her belly. She fought in two oceans, earned 13 battle stars, and her hull became the basis for the Baltimore class.
The Navy Welded Two Broken Destroyers Together and Sent the Result Back to War
HMS Zulu lost her stern to a mine. HMS Nubian lost her bow to a torpedo. The Royal Navy joined the front of one to the back of the other, named her HMS Zubian, and she sank a U-boat.
The Cruiser That Made British Intelligence Say 'They Must Be Building Ships Out of Cardboard'
Japan cheated on every treaty, built a cruiser that cracked its own hull, rammed its sister ship at Midway, got rebuilt as a half-carrier, and still came back for more.
306 Men Sailed Out of Barbados and the Navy Never Found a Single One
USS Cyclops left Barbados on March 4, 1918 with 306 people and 11,000 tons of manganese ore. No distress signal. No wreckage. No explanation. It's the largest non-combat loss of life in US Navy history and nobody knows what happened.
The Destroyer That Turned Left and Nobody Knows Why
During night flying ops in 1952, USS Hobson made an unexplained left turn into the carrier USS Wasp. The carrier cut her in half. 176 men died in four minutes. The captain didn't survive to explain.
The Ship That Delivered the Bomb and Disappeared
USS Indianapolis delivered the Hiroshima uranium, got torpedoed four days later, and 900 men went into the water. The Navy didn't notice for four days. Sharks circled for 96 hours. 316 survived. The captain was court-martialed and shot himself.
The Cruiser That Sailed Backwards Across the Pacific With a Bow Made of Coconut Logs
A torpedo blew off a third of USS New Orleans in 1942. The crew built a temporary bow from coconut trees and sailed her backwards 1,800 miles to Australia. Her original bow was found on the seafloor 83 years later.
The Destroyer That Fired a Torpedo at the President
USS William D. Porter accidentally launched a live torpedo at FDR's ship during a drill. Then tried to warn him with the wrong signal. Legend says every ship greeted her with 'Don't shoot — we're Republicans.'
Hitler Renamed This Ship Because He Was Afraid of the Headline 'Germany Sunk'
The pocket battleship Deutschland captured an American freighter, got renamed to avoid embarrassing headlines, then failed so badly in battle that Hitler tried to scrap his entire surface fleet.
The Cruiser That Got Shot by Its Own Fleet, Started a Revolution, and Became a Museum
Russia's 2nd Pacific Squadron mistook British fishermen for Japanese torpedo boats. Aurora took fire from her own battleships. Then she survived Tsushima, fired the shot that started the Bolshevik revolution, and never left.
SMS Emden: The Raider Who Faked a Funnel and Killed a Ship in Port
SMS Emden rigged a fake fourth funnel, slipped into British-controlled Penang harbor, and torpedoed the Russian cruiser Zhemchug. Her captain was at the E&O Hotel with a woman. He watched through the window.
The Confederate Raider Who Captured 65 Ships and Sank in Front of French Tourists
CSS Alabama spent 22 months capturing Union merchant ships. Her final battle off Cherbourg became a spectator event. Manet painted it.
The Ship That Almost Lost the Unknown Soldier to the Atlantic
In 1921, the casket wouldn't fit below deck. They lashed it to the bow. Then a hurricane hit.
The German Warship That Survived Two Nuclear Bombs and Sank From a Leak
Prinz Eugen fought alongside Bismarck, survived two atomic tests at Bikini Atoll, and sank because nobody could fix a small leak.