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USS Magoffin (APA-199)
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Jump to: navigation, search USS Magoffin (APA-199/LPA-199) was a Haskell-class attack transport acquired by the U.S. Navy during World War II for the task of transporting troops to and from combat areas.
San Diego (Spanish for "Saint Didacus"; Spanish: [san djeo]) is a major city in California, United States. It is in …
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Contents 1 World War II service 1.1 Okinawa Landing 2 Reactivated during Korean War 2.1 Korean War operations 3 Nuclear testing 4 Diversion to the Middle East 5 Return Pacific Seventh Fleet 6 Vietnam War operations 7 Deactivation and scrapping 8 Military awards and honors 9 See also 10 References 11 External links
World War II service Magoffin (APA 199), built under Maritime Commission contract, launched 4 October 1944 by Kaiser Shipbuilding Co., Vancouver, Washington; sponsored by Mrs. Fred Schlotfeldt; and commissioned 25 October 1944, Comdr. Eugene L. McManus in command.
USS Magoffin right before its launch in 1944
History United States Ordered:
as type VC2-S-AP5
Laid down:
20 June 1944
Launched:
4 October 1944
Commissioned:
25 October 1944
Decommissioned: 14 August 1946 In service:
4 October 1950
Out of service:
10 April 1968
Struck:
1 February 1980
Homeport:
San Diego, California
Fate:
fate unknown
Images from top, left to right: San Diego Skyline, Coronado Bridge, House of Hospitality in Balboa Park, Serra Museum in Presidio Park and the Old Point Loma lighthouse
Kumeyaay people lived in San Diego before Europeans settled there.
General characteristics Displacement:
14,833 (full load)
Length:
455 ft 0 in (138.68 m)
Beam:
62 ft 0 in (18.90 m)
Draught:
28 ft 1 in (8.56 m)
Speed:
17 knots
Boats & landing craft carried:
two LCM, twelve LCVP, three LCPU
Capacity:
150,000 cu. ft, 2,900 tons
Complement:
56 Officers 480 Enlisted
Armament:
Okinawa Landing
one 5 in (130 mm) gun mount twelve 40 mm gun mounts ten 20 mm gun mounts
Namesake of the city, Didacus of Alcalá: Saint Didacus in Ecstasy Before the Cross by Murillo (Musée des Augustins)
Mission San Diego de Alcalá
5"/38 caliber gun [videos] The Mark 12 5"/38 caliber gun was a United States naval gun. The gun was installed into Single Purpose and Dual Purpose …
Attached to Transport Division 54 during post commissioning amphibious training off the coast of southern California, Magoffin conveyed troops and cargo in the South Pacific until 1 March 1945. On that date she commenced rehearsals at Guadalcanal for the invasion of the Ryukyus. Underway on the 27th, she steamed with the invasion force for Okinawa, where she participated in the landings 1 April, during the battle for Okinawa, Magoffin, the first ship in Transport Division 54 to be unloaded, assisted in downing two enemy planes. After this campaign Magoffin carried men and cargo between the United States and forward area bases until the following spring, on 10 March 1946, she reported to the 19th Fleet, San Francisco, California, for inactivation. She decommissioned 14 August 1946.
Reactivated during Korean War
Mk 12 gun assembly
After the outbreak of the Korean War, Magoffin recommissioned 4 October 1950 and was assigned to the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Departing San Francisco 22 March 1951, she steamed for Japan where she debarked troops and cargo 7 to 8 April. Magoffin remained in the western Pacific Ocean conveying troops and cargo between Japan and Korea and participating in amphibious exercises, two at Sagami Wan, Japan, and one in Korea. She headed for the U.S. West Coast late in August, arriving at San Diego, California, 8 September for landing exercises and overhaul.
Korean War operations Magoffin again sailed for the Far East 10 July 1952. Arriving a month later at Yufusu, Japan, she commenced a series of amphibious training exercises with Army and Marine units; two exercises were held in Japan and two at Inchon, Korea. She also participated in an amphibious demonstration staged 15 October off Kojo, North Korea, in an effort to draw reserve Communist units in the area out into the open; in November, she returned to San Diego for exercises and operations along the U.S. west coast. With the exception of one voyage to Japan and back in late August 1953, she operated on the U.S. west coast until departing for the western Pacific in February 1954. Amphibious operations at Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Busan, Korea, were followed, in August, by orders to Indochina. Arriving at Haiphong, she embarked refugees for transport to Saigon. By 17 September Magoffin had carried over 6,000 refugees from tyranny to South Vietnam. Following this “Operation Passage to Freedom” duty, she returned to San Diego, arriving 21 November 1954.
Vertical Sliding Wedge Breech Block.
Drawing of the recoil and counter-recoil systems. The arrow shows the motion of the housing in the slide during recoil.
Bofors 40 mm gun [videos] The Bofors 40 mm gun, often referred to simply as the Bofors gun, is an anti-aircraft/multipurpose autocannon designed …
Nuclear testing From that day to the end of her Navy service, Magoffin has operated, with the exception of the years 1959, 1960, 1963, and 1966, in the western Pacific for at least 6 months out of each year. Two of the more historically eventful years during this period were 1958 and 1964; in the spring of 1958, the transport participated in Operation Hardtack I, the 1958 series of nuclear tests at Eniwetok Atoll.
Diversion to the Middle East Shortly after the tests, the mid July politico military flareups in the volatile Middle East caused the ship to embark troops at Okinawa and head for the Persian Gulf, this deployment was to provide support, if necessary, to the British and American forces sent into Jordan and Lebanon. However, tension eased after the Navy’s resolute action averted Communist subversion in Lebanon, allowing Magoffin to return to her U.S. 7th Fleet station.
British Bofors 40 mm L/60 on a 360 degree turret mount, England.
Finnish Bofors 40 mm. This gun mounts the original reflector sights, and lacks the armor found on British examples.
British 40mm L/60 includes the Britishdesigned Stiffkey Sight, being operated by the gun layer standing on the right. The layer operates the trapeze seen above the sights, moving them to adjust for lead. The loader stands to the layer's left, and the two trainer/aimers are sitting on either side of the gun.
Q.F. 40 mm Mk. 1 displayed at CFB Borden. This example mounts a Stiffkey Sight, and displays the additional armor protecting the gunners.
Return Pacific Seventh Fleet 6 August 1964 saw Magoffin, having completed a 6-month tour with the U.S. 7th Fleet and heading for her home port of San Diego, ordered back to Okinawa to embark troops. The ship then steamed for Vietnam, where the Maddox incident in the Gulf of Tonkin occurred.
Vietnam War operations Magoffin’s tours on the U.S. west coast continued to include periodic overhauls, coastal operations, and amphibious exercises. Her tours in the western Pacific were in support of operations in Southeast Asia, transporting troops and cargo, participating in amphibious operations, and, on occasion, serving as station ship in Da-Nang harbor; in August, 1965, Magoffin transported 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines to Okinawa for additional training for eventual operations in South Vietnam.
Deactivation and scrapping Magoffin returned to San Diego 9 December 1967 to prepare for inactivation. She decommissioned 10 April 1968 and entered the Naval Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, California, under the custody of the Maritime Administration, she was redesignated LPA 199 on 1 January 1969.
Oerlikon 20 mm cannon [videos] The Oerlikon 20 mm cannon is a series of autocannons, based on an original German 20 mm Becker design that appeared …
Military awards and honors Magoffin received one battle star for World War II service at Okinawa. She received two more battle stars (campaign stars) during the Korean War during her efforts there during 1951 and 1952, she received an additional four campaign stars during the Vietnam War.
See also List of United States Navy ships World War II
A modern Oerlikon cannon (Oerlikon 20mm/85 KAA) on a Royal Navy warship
Diagrams showing basic design and colourcoding of British HE/Incendiary, Tracer and HE/Incendiary/Tracer shells for the 20 mm Oerlikon gun
The aiming sight of the Oerlikon gun
Side view of the twin Oerlikon gun mount
References This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
External links USS Magoffin NavSource Online: Amphibious Photo Archive - APA / LPA-199 Magoffin USS Magoffin Veterans Association Haskell-class attack transports
Completed United States Navy
Cancelled Spanish Navy
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Clockwise from top: skyline of Vancouver viewed from the Oregon side of the Columbia River; House of Providence; Old Apple Tree Park; Fort Vancouver; Esther Short Park; Vancouver Barracks
Fort Vancouver in 1859
The Marshall House in Officers Row, built in 1886 and later named after George C. Marshall
Wooden ship yard in Vancouver, 1918
Aragón (ex-Noble)
Preceded by: Frederick Funston class · Followed by: Paul Revere class List of United States Navy amphibious warfare ships
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=USS_Magoffin_(APA199)&oldid=791040205" Categories: World War II amphibious warfare vessels of the United States Korean War amphibious warfare vessels of the United States Vietnam War amphibious warfare vessels of the United States Haskell-class attack transports Ships built in Vancouver, Washington 1944 ships Hidden categories: Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
California [videos] California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.5 million residents, California is the most …
RELATED RESEARCH TOPICS 1. San Diego – San Diego is a major city in California, United States. It is in San Diego County, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, approximately 120 miles south of Los Angeles and immediately adjacent to the border with Mexico. With an estimated population of 1,394,928 as of July 1,2015, San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest in California. It is part of the San Diego–Tijuana conurbation, the second-largest transborder agglomeration between the US and a country after Detroit–Windsor, with a population of 4,922,723 people. San Diego has been called the birthplace of California, historically home to the Kumeyaay people, San Diego was the first site visited by Europeans on what is now the West Coast of the United States. Upon landing in San Diego Bay in 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area for Spain, the Presidio and Mission San Diego de Alcalá, founded in 1769, formed the first European settlement in what is now California. In 1821, San Diego became part of the newly independent Mexico, in 1850, California became part of the United States following the Mexican–American War and the admission of California to the union. The city is the seat of San Diego County and is the center of the region as well as the San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. San Diegos main economic engines are military and defense-related activities, tourism, international trade, the presence of the University of California, San Diego, with the affiliated UCSD Medical Center, has helped make the area a center of research in biotechnology. The original inhabitants of the region are now known as the San Dieguito, the area of San Diego has been inhabited by the Kumeyaay people. The first European to visit the region was Portuguese-born explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sailing under the flag of Castile, sailing his flagship San Salvador from Navidad, New Spain, Cabrillo claimed the bay for the Spanish Empire in 1542, and named the site San Miguel. In November 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno was sent to map the California coast, in May 1769, Gaspar de Portolà established the Fort Presidio of San Diego on a hill near the San Diego River. It was the first settlement by Europeans in what is now the state of California, in July of the same year, Mission San Diego de Alcalá was founded by Franciscan friars under Junípero Serra. By 1797, the mission boasted the largest native population in Alta California, with over 1,400 neophytes living in, Mission San Diego was the southern anchor in California of the historic mission trail El Camino Real. Both the Presidio and the Mission are National Historic Landmarks, in 1821, Mexico won its independence from Spain, and San Diego became part of the Mexican territory of Alta California. In 1822, Mexico began attempting to extend its authority over the territory of Alta California. The fort on Presidio Hill was gradually abandoned, while the town of San Diego grew up on the land below Presidio Hill. The Mission was secularized by the Mexican government in 1833, the 432 residents of the town petitioned the governor to form a pueblo, and Juan María Osuna was elected the first alcalde, defeating Pío Pico in the vote 2. 5"/38 caliber gun – The Mark 12 5/38 caliber gun was a US naval gun. The gun was installed into Single Purpose and Dual Purpose mounts used primarily by the US Navy, the 38 caliber barrel was a mid-length compromise between the previous United States standard 5/51 low-angle gun and 5/25 anti-aircraft gun. The increased barrel length provided greatly improved performance in both anti-aircraft and anti-surface roles compared to the 5/25 gun, however, except for the barrel length and the use of semifixed ammunition, the 5/38 gun was derived from the 5/25 gun. Both weapons had power ramming, which enabled rapid fire at high angles against aircraft, the 5/38 entered service on USS Farragut, commissioned in 1934. The base ring mount, which improved the rate of fire, entered service on USS Gridley. Even this advanced system required nearly 100 rounds of ammunition expenditure per aircraft kill, however, the planes were normally killed by shell fragments and not direct hits, barrage fire was used, with many guns firing in the air at the same time. Base ring mounts with integral hoists had a rate of fire of 15 rounds per minute per barrel, however. On pedestal and other mounts lacking integral hoists,12 to 15 rounds per minute was the rate of fire, useful life expectancy was 4600 effective full charges per barrel. The 5/38 cal gun was mounted on a large number of US Navy ships in the World War II era. It was backfitted to many of the World War I-era battleships during their wartime refits and it has left active US Navy service, but it is still on mothballed ships of the United States Navy reserve fleets. It is also used by a number of nations who bought or were given US Navy surplus ships, each mount carries one or two Mk 12 5/38cal Gun Assemblies. The gun assembly shown is used in single mounts, and it is the gun in twin mounts. It is loaded from the left side, the left gun in twin mounts is the mirror image of the right gun, and it is loaded from the right side. The Mk12 gun assembly weighs 3,990 lb, the major Mk12 Gun Assembly characteristics are,158 Semi-automatic During recoil, some of the recoil energy is stored in the counter-recoil system. That stored energy is used during counterrecoil to prepare the gun for the next round, the firing pin is cocked, the breech is opened, the spent powder case is ejected, and the bore is air cleaned. Hand loaded A Projectile-Man and a Powder-Man are stationed at each gun assembly and their job is to move the round, consisting of a projectile and a powder case, from the hoists to the rammer tray, and then start the ram cycle. The hydraulically driven Rammer Spade, called the Power Spade in that picture, is at the back of the Rammer Tray, if the multiple names of the Spade is confusing, look at this footnote. Vertical sliding-wedge breech block The breech block closes the chamber behind the powder case and it also holds the firing pin assembly 3. Weapon mount – A weapon mount is a weapon component used to affix an armament for stabilization. Weapon mounts can be broken down into two categories, static mounts and non-static mounts, a static mount is a non-portable weapon support component used on a self-propelled vehicle. A gun turret protects the crew or mechanism of a weapon, a turret is a rotating weapon platform. This can be mounted on a building or structure such as a coast artillery battery, or on an armoured fighting vehicle. Turrets may be armed with one or more guns, automatic cannons, large-calibre guns, missile launchers. It may be manned or remotely controlled, and is often armoured, a small turret, or sub-turret on a larger one, is called a cupola. The term cupola also describes rotating turrets that carry no weapons but instead are sighting devices, a finial is an extremely small sub-turret or sub-sub-turret mounted on a cupola turret. The protection provided by the turret may be against battle damage or against the weather, conditions and environment in which the weapon or its crew operate. A coaxial mount is mounted beside the primary weapon and thus points in the general direction as the main armament. The term coaxial is a misnomer as the arrangement is often actually paraxial, nearly all main battle tanks and most infantry fighting vehicles have a coaxial machine gun mounted to fire along a parallel axis to the main gun. Coaxial weapons are usually aimed by use of the gun control. It is usually used to infantry or other soft targets when the main gun collateral damage would be excessive. A fixed mount is not moveable with respect to the vehicle, the vehicle must move in order to change direction of fire. Fixed mounts are most commonly found on aircraft, and most commonly direct the forward, along the aircrafts vector of movement, so that a pilot could aim. Some minor aircraft designs used different concept of fixed mounts, as found in Schräge Musik or AC-47 Spooky, a pintle mount is a fixed mount that allows the gun to be freely traversed and/or elevated while keeping the gun in one fixed position. It is most commonly found on armoured vehicles, gunner stations on bomber aircraft, unlike a turret, a pintle has little or no armour protection. A swing mount is a mount that allows a far greater. Utilising a system of one or two articulated arms the gunner can swing the weapon through a wide arc even though the position is fixed relative to the mount 4. Bofors 40 mm gun – The Bofors 40 mm gun, often referred to simply as the Bofors gun, is an anti-aircraft/multi-purpose autocannon designed in the 1930s by the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors. It was one of the most popular medium-weight antiaircraft systems during World War II, a small number of these weapons remain in service to this day, and saw action as late as the Gulf War. In the post-war era the original design was not suitable for action against jet powered aircraft, so Bofors introduced a new model of more power. In spite of sharing almost nothing with the design other than the calibre and the distinctive conical flash hider. Although not as popular as the original L/60 model, the L/70 remains in service to this day, especially as a weapon for light armored vehicles. Bofors itself has been part of BAE Systems AB since March 2005, the Swedish Navy purchased a number of 2 pounder Pom-Poms from Vickers as anti-aircraft guns in 1922. The Navy approached Bofors about the development of a capable replacement. Bofors signed a contract in late 1928, Bofors produced a gun that was a smaller version of a 57 mm semi-automatic gun developed as an anti-torpedo boat weapon in the late 19th century by Finspong. Their first test gun was a re-barreled Nordenfelt version of the Finspong gun, testing of this gun in 1929 demonstrated that a problem existed feeding the weapon in order to maintain a reasonable rate of fire. A mechanism that was enough to handle the stresses of moving the large round was too heavy to move quickly enough to fire rapidly. One attempt to solve this problem used zinc shell cases that burned up when fired and this proved to leave heavy zinc deposits in the barrel, and had to be abandoned. This seemed to be the solution they needed, improving firing rates to a level. During this period Krupp purchased a share of Bofors. Krupp engineers started the process of updating the Bofors factories to use equipment and metallurgy. The prototype was completed and fired in November 1931, and by the middle of the month it was firing strings of two and three rounds. Changes to the mechanism were all that remained, and by the end of the year it was operating at 130 rounds per minute. Continued development was needed to turn it into a suitable for production. Since acceptance trials had been passed the year before, this known as the 40 mm akan M/32 5. Oerlikon 20 mm cannon – The Oerlikon 20 mm cannon is a series of autocannons, based on an original German 20 mm Becker design that appeared very early in World War I. It was widely produced by Oerlikon Contraves and others, with various models employed by both Allied and Axis forces during World War II, and many still in use today. During World War I, the German Reinhold Becker developed a 20 mm caliber cannon and this used a 20x70 RB cartridge and had a cyclic rate of fire of 300 rpm. It was used on a scale as an aircraft gun on Luftstreitkräfte warplanes. Because the Treaty of Versailles banned further production of weapons in Germany. SEMAG continued development of the weapon, and in 1924 had produced the SEMAG L, the Oerlikon firm, named after the Zürich suburb where it was based, then acquired all rights to the weapon, plus the manufacturing equipment and the employees of SEMAG. In 1927 the Oerlikon S was added to the product line. This fired a larger cartridge to achieve a muzzle velocity of 830 m/s, at the cost of increased weight. The purpose of development was to improve the performance of the gun as an anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapon. An improved version known as the 1S followed in 1930, three sizes of gun with their different ammunition and barrel length, but very similar mechanisms, continued to be developed in parallel. In 1930 Oerlikon reconsidered the application of its gun in aircraft and introduced the AF and AL, designed to be used in flexible mounts, the 15round box magazine used by earlier versions of the gun was replaced by drum magazine holding 15 or 30 rounds. In 1935 it made an important step by introducing a series of guns designed to be mounted in or on the wings of fighter aircraft, designated with FF for Flügelfest meaning wing-mounted, these weapons were again available in the three sizes, with designations FF, FFL and FFS. The FF fired a larger cartridge than the AF, 20x72RB. The FF weighed 24 kg and achieved a velocity of 550 to 600 m/s with a rate of fire of 520 rpm. The FFL of 30 kg fired a projectile at a velocity of 675 m/s with a rate of fire of 500 rpm. And the FFS, which weighed 39 kg, delivered a high velocity of 830 m/s at a rate of fire of 470 rpm. Apart from changes to the design of the guns for wingmounting and remote control, for the FF series drum sizes of 45,60,75 and 100 rounds were available, but most users chose the 60-round drum. The 1930s were a period of global re-armament, and a number of foreign firms took licenses for the Oerlikon family of aircraft cannon 6. Haskell-class attack transport – Haskell-class attack transports were amphibious assault ships of the United States Navy created in 1944. They were designed to transport 1,500 troops and their combat equipment, the Haskells were very active in the World War II Pacific Theater of Operations, landing Marines and Army troops and transporting casualties at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Ships of the class were among the first Allied ships to enter Tokyo Bay at the end of World War II, after the end of World War II, most participated in Operation Magic Carpet, the massive sealift of US personnel back to the United States. A few of the Haskell class were reactivated for the Korean War, the Haskell class, Maritime Commission standard type VC2-S-AP5, is a subtype of the World War II Victory ship design. 117 were launched in 1944 and 1945, with 14 more being finished as another VC2 type or canceled, the VC2-S-AP5 design was intended for the transport and assault landing of over 1,500 troops and their heavy combat equipment. During Operation Magic Carpet, up to 1,900 personnel per ship were carried homeward, the Haskells carried 25 landing craft to deliver the troops and equipment right onto the beach. The 23 main boats were the 36 feet long, LCVP, the LCVP was designed to carry 36 equipped troops. The other 2 landing craft were the 50 foot long LCM, capable of carrying 60 troops or 30 tons of cargo, the Haskell-class ships were armed with one 5/38 caliber gun, twelve Bofors 40 mm guns, and ten Oerlikon 20 mm guns. See List of Haskell-class attack transports, Haskell-class attack transports included APA-117, USS Haskell, the lead ship, through APA-247, the never completed USS Mecklenburg. The hulls for APA-181 through APA-186 were repurposed to be hospital ships before they were named, ultimately those hospital ships were built on larger C4 plan and the six VC2 hulls were built in a merchant configuration. APA-240 through APA-247 were named, but cancelled in 1945 when the war ended, with the special exception of the USS Marvin H. McIntyre, the Haskell-class ships were all named after counties of the United States. Most of the Haskell-class ships were mothballed in 1946, with only a few remaining in service, many of the Haskell class were scrapped in 1973-75. A few were converted into Missile Range Instrumentation Ships, the USS Gage, the last remaining ship in the Haskell configuration, was scrapped in 2009 at ESCO Marine, in Brownsville, Tx. The USS Sherburne, which was converted and renamed USS Range Sentinel, lasted until she was scrapped in 2012 7. Attack transport – Attack transport is a United States Navy ship classification for a variant of ocean-going troopship adapted to transporting invasion forces ashore. Unlike standard troopships – often drafted from commercial shipping fleets – that rely on either a quay or tenders and they are not to be confused with landing ships, which beach themselves to bring their troops directly ashore, or their general British equivalent, the Landing ship, infantry. A total of 388 APA and AKA attack transports were built for service in World War II in at least fifteen classes, depending on class they were armed with one or two 5-inch guns and a variety of 40 mm and 20 mm anti-aircraft weapons. Some of these were outfitted with heavy boat davits and other arrangements to enable them to handle landing craft] for amphibious assault operations. In 1942, when the AP number series had extended beyond 100. Therefore, the new classification of attack transport was created and numbers assigned to fifty-eight APs then in commission or under construction, the actual reclassification of these ships was not implemented until February 1943, by which time two ships that had APA numbers assigned had been lost. Another two transports sunk in 1942, USS George F. Elliott and USS Leedstown, were configured as attack transports. In addition, as part of the 1950s modernization of the Navys amphibious force with faster ships, as a result, only attack transport ships were assigned for the assault, without support from any companion attack cargo ships. This created extreme logistics burdens for the force because it resulted in considerable overloading of the transports with both men and equipment. To compound problems, these forces were not able to assemble or train together before executing the Aleutian invasion on 11 May 1943, lack of equipment and training subsequently resulted in confusion during the landings on Attu. By the end of the 1950s, it was clear that boats would soon be superseded by amphibious tractors and helicopters for landing assault troops. These could not be supported by attack transports in the numbers required, by 1969, when the surviving attack transports were redesignated LPA, only a few remained in commissioned service. The last of these were decommissioned in 1980 and sold abroad, the APA/LPA designation may, therefore, now be safely considered extinct. Nearly identical ships used to transport vehicles, supplies and landing craft, Landing Ship Infantry This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. APA/LPA -- Attack Transports by the US Naval Historical Center 8. United States Navy – The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U. S. Navy is the largest, most capable navy in the world, the U. S. Navy has the worlds largest aircraft carrier fleet, with ten in service, two in the reserve fleet, and three new carriers under construction. The service has 323,792 personnel on duty and 108,515 in the Navy Reserve. It has 274 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of October 2016, the U. S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revolutionary War and was effectively disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter. It played a role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy. It played the role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The 21st century U. S. Navy maintains a global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean. The Navy is administratively managed by the Department of the Navy, the Department of the Navy is itself a division of the Department of Defense, which is headed by the Secretary of Defense. The Chief of Naval Operations is an admiral and the senior naval officer of the Department of the Navy. The CNO may not be the highest ranking officer in the armed forces if the Chairman or the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The mission of the Navy is to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression, the United States Navy is a seaborne branch of the military of the United States. The Navys three primary areas of responsibility, The preparation of naval forces necessary for the prosecution of war. The development of aircraft, weapons, tactics, technique, organization, U. S. Navy training manuals state that the mission of the U. S. Armed Forces is to prepare and conduct prompt and sustained combat operations in support of the national interest, as part of that establishment, the U. S. Navys functions comprise sea control, power projection and nuclear deterrence, in addition to sealift duties. It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, the Navy was rooted in the colonial seafaring tradition, which produced a large community of sailors, captains, and shipbuilders. In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had its own Massachusetts Naval Militia, the establishment of a national navy was an issue of debate among the members of the Second Continental Congress. Supporters argued that a navy would protect shipping, defend the coast, detractors countered that challenging the British Royal Navy, then the worlds preeminent naval power, was a foolish undertaking. Commander in Chief George Washington resolved the debate when he commissioned the ocean-going schooner USS Hannah to interdict British merchant ships, and reported the captures to the Congress 9. World War II – World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan 10. United States Maritime Commission – It also formed the United States Maritime Service for the training of seagoing ships officers to man the new fleet. The purpose of the Maritime Commission was multifold as described in the Merchant Marine Acts Declaration of Policy. S, Merchant Marine prior to the Act. Another function given to the Commission involved the formation of the U. S. Maritime Service for the training of seagoing ships officers to man the new fleet, the actual licensing of officers and seamen still resided with the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation. President Roosevelt nominated Joseph P. Kennedy first head of the Commission, Kennedy held that position until February 1938 when he left to become US Ambassador to Great Britain. The other four members of the Commission in the years before the beginning of World War II were a mix of retired officers and men from disciplines of law. The man most notable in the group Land brought to the Commission was Commander Howard L. Vickery, USN, as a symbol of the rebirth of the U. S. Upon the U. S. entry into World War II, America was requisitioned by the U. S. Navy and became USS West Point. Most of the C2s and C3s were converted to Navy auxiliaries, notably attack cargo ships, attack transports, the Commission also was tasked with the construction of many hundred military type vessels such as Landing Ship, Tank s and Tacoma-class frigates and large troop transports. By the end of the war, U. S. shipyards working under Maritime Commission contracts had built a total of 5,777 oceangoing merchant, in early 1942 both the training and licensing was transferred to the U. S. S. With the end of World War II, both the Emergency and Long Range shipbuilding programs were terminated as there were far too many merchant vessels now for the Nations peacetime needs. In 1946, the Merchant Ship Sales Act was passed to sell off a portion of the ships previously built during the war to commercial buyers. Although not sold outright to nations that were enemies during the war, for the next 25 years, in ports all around the world one could find dozens of ships which had been built during the war but which now were used in peace. Ships not disposed of through the Ship Sales Act were placed one of eight National Defense Reserve Fleet sites maintained on the Atlantic, Pacific. On several occasions in the postwar years ships in the fleets were activated for both military and humanitarian aid missions. The last major mobilization of the NDRF came during the Vietnam War, since then, a smaller fleet of ships called the Ready Reserve Force has been mobilized to support both humanitarian and military missions. The Maritime Commission was abolished on 24 May 1950, and its functions were divided between the U. S. S. Merchant Marine Academy which had built and opened during World War II. 1936, Merchant Marine Act abolishes Shipping Board and establishes Maritime Commission,1937, Joseph P. S. merchant shipping has been held by many agencies since 1917 11. Kaiser Shipyards – Henry John Kaiser was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. He established the Kaiser Shipyards, which built Liberty ships during World War II, after which he formed Kaiser Aluminum, Kaiser organized Kaiser Permanente health care for his workers and their families. He led Kaiser-Frazer followed by Kaiser Motors, automobile companies known for the safety of their designs, Kaiser was involved in large construction projects such as civic centers and dams, and invested in real estate. With his wealth, he established the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, non-partisan, Kaiser was born on May 9,1882, in Sprout Brook, New York, the son of Franz and Anna Marie Kaiser, ethnic German immigrants. Kaisers first job was as a boy in an Utica, New York. He worked as an apprentice photographer early in life, and was running the studio in Lake Placid by the age of twenty. He used his savings to move to Washington state on the west coast of the United States in 1906, where he started a construction company that fulfilled government contracts. Kaiser met his wife, Bess Fosburgh, the daughter of a Virginia lumberman. They married on April 8,1907, and had two children, Edgar Kaiser, Sr and Henry Kaiser, Jr, in 1914 Kaiser founded a paving company, Henry J. Kaiser Co. Ltd. one of the first to use heavy construction machinery. His firm expanded significantly in 1927 when it received a contract to build roads in Camagüey Province. In 1931 his firm was one of the contractors in building the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. Henry Kaiser was an advocate of bringing American aid to those suffering from Nazi aggression in Europe. S. Still fretted over preserving its isolationism, many leading industrialists, such as Henry Ford, were pro-Fascist and adamantly against the US entering that conflict until December 7,1941. These ships became known as Liberty ships and were supplemented in the mid-war by improved. He became world-renowned when his teams built a ship in four days, the previous record had been 10 days for the Liberty ship Joseph M. Teal. A visit to a Ford assembly plant by one of his associates led to the decision to use welding instead of riveting for shipbuilding. Welding was advantageous in that it took less strength and it was easier to teach thousands of employees, mostly unskilled laborers, Kaiser adopted the use of subassemblies in ship construction, formerly, hundreds of laborers crowded together to complete a ship. Though this practice had been tried on the East Coast and in Britain, other Kaiser Shipyards were located in Ryan Point on the Columbia River in Washington state and on Swan Island in Portland, Oregon 12. Vancouver, Washington – Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U. S. State of Washington, and the largest suburb of Portland, Oregon. Incorporated in 1857, it is the fourth largest city in the state, Vancouver is the county seat of Clark County and forms part of the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area, the 23rd largest metropolitan area in the United States. Originally established in 1825 around Fort Vancouver, a fur trading outpost, in 2005, Money magazine named it No.91 on its list of best places in America to live. In 2016, WalletHub ranks Vancouver the 39th best place to live for families in the US, Vancouver shares its name with the larger city of Vancouver in southern British Columbia, Canada, approximately 300 mi to the north. Both cities were named after sea captain George Vancouver, but the American city is older, Vancouver, City officials have periodically suggested changing the U. S. citys name to Fort Vancouver to reduce confusion with its larger and better-known northern neighbor. Many Pacific Northwest residents distinguish between the two cities by referring to the Canadian city as Vancouver, B. C. and the United States city as Vancouver, Washington, or Vancouver, local nicknames include, Vantucky and The Couv. In 2013, the nickname Vansterdam surfaced as a result of the legalization of marijuana in the state of Washington and this nickname has also long been used to refer to Vancouver, B. C. as well. This name is a reference to the cannabis-legal city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The Vancouver, Washington, area was inhabited by a variety of Native American tribes, most recently the Chinook and Klickitat nations, the Chinookan and Klickitat names for the area were reportedly Skit-so-to-ho and Ala-si-kas, respectively, meaning land of the mud-turtles. First European contact was made in 1775, with half of the indigenous population dead from smallpox before the Lewis. Meriwether Lewis wrote that the Vancouver area was the only desired situation for settlement west of the Rocky Mountains, the first permanent European settlement did not occur until 1824, when Fort Vancouver was established as a fur trading post of the Hudsons Bay Company. From that time on, the area was settled by both the US and Britain under a joint occupation agreement. Joint occupation led to the Oregon boundary dispute and ended on June 15,1846, with the signing of the Oregon Treaty, in 1850, Amos Short traced over the claim of Williamson and named the town Columbia City. It changed to Vancouver in 1855, the City of Vancouver was incorporated on January 23,1857. U. S. Army Captain Ulysses S. Grant was quartermaster at what was known as Columbia Barracks for 15 months beginning in September 1852. Soon after leaving Vancouver, he resigned from the army and did not serve again until the outbreak of the American Civil War, other notable generals to have served in Vancouver include George B. McClellan, Philip Sheridan, Oliver O. Howard and 1953 Nobel Peace Prize recipient George Marshall, Vancouver became the end point for two ultra-long flights from Moscow, USSR over the North Pole. The first of these flights was performed by Valery Chkalov in 1937 on a Tupolev ANT-25RD airplane, Chkalov was originally scheduled to land at an airstrip in nearby Portland, Oregon, but redirected at the last minute to Vancouvers Pearson Airfield 13. California – California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565 14. Guadalcanal – Guadalcanal is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of the nation of Solomon Islands in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. Its European discovery was under the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña in 1568, the name comes from Guadalcanal, a village in the province of Seville, in Andalusia, Spain, birthplace of Pedro de Ortega Valencia, a member of Mendañas expedition. During 1942–43 it was the scene of the Guadalcanal Campaign, at the end of the war, Honiara, on the north coast of Guadalcanal, became the new capital of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. Guadalcanal is mainly covered in tropical rainforest and it has a mountainous interior. A Spanish expedition from Peru under the command of Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira discovered the island in the year 1568, Mendañas subordinate, Pedro de Ortega Valencia, named the island after his home town Guadalcanal in Andalusia, Spain. The name comes from the Arabic Wādī l-Khānāt, which means Valley of the Stalls or River of Stalls, in 1932, the British confirmed the name Guadalcanal in line with the town in Andalusia, Spain. In the months following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Japanese drove the Americans out of the Philippines, the British out of British Malaya, the Japanese reached Guadalcanal in May 1942. When an American reconnaissance mission spotted construction of a Japanese airfield at Lunga Point on the north coast of Guadalcanal, Guadalcanal became a major turning point in the war as it stopped Japanese expansion. After six months of fighting, the Japanese ceased contesting the control of the island and they finally evacuated the island at Cape Esperance on the north west coast in February 1943. Immediately after landing on the island, the US Navy Seabees began finishing the airfield begun by the Japanese and it was then named Henderson Field after a Marine aviator killed in combat during the Battle of Midway. Aircraft operating from Henderson Field during the campaign were a hodgepodge of Marine, Army, Navy and they defended the airfield and threatened any Japanese ships that ventured into the vicinity during daylight hours. However, at night, Japanese naval forces were able to shell the airfield and deliver troops with supplies, the Japanese used fast ships to make these runs, and this became known as the Tokyo Express. So many ships from both sides were sunk in the engagements in and around the Solomon Island chain that the nearby waters were referred to as Ironbottom Sound. The Battle of Cape Esperance was fought on 11 October 1942 off the northwest coast of Guadalcanal. In the battle, United States Navy ships intercepted and defeated a Japanese formation of ships on their way down the Slot to reinforce and resupply troops on the island, American authorities declared Guadalcanal secure on 9 February 1943. Two US Navy ships have been named for the battle, USS Guadalcanal, USS Guadalcanal, an amphibious assault ship. Munro provided a shield and covering fire, and helped evacuate 500 besieged Marines from a beach at Point Cruz, during the Battle for Guadalcanal, the Medal of Honor was also awarded to John Basilone who later died on Iwo Jima. Immediately after the Second World War, the capital of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate was moved to Honiara on Guadalcanal from its previous location at Tulagi in the Florida Islands 15. Ryukyu Islands – The larger are mostly high islands and the smaller ones are mostly coral islands. The largest of the islands is Okinawa, the climate of the islands ranges from humid subtropical climate in the north to tropical rainforest climate in the south. Precipitation is very high, and is affected by the rainy season, the islands beyond the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs. The Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama Islands have a native population collectively called the Ryukyuan people, the varied Ryukyuan languages are traditionally spoken on these islands, and the major islands have their own distinct languages. In modern times, the Japanese language is the language of the islands. The northern islands are called the Satsunan Islands, while the southern part of the chain are called the Ryukyu Islands in Japanese. Following are the grouping and names used by the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Department of the Japan Coast Guard, the islands are listed from north to south where possible. Nansei Islands Satsunan Islands Ōsumi Islands with, Tanegashima, Yaku, Kuchinoerabu, Mageshima in the North-Eastern Group and they agreed on February 15,2010, to use Amami-guntō for the Amami Islands, prior to that, Amami-shotō had also been used. The English and Japanese uses of the term Ryukyu differ, in English, the term Ryukyu may apply to the entire chain of islands, while in Japanese Ryukyu usually refers only to the islands that were previously part of the Ryūkyū Kingdom after 1624. Nansei-shotō is the name for the whole island chain in Japanese. Japan has used the name on nautical charts since 1907, based on the Japanese charts, the international chart series uses Nansei Shoto. Nansei literally means southwest, the direction of the chain from mainland Japan. Some humanities scholars prefer the uncommon term Ryūkyū-ko for the island chain. In geology, however, the Ryukyu Arc includes subsurface structures such as the Okinawa Trough, the name of Ryūkyū is strongly associated with the Ryūkyū Kingdom, a kingdom that originated from the Okinawa Islands and subjected the Sakishima and Amami Islands. The name is considered outdated in Japanese although some entities of Okinawa still bear the name. In Japanese, the Ryukyu Islands cover only the Okinawa, Miyako, the northern half of the island chain is referred to as the Satsunan Islands in Japanese, as opposed to Northern Ryukyu Islands in English. Humanities scholars generally agree that the Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, there is, however, no good name for the group. The native population do not have their own name, since they do not recognize themselves as a group this size, Ryukyu is the principal candidate because it roughly corresponds to the maximum extent of the Ryūkyū Kingdom 16. Okinawa Prefecture – The larger are mostly high islands and the smaller ones are mostly coral islands. The largest of the islands is Okinawa, the climate of the islands ranges from humid subtropical climate in the north to tropical rainforest climate in the south. Precipitation is very high, and is affected by the rainy season, the islands beyond the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs. The Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama Islands have a native population collectively called the Ryukyuan people, the varied Ryukyuan languages are traditionally spoken on these islands, and the major islands have their own distinct languages. In modern times, the Japanese language is the language of the islands. The northern islands are called the Satsunan Islands, while the southern part of the chain are called the Ryukyu Islands in Japanese. Following are the grouping and names used by the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Department of the Japan Coast Guard, the islands are listed from north to south where possible. Nansei Islands Satsunan Islands Ōsumi Islands with, Tanegashima, Yaku, Kuchinoerabu, Mageshima in the North-Eastern Group and they agreed on February 15,2010, to use Amami-guntō for the Amami Islands, prior to that, Amami-shotō had also been used. The English and Japanese uses of the term Ryukyu differ, in English, the term Ryukyu may apply to the entire chain of islands, while in Japanese Ryukyu usually refers only to the islands that were previously part of the Ryūkyū Kingdom after 1624. Nansei-shotō is the name for the whole island chain in Japanese. Japan has used the name on nautical charts since 1907, based on the Japanese charts, the international chart series uses Nansei Shoto. Nansei literally means southwest, the direction of the chain from mainland Japan. Some humanities scholars prefer the uncommon term Ryūkyū-ko for the island chain. In geology, however, the Ryukyu Arc includes subsurface structures such as the Okinawa Trough, the name of Ryūkyū is strongly associated with the Ryūkyū Kingdom, a kingdom that originated from the Okinawa Islands and subjected the Sakishima and Amami Islands. The name is considered outdated in Japanese although some entities of Okinawa still bear the name. In Japanese, the Ryukyu Islands cover only the Okinawa, Miyako, the northern half of the island chain is referred to as the Satsunan Islands in Japanese, as opposed to Northern Ryukyu Islands in English. Humanities scholars generally agree that the Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, there is, however, no good name for the group. The native population do not have their own name, since they do not recognize themselves as a group this size, Ryukyu is the principal candidate because it roughly corresponds to the maximum extent of the Ryūkyū Kingdom 17. San Francisco – San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush 18. Korean War – The Korean War began when North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, China came to the aid of North Korea, and the Soviet Union gave some assistance. Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the days of World War II. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as a result of an agreement with the United States, U. S. forces subsequently moved into the south. By 1948, as a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea was split into two regions, with separate governments, both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither side accepted the border as permanent. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union, on that day, the United Nations Security Council recognized this North Korean act as invasion and called for an immediate ceasefire. On 27 June, the Security Council adopted S/RES/83, Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea and decided the formation, twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force, with the United States providing 88% of the UNs military personnel. After the first two months of war, South Korean forces were on the point of defeat, forced back to the Pusan Perimeter, in September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Inchon, and cut off many North Korean troops. Those who escaped envelopment and capture were rapidly forced back north all the way to the border with China at the Yalu River, at this point, in October 1950, Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and entered the war. Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces which continued until mid-1951, after these reversals of fortune, which saw Seoul change hands four times, the last two years of fighting became a war of attrition, with the front line close to the 38th parallel. The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate, North Korea was subject to a massive bombing campaign. Jet fighters confronted each other in combat for the first time in history. The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed, the agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no treaty has been signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war. Periodic clashes, many of which are deadly, continue to the present, in the U. S. the war was initially described by President Harry S. Truman as a police action as it was an undeclared military action, conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. In South Korea, the war is referred to as 625 or the 6–2–5 Upheaval. In North Korea, the war is referred to as the Fatherland Liberation War or alternatively the Chosn War. In China, the war is called the War to Resist U. S 19. United States Pacific Fleet – The United States Pacific Fleet is a Pacific Ocean theater-level component command of the United States Navy that provides naval forces to the United States Pacific Command. Fleet headquarters is at Pearl Harbor Naval Station, Hawaii, with large facilities at North Island. A Pacific Fleet was created in 1907 when the Asiatic Squadron, in 1910, the ships of the First Squadron were organized back into a separate Asiatic Fleet. The General Order 94 of 6 December 1922 organized the United States Fleet, until May 1940, the Battle Fleet was stationed on the west coast of the United States. During the summer of year, as part of the U. S. response to Japanese expansionism, it was instructed to take an advanced position at Pearl Harbor. Long term basing at Pearl Harbor was so strongly opposed by the commander, Admiral James O. Richardson, political considerations were thought sufficiently important that he was relieved by Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, who was in command at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Pacific Fleet was formally recreated on 1 February 1941, on that day General Order 143 split the United States Fleet into separate Atlantic, Pacific, and Asiatic Fleets. On 7 December, the Fleet consisted of the Battle Force, Scouting Force, Base Force, Amphibious Force, Cruiser Force, Destroyer Force, also in Hawaii was the Fourteenth Naval District, commanded by Rear Admiral Claude C. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Pennsylvania was in dry dock and Colorado was being refitted at Bremerton Navy Yard, arizona was mated with Nevada and Oklahoma at that time. Other components of the Battle Force included Aircraft, Battle Force, with Carrier Division One and Carrier Division Two, plus Cruiser Divisions 4,5, the Scouting Force included Cruiser Division Three, Cruiser Division Nine and Submarines, Scouting Force. The Amphibious Force was formally known as Commander, Amphibious Forces, One of PhibPacs subordinate commands during World War II was Transports, Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet, or TransPhibPac. The commander of TransPhibPac was known as ComTransPhibPac, in December 1941, the fleet consisted of nine battleships, three aircraft carriers,12 heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers,50 destroyers,33 submarines, and 100 patrol bombers. This was approximately the strength at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. That day, the Japanese Combined Fleet carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor, Navy to rely primarily on aircraft carriers and submarines for many months afterward. More minor battles included the Battle of Dutch Harbor, the West Loch disaster occurred at Pearl Harbor on 21 May 1944. The Pacific Fleet took part in Operation Magic Carpet, the return of U. S. servicemen, after the end of the Second World War. The organization of the Pacific Fleet in January 1947 is shown in Hal M. Friedmans Arguing over the American Lake, Bureaucracy and Rivalry in the U. S. Pacific, the RIMPAC exercise series began in 1971. On 7 March 1984, the Secretaries of Transportation and Navy signed a Memorandum of Agreement which created the Maritime Defense Zones, the Pacific MDZ is an echelon three Navy command under the Commander U. S 20. Empire of Japan – The Empire of Japan was the historical Japanese nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the enactment of the 1947 constitution of modern Japan. Imperial Japans rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei led to its emergence as a world power, after several large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, the Empire also gained notoriety for its war crimes against the peoples it conquered. A period of occupation by the Allies followed the surrender, Occupation and reconstruction continued well into the 1950s, eventually forming the current nationstate whose full title is the State of Japan or simply rendered Japan in English. The historical state is referred to as the Empire of Japan or the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan in English. In Japanese it is referred to as Dai Nippon Teikoku, which translates to Greater Japanese Empire and this is analogous to Großdeutsches Reich, a term that translates to Greater German Empirein English and Dai Doitsu Teikoku in Japanese. This meaning is significant in terms of geography, encompassing Japan, due to its name in kanji characters and its flag, it was also given the exonym Empire of the Sun. After two centuries, the policy, or Sakoku, under the shoguns of the Edo period came to an end when the country was forced open to trade by the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. The following years saw increased trade and interaction, commercial treaties between the Tokugawa shogunate and Western countries were signed. In large part due to the terms of these Unequal Treaties, the Shogunate soon faced internal hostility, which materialized into a radical, xenophobic movement. In March 1863, the Emperor issued the order to expel barbarians, although the Shogunate had no intention of enforcing the order, it nevertheless inspired attacks against the Shogunate itself and against foreigners in Japan. The Namamugi Incident during 1862 led to the murder of an Englishman, Charles Lennox Richardson, the British demanded reparations but were denied. While attempting to exact payment, the Royal Navy was fired on from coastal batteries near the town of Kagoshima and they responded by bombarding the port of Kagoshima in 1863. For Richardsons death, the Tokugawa government agreed to pay an indemnity, shelling of foreign shipping in Shimonoseki and attacks against foreign property led to the Bombardment of Shimonoseki by a multinational force in 1864. The Chōshū clan also launched the coup known as the Kinmon incident. The SatsumaChōshū alliance was established in 1866 to combine their efforts to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, in early 1867, Emperor Kōmei died of smallpox and was replaced by his son, Crown Prince Mutsuhito. On November 9,1867, Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned from his post and authorities to the Emperor, however, while Yoshinobus resignation had created a nominal void at the highest level of government, his apparatus of state continued to exist. On January 3,1868, Satsuma-Chōshū forces seized the palace in Kyoto. On January 17,1868, Yoshinobu declared that he would not be bound by the proclamation of the Restoration, on January 24, Yoshinobu decided to prepare an attack on Kyoto, occupied by Satsuma and Chōshū forces 21. Pacific Ocean – The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations 22. Korea – Korea is a historical state in East Asia, since 1945 divided into two distinct sovereign states, North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by China to the northwest and it is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan. Korea emerged as a political entity after centuries of conflict among the Three Kingdoms of Korea. Later Silla divided into three states during the Later Three Kingdoms period. Goryeo, which had succeeded Goguryeo, defeated the two states and united the Korean Peninsula. Around the same time, Balhae collapsed and its last crown prince fled south to Goryeo, Goryeo, whose name developed into the modern exonym Korea, was a highly cultured state that created the worlds first metal movable type in 1234. However, multiple invasions by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty during the 13th century greatly weakened the nation, following the Yuan Dynastys collapse, severe political strife followed, and Goryeo eventually fell to a coup led by General Yi Seong-gye, who established Joseon in 1388. The first 200 years of Joseon were marked by peace and saw the creation of the Korean alphabet by Sejong the Great in the 14th century. During the later part of the dynasty, however, Koreas isolationist policy earned it the Western nickname of the Hermit Kingdom, by the late 19th century, the country became the object of imperial design by the Empire of Japan. Despite attempts at modernization by the Korean Empire, in 1910 Korea was annexed by Japan and these circumstances soon became the basis for the division of Korea by the two superpowers, exacerbated by their incapability to agree on the terms of Korean independence. To date, both continue to compete with each other as the sole legitimate government of all of Korea. Korea is the spelling of Corea, a name attested in English as early as 1614. It is a derived from Cauli, Marco Polos transcription of the Chinese . This was the Hanja for the Korean kingdom of Goryeo or Koryŏ, Goryeos name was a continuation of the earlier Goguryeo or Koguryŏ, the northernmost of the Samguk, which was officially known by the shortened form Goryeo after the 5th-century reign of King Jangsu. The original name was a combination of the go with the name of a local Yemaek tribe. The name Korea is now used in English contexts by both North and South Korea. In South Korea, Korea as a whole is referred to as Hanguk, the name references the Samhan—Ma, Jin, and Byeon—who preceded the Three Kingdoms in the southern and central end of the peninsula during the 1st centuriesBC and AD. It has been linked with the title khan used by the nomads of Manchuria 23. Sagami Bay – It lies approximately 40 kilometres southwest of the capital, Tokyo. Cities on the bay include Odawara, Chigasaki, Fujisawa, Hiratsuka, Itō, the epicenter of the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923 was deep beneath Izu Ōshima Island in Sagami Bay. It devastated Tokyo, the city of Yokohama, and the surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka. A branch of the warm Kuroshio Current warms the bay, allowing it to host marine organisms typical of more southerly regions, the maximum depth of Sagami Bay is about 1500 meters. Organisms from sub-arctic regions are advected into the bay by intrusions of the Oyashio Current resulting in very high biodiversity and it is the major study site for research programs at the University of Tokyo and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. In 2004, soil samples from Sagami Bay were found to contain radioactive contamination from the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests took place from 1946 to 1958. Yokohama Burning, The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II, ISBN 978-0-74326465-5 Kamio, Kenji & Willson, Heather, An English Guide to Kamakuras Temples and Shrines, Ryokufu Shuppan, Tokyo,2008. ISBN 978-4-8461-0811-3 Media related to Sagami Bay at Wikimedia Commons} 24. West Coast of the United States – The West Coast or Pacific Coast is the coastline along which the contiguous Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. As a region, this term most often refers to the states of California. More specifically, it refers to an area defined on the east by the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada and Mojave Desert, the U. S. Census groups the five states of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii together as the Pacific States division. As of the 2010 Census, the population of the Census Bureaus Pacific Region was approximately 47.8 million – about 15. 3% of US population. The largest city on the west coast of the United States is Los Angeles, small isolated groups of hunter-gatherers migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska. Between 16,500 BCE and 13,500 BCE, ice-free corridors developed along the Pacific coast and valleys of North America, Alaska Natives, indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, and California indigenous peoples eventually descended from the Paleo-Indians. They developed various languages and established trade routes, later, Spanish, British, French, Russian, and American explorers and settlers began colonizing the area. The West Coast of the United States has a climate in its Northern edge towards the Canada–US border. The coastline sees significantly mild temperatures when compared to the areas during summer. In far Northern California there is a difference of 17 °C between Eurekas and Willow Creek in spite of only 25 miles separating the locations and Willow Creek being located at a 500 metres elevation, coastal fog is also prevalent in keeping shoreline temperatures cool. Since the West Coast has been populated by more recently than the East Coast. Additionally, its demographic composition underlies its cultural difference from the rest of the United States. Californias history first as a major Spanish colony, and later Mexican territory, has given the lower West Coast a distinctive Hispanic tone, which it also shares with the rest of the Southwest. Similarly, two of the three cities in which Asian Americans have concentrated, San Francisco and Los Angeles, are located on the West Coast, San Franciscos Chinatown, the oldest in North America, is a vibrant cultural center. The West Coast also has a large share of green cities within the United States. Other writers, like Jean Baudrillard, Mike Davis, and Umberto Eco, have made related statements on Californian culture, in the Northwest, Portland and Seattle are both considered among the coffee capitals of the world. While Starbucks originated in Seattle, both towns are known for coffee roasters and independent coffeeshops. In the Pacific Northwest at large, which includes the Canadian west coast, the culture has significantly shaped by the environment, especially by its forests, mountains 25. Far East – The Far East is an alternate geographical term in English, that usually refers to East Asia, the Russian Far East, and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons, since the 1960s, East Asia has become the most common term for the region in international mass media outlets. Far East is often deprecated as archaic and Eurocentric, along with the terms Near East and Middle East. The term Far East came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 12th century, for the same reason, Chinese people in the 19th and early 20th centuries called Western countries Tàixī —i. e. anything further west than the Arab world. Prior to the era, Far East referred to anything further east than the Middle East. In the 16th century, King John III of Portugal called India a rich, the term was popularized during the period of the British Empire as a blanket term for lands to the east of British India. Many European languages have terms, such as the French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Polish, Norwegian. Significantly, the term evokes cultural as well as separation, the Far East is not just geographically distant. It never refers, for instance, to the culturally Western nations of Australia and New Zealand and this combination of cultural and geographic subjectivity was well illustrated in 1939 by Robert Menzies, a Prime Minister of Australia. Reflecting on his countrys geopolitical concerns with the onset of war, Menzies commented that, what Great Britain calls the Far East is to us the Near North. Far East in its sense is comparable to terms such as the Orient, which means East. Southeast Asia, the Russian Far East, and occasionally the Indian Subcontinent might be included in the Far East to some extent, for the people who live in that part of the world, however, it is neither East nor West and certainly not Far. A more generally acceptable term for the area is East Asia, furthermore, the United Kingdom and United States have historically used Far East for several military units and commands in the region, British Far East Command RAF Far East Air Force U. S. Far East Air Force The U. S. Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations, Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western 26. Incheon – Incheon, officially the Incheon Metropolitan City, is a city located in northwestern South Korea, bordering Seoul and Gyeonggi to the east. Inhabited since the New Stone Age, Incheon was home to just 4,700 people when it became a port in 1883. Today, about 3 million people live in the city, making it Korea’s third most populous city after Seoul and Busan. The citys growth has been assured in modern times with the development of its due to its natural advantages as a coastal city. It is part of the Seoul Capital Area, along with Seoul itself and Gyeonggi Province, Incheon has since led the economic development of Korea by opening its port to the outside world, ushering in the modernization of Korea as a center of industrialization. In 2003, the city was designated as Korea’s first free economic zone, as an international city, Incheon has held numerous large scale international conferences, such as the Incheon Global Fair & Festival in 2009. The 17th Asian Games Incheon 2014 was also held in Incheon on 19 September 2014, Incheon has established itself as a major transportation hub in northeast Asia with the world-renowned Incheon International Airport and Incheon Port. The city is home to the Green Climate Fund, an international organization addressing environmental issues. The first historical record of the Incheon area dates back to 475 AD, during the reign of King Jangsu of Goguryeo, by the name of Michuhol, the area underwent several name changes with successive kingdoms and dynasties. In Goryeo era, Incheon was called Gyeongwon or Inju, the current name was turned to Incheon in 1413. Later, Incheon County became Incheon Metropolitan Prefecture, old Incheon consisted of todays southern Incheon and northern part of Siheung City. The city centre was Gwangyo-dong, where the office and the local academy were located. Another historical name of the city, Jemulpo, was not widely used until the opening of the port in 1883, after the opening of the Incheon port, the city centre moved from Gwangyo to Jemulpo. Today, either Jemulpo or Gwangyo-dong is considered Deep Incheon and it was renamed as Jinsen during Japanese rule in Korean peninsula. In 1914, the Japanese colonial government merged outer parts of old Incheon with Bupyeong County, through 1936 and 1940, some part of Bucheon County was recombined into Incheon City, by which some part of old Bupyeong was annexed into Incheon. Incheon was originally part of Gyeonggi Province, but was granted Directly Governed City status on July 1,1981, Incheon was known as Inchon prior to South Koreas adoption of a new Romanization system in 2000. The city was the site of the Battle of Chemulpo Bay, during the Korean War, Incheon was occupied by North Korean troops on 4 September 1950. Eleven days later, Incheon was the site of the Battle of Inchon, the result was a decisive UN victory and it was recaptured on 19 September 1950 27. Iwo Jima – The U. S. occupied Iwo Jima until 1968 when it was returned to Japan. The first European to arrive at Iwo Jima was Spanish sailor Bernardo de la Torre who named it Sufre Island, at that time Iwo Jima and other islands were the limit between the Spanish and Portuguese Empires in the far East. In 1779, the island was charted as Sulphur Island, the translation of its official name. The name Sulphur Island was translated into Late Middle Japanese with the Sino-Japanese rendering iwau-tau, from Middle Chinese ljuw-huang sulfur, the historical spelling iwautau had come to be pronounced Iwō-tō by the age of Western exploration, and the 1946 orthography reform fixed the spelling and pronunciation at Iō-tō. An alternative, Iwō-jima, modern Iō-jima, also appeared in nautical atlases, tō and shima are different readings of the kanji for island, the shima being changed to jima in this case. Japanese naval officers who arrived to fortify the island before the U. S. invasion mistakenly called it Iwo Jima, in this way, the Iwo Jima reading became mainstream and was the one used by U. S. forces who arrived during World War II. Moves to revert the pronunciation were sparked by the high-profile films Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, the change does not affect how the name is written with kanji, , only how it is pronounced or written in hiragana, katakana and rōmaji. The island has an area of 21 km2. The most prominent feature is Mount Suribachi on the southern tip, named after a Japanese grinding bowl, the summit of Mount Suribachi is the highest point on the island. Iwo Jima is unusually flat and featureless for a volcanic island, Suribachi is the only obvious volcanic feature, as it is only the resurgent dome of a larger submerged volcanic caldera. 80 km north of the island is North Iwo Jima and 59 kilometres south is South Iwo Jima, just south of Minami-Iō-jima are the Mariana Islands. Iwo Jima has a history of volcanic activity a few times per year. Late 1779, Captain Cooks surveying crew landed on a beach which is now 40 m above sea level due to volcanic uplifting. Such uplifting occurs on the island at a rate of between 100 and 800 mm per year, with an average rate of 200 mm per year. Early 1945, USA armed forces landed on a beach which as of 2015 was 17 metres above sea level due to volcanic uplift,28 March 1957, Phreatic eruption without warning 2 km northeast of Suribachi, lasted 65 minutes and ejected material 30 m high from one crater. Another crater,30 m wide and 15 m deep, formed by collapse 50 minutes after the eruption ended,31 March 1957, Gas emissions increased. 9-10 March 1982,5 phreatic eruptions from vents on the northwest shore of Iwo-jima,21 September 2001, Submarine eruption from 3 vents southeast of Iwo-jima. It built a 10 m diameter pyroclastic cone,19 October 2001, A small phreatic eruption at Idogahama, made a crater 10 m wide and 2–3 m deep 28. Busan – Busan, officially Busan Metropolitan City, romanized as Pusan before 2000, is South Koreas second most-populous city after Seoul, with a population of approximately 3.6 million. The population of the area, including the adjacent cities of Gimhae. The city is located on the southeastern-most tip of the Korean peninsula, located within South Koreas largest industrial area, The Southeast Economic Zone, the city is the cultural, educational and economic center of the region. It is the largest port city in South Korea and the fifth busiest seaport by cargo tonnage. The most densely built up areas of the city are situated in a number of narrow valleys between the Nakdong River and the Suyeong River, with mountains separating most of the districts, administratively, it is designated as a Metropolitan City. The Busan metropolitan area is divided into 15 major administrative districts, Busan was the host city of the 2002 Asian Games and the APEC2005 Korea. It was also one of the host cities for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, on November 14,2005, the city authorities officially announced its bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics Games. After Pyeongchangs successful bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, Busan is considering bidding to host the 2028 or 2032 Summer Olympics, Busan has Koreas largest beach and longest river, and is home to the worlds largest department store, the Shinsegae Centum City. Geochilsan-guk existed in the second and 3rd and 4th centuries as a chiefdom of Jinhan and it was absorbed by Silla and renamed Geochilsan-gun. The word Geochilsan means rough mountain, probably referring to Hwangbyeongsan, the mounded burials of Bokcheon-dong were built along the top of a ridge that overlooks a wide area that makes up parts of modern-day Dongnae-gu and Yeonje-gu. Archaeologists excavated more than 250 iron weapons and ingots from Burial No,38, a wooden chamber tomb at Bokcheon-dong. In 757, Geochilsan-gun was again renamed Dongnae, which it is still called, from the beginning of the 15th century, the Korean government designated Busan as a trading port with the Japanese and allowed their settlement. Other Japanese settlements in Ulsan and Jinhae diminished later, but the Busan settlement, called Waegwan at the time, after the war, diplomatic relations with the new shogunate in Japan were established in 1607, and Busan Waegwan was permitted to be reconstructed. The Japanese settlement, though relocated into Choryang later, continued to exist until Korea was exposed to modern diplomacy in 1876, in 1876, Busan became the first international port in Korea. During the Japanese rule, Busan developed into a hub trading port with Japan, Busan was the only city in Korea to adopt the steam tramway before electrification was introduced in 1924. During the Korean War, Busan was one of two cities in South Korea not captured by the North Korean army within the first three months of the War. As a result, the city became a camp site for Koreans during the war. As Busan was one of the few areas in Korea that remained under the control of South Korea throughout the Korean War, UN troops established a defensive perimeter around the city known as the Pusan Perimeter in the summer and autumn of 1950 29. Indochina – Indochina, originally Indo-China, is a geographical term originating in the early nineteenth century and referring to the continental portion of the region now known as Southeast Asia. The name refers to the lands historically within the influence of India and China. It corresponds to the areas of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam. The term was adopted as the name of the colony of French Indochina. However, Indo-China had already gained traction and soon supplanted alternative terms such as Further India, in biogeography, the Indochinese Region is a major biogeographical region in the Indomalaya ecozone, and also a phytogeographical floristic region in the Paleotropical Kingdom. It includes the flora and fauna of all the countries above. The adjacent Malesian Region covers the Maritime Southeast Asian countries, and straddles the Indomalaya, suvarnabhumi Golden Chersonese Indochina Time List of butterflies of Indochina Media related to Indochina at Wikimedia Commons Media related to Flora of Indo-China at Wikimedia Commons 30. Haiphong – Haiphong is the third largest city of Vietnam with a population of over two million people. The citys name means coastal defense and it is nicknamed the Flamboyant City because of the many trees planted throughout it. Haiphong is Northern Vietnams most important seaport and has industrial parks invested by multinational corporations. In Vietnam, only Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are larger than Haiphong, Haiphong is a major economic center of the North in particular and Vietnam in general both. Under French domination, Haiphong was level 1 city, equal to Saigon, the last years of the 19th century, the French had proposed to build Haiphong into the economic capital of Indochina. Today, Haiphong is still one of the most important economic centers of Vietnam, in 2009, Haiphong state budget revenue reached 34,000 billion Vnd. In 2011, budget revenues in the city reached 47,725 billion, in 2015, total revenues of the city reached 56288 billion. Government plans that to 2020, Haiphongs revenues will be over 80,000 billion, in the ranking of the Provincial Competitiveness Index 2013 of Vietnam, Haiphong city ranked at No. Haiphong has relationship of trading goods with more than 40 countries and territories around the world, Haiphong is striving to become one of the largest commercial centers of the country. Industry is a key sector in Haiphong including food processing, light industries, most of these industries have been growing significantly between 2000 and 2007, with the exceptions of the cigarette and pharmaceutical industries. Shipbuilding, steel pipes, plastic pipes and textiles are among the industries with the most rapid growth, there are also growing industries supplying products used by existing industries in the city. PetroVietnam set up a jointventure PVTex with textile manufacturer Vinatex to build Vietnams first polyester fiber plant in Haiphong, the factory will use by-products from oil-refining and reduce reliance on imported materials. 270,600 people were employed in Haiphongs industry,112,600 industrial jobs were created between 2000 and 2007. Despite its status as a city, around one third of Haiphongs area or 52,300 ha are used for agriculture, rice is the most important crop, taking up around 80% of the agricultural land with an output of 463,100 tons in 2007. Other agricultural products include maize, sugar and peanuts, Haiphong has a relatively large fishing sector with an output of 79,705 tons. Gross output has almost doubled between 2000 and 2007, mostly due to fast growth in aquaculture, which made up 60% of gross output in 2007, despite its coastal location, sea fish contribute relatively little to the sector. Nam Đnh Province and Thái Bình Province have much larger fishing sectors, as of 2007,315,500 were employed in agriculture and fishery, a significant decrease from 396,300 in 2000. However, these sectors still account for almost a third of employment in Haiphong 31. Ho Chi Minh City – Ho Chi Minh City, formerly named and still often known as Saigon, is the largest city in Vietnam by population. It was once known as Prey Nokor prior to annexation by the Vietnamese in the 17th century, under the name Saigon, it was the capital of the French colony of Cochinchina and later of the independent republic of South Vietnam 1955–75. On 2 July 1976, Saigon merged with the surrounding Gia Đnh Province and was officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City after revolutionary leader H Chí Minh, the citys population is expected to grow to 13.9 million by 2025. Ho Chi Minh City has gone by different names during its history, reflecting settlement by different ethnic. In the 1690s, Nguyn Hu Cnh, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyn rulers of Hu to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the Mekong Delta and its surroundings. Control of the city and the passed to the Vietnamese. Immediately after the communist takeover of South Vietnam in 1975, a provisional government renamed the city after H Chí Minh, even today, however, the informal name of Sài Gòn/Saigon remains in daily speech both domestically and internationally, especially among the Vietnamese diaspora. In particular, Sài Gòn is still used to refer to District 1. This name may refer to the many plants that the Khmer people had planted around Prey Nokor. It may also refer to the dense and tall forest that existed around the city. Other proposed etymologies draw parallels from Tai-Ngon, the Cantonese name of Cholon, which means embankment, and Vietnamese Sai Côn, a translation of the Khmer Prey Nokor. Prey means forest or jungle, and nokor is a Khmer word of Sanskrit origin meaning city or kingdom, the current official name, Thành ph H Chí Minh, adopted in 1976 and abbreviated Tp. HCM, is translated as Ho Chi Minh City, abbreviated HCMC, the name commemorates H Chí Minh, the first leader of North Vietnam. This name, though not his name, was one he favored throughout his later years. It combines a common Vietnamese surname with a name meaning enlightened will, in essence. Ho Chi Minh City began as a fishing village likely known as Prey Nokor, Forest City, or perhaps Preah Reach Nokor which. The area that the city now occupies was originally swampland, and was inhabited by Khmer people for centuries before the arrival of the Vietnamese. In 1623, King Chey Chettha II of Cambodia allowed Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Trnh–Nguyn civil war in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor and to set up a custom house there 32. South Vietnam – South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam, was a state governing the southern half of Vietnam from 1955 to 1975. It received international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam, the term South Vietnam became common usage in 1954, when the Geneva Conference provisionally partitioned Vietnam into communist and non-communist parts. The Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed on 26 October 1955, with Ngô Đình Dim as its first president and its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and eighty-seven other nations. It had membership in several committees of the United Nations. After the Second World War, the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, in 1949, anti-communist Vietnamese politicians formed a rival government in Saigon led by former emperor Bo Đi. Bo Đi was deposed by Prime
Mission San Diego de Alcalá drawn as it was in 1848. Established in 1769, it was the first of the California Missions.
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Scene of a Vit Cng bombing in a residential area of Saigon, 1965.
US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles greet President Ngô Đình Dim of South Vietnam in Washington, 8 May 1957.
Nuclear weapons testing [videos] Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability of …
Sub-critical experiment at the Nevada National Security Site
The Phoenix of Hiroshima (foreground) in Hong Kong Harbor in 1967, was involved in several famous anti-nuclear protest voyages against nuclear testing in the Pacific.
"Baker Shot", part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear test by the United States at Bikini Atoll in 1946 Middle East [videos] The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia, Turkey (both Asian and European), and Egypt …
Map of the Middle East between Africa, Europe, and Central Asia.
The Kaaba, located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
Western Wall and Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem
Islam is the largest religion in the Middle East. Here, Muslim men are prostrating during prayer in a mosque.
Persian Gulf [videos] The Persian Gulf (Persian: , translit. Xalij-e Fârs, lit. 'Gulf of Fars') is a mediterranean sea in Western …
Persian Gulf from space
Picture depicting the Achaemenid Persian empire in relation to the Persian Gulf.
Picture depicting extent of early civilizations around the Persian Gulf, including Lackhmids, and Sassanids.
Picture depicting "Persian Corridor" through which the Allies provided supplies to USSR.
Jordan [videos] Jordan (Arabic: Al-‘Urdunn [al.ur.dunn]), officially The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Arabic: …
The 'Ain Ghazal Statues found in Amman, are some of the oldest human statues ever found, dating back to about 7250 BC.
Al-Khazneh (the treasury) in the ancient city of Petra, carved into the rock in 312 BC by the Arab Nabataeans.
Ajloun Castle in Ajloun built by the Ayyubid Muslim leader Saladin in the 12th century AD used for defence against the Crusades.
Soldiers of the Hashemite-led Arab Army holding the flag of the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1916.
Lebanon [videos] Lebanon ((listen); Arabic: Lubnān; Lebanese pronunciation: [lbnæn]; French: Liban), officially known as the …
The Fall of Tripoli to the Egyptian Mamluks and destruction of the Crusader state, the County of Tripoli, 1289
Roman baths park on the Serail hill, Beirut.
Fakhreddine II Palace, 17th century
Martyrs' Square in Beirut during celebrations marking the release by the French of Lebanon's government from Rashayya prison on 22 November 1943
United States Seventh Fleet [videos] The Seventh Fleet is a numbered fleet (a military formation) of the United States Navy. It is headquartered at U.S. …
Military humor: Unofficial insignia of the "Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club" – aka U.S. 7th Fleet.
The then-commander, Vice Admiral Scott R. Van Buskirk in 2010. Vietnam [videos] Vietnam (UK: , US: (listen); Vietnamese: Vit Nam [vît nām] (listen)), officially the Socialist Republic of …
A Đông Sn bronze drum, circa 800 BC.
US helicopter spraying chemical defoliants (probably Agent Orange) over the Mekong Delta, 1969.
French Indochina in 1913.
The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi.
Weapon mount [videos] A weapon mount is a weapon component used to affix an armament for stabilization. Weapon mounts can be broken down into …
An M1 Abrams with several static mounts.
Lewis and Clark's pirogues mounted blunderbusses to the bow with a pintle.
Turret of a Panhard AML-60 armoured car, which incorporates co-axial weapon mounts for machine guns and a 60mm mortar.
A Japanese soldier examines a rifle tripod during training with US Marines
United States Navy [videos] The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven …
Emblem of the United States Navy
USS ''Constitution'' vs HMS ''Guerriere'' during the War of 1812
USS ''Constellation'' vs ''L'Insurgente'' during the Quasi-War
The Great White Fleet demonstrates U.S. naval power in 1907; it was proof that the U.S. Navy had blue-water capability.
World War II [videos] World War II (often abbreviated to WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from …
The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930
Adolf Hitler at a German National Socialist political rally in Weimar, October 1930
Italian soldiers recruited in 1935, on their way to fight the Second Italo-Abyssinian War
Korean War [videos] The Korean War (in South Korean Hangul: ; Hanja: ; RR: Hanguk Jeonjaeng, "Korean War"; in North Korean …
Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans fled south in mid-1950 after the North Korean army invaded
A U.S. howitzer position near the Kum River, 15 July
G.I. comforting a grieving infantryman
Busan [videos] Busan (Korean pronunciation: [pu.san]), formerly known as Pusan and now officially Busan Metropolitan City, is South …
Top: Aerial view of Busan with Gwangandaegyo Middle: Haeundae Beach (left), Jagalchi Market (right) Bottom: Haedong Yonggungsa Temple (left), Haeundae at night (right)
Busan at night
Gwangan Bridge
Busan harbour painted in 1899
Ho Chi Minh City [videos] Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnamese: Thành ph H Chí Minh; [t àn f hò t m n] (listen)) or Vietnamese pronunciation: …
Clockwise, from left to right: Bn Thành Market, Ho Chi Minh City Hall, District 1 view from Saigon river, Municipal Theatre, NotreDame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon, Independence Palace
Sài Gòn may refer to the kapok (bông gòn) trees that are common around the city.
Saigon Railway Station retains the traditional name used informally since the 1620s, while Ga still reflects the French colonial heritage (the French word gare means station).
Location of the hexagonal Gia Dinh Citadel (r) and Cholon area (tilted square, left) in 1815. Today this forms the area of Ho Chi Minh City.
Enewetak Atoll [videos] Enewetak Atoll (also spelled Eniwetok Atoll or sometimes Eniewetok; Marshallese: Ānewetak, [æ æn ee d k], or …
Landsat 8 satellite image of Enewetak Atoll. The crater formed by the Ivy Mike nuclear test can be seen near the north cape of the atoll, with the smaller Castle Nectar crater adjoining it.
Aerial view of Enewetak and Parry
Aerial view of the Runit Dome. The dome is placed in the crater created by the "Cactus" nuclear weapons test in 1958. Operation Passage to Freedom [videos] Operation Passage to Freedom was a term used by the United States Navy to describe its assistance in transporting in …
Refugees transfer from a French LCT landing craft to British carrier HMS ''Warrior'' at the port of Haiphong during the operation 4 September 1954
Haskell-class attack transport [videos] Haskell-class attack transports (APA) were amphibious assault ships of the United States Navy created in 1944. They …
USS Noble (APA-218)
Attack transport [videos] Attack transport is a United States Navy ship classification for a variant of ocean-going troopship adapted to …
Operation Hardtack I [videos] Operation Hardtack I was a series of 35 nuclear tests conducted by the United States from April 28 to August 18 in 1958 …
Aerial shot of the explosion during Hardtack I Poplar
Operation Hardtack I Cactus shot Crater on Runit Island Reserve fleet [videos] A reserve fleet is a collection of naval vessels of all types that are fully equipped for service but are not currently …
HMS Vanguard in about 1947, when part of the British Reserve Fleet
HMS ''Unicorn'' in ordinary