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A DANGEROUS BUSINESS:

The U.S. Navy and National Reconnaissance During the Cold War

Commemorating Silent Sacrifices

John R. Schindler

During the Cold War, the u.s. Navy was a full participant in the secret war

in the ether against the Communist bloc. For decades, Naval aircrews

waged a daily struggle against enemy air defenses to gain desperately needed

intelligence regarding the military capabilities of the Soviet Union and its

Communist allies. This conflict, hidden from public view, constituted an

integral component of America's national security strategy throughout the

Cold War, and was fraught with risk for the sailors who took to the air to

defend fYeedom.

Many Naval aircraft and lives were lost in this secret struggle - to enemy

fighters, to the elements, to mishaps - and 90 men who gave their lives are

commemorated in this publication. This brochure is published by the National

Security Agency to celebrate the dedication of the u.s. Navy memorial at

National Vigilance Park. It is hoped that it will provide readers with a glimpse

into a world that was long hidden fYomview, a world of dedication, heroism

and sacrifice. This brochure outlines the history of Naval aerial reconnaissance

during the Cold War, and commemorates the many veterans of that long, secret

struggle, especially the sailors - fathers, husbands, sons, and shipmates - who

gave their lives.

The Beginnings of SESP

The origins of the Navy's national reconnaissance program exist in the

victory over Japan in the Pacific War. In the last year of that conflict, as the

Navy pursued the Imperial Japanese fleet into its home waters and destroyed it

with coordinated aerial, surface, and submarine campaigns, electronic

intelligence- known in the espionagebusinessas EUNT forshort - became an

important force-multiplier for America's fleet.

EUNT, principally information on enemy radar systems, gave the Navy highly

valuable data on Japanese air defenses and ship dispositions that could not be

obtained fYomany other source. And by 1945,the Navywas employing aerial

platforms, land-based reconnaissance aircraft like the PB4YPrivateer (the Navy's

version of the Army Air Force'sfamous B-24 Liberator heavy bomber), to conduct

EUNT missions against Japan, with great success.Aircraft like the Privateer,

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though vulnerable to enemy air attack and only lightly armed, offered long ranges

and impressive payloads to carry large amounts of electronic monitoring gear.

The Navy's national reconnaissance program was significantly scaled back after

the defeat of Japan, but it did not disappear altogether. Naval aviation patrol

squadrons retained modest ELINT capabilities, and soon the need for a

renewed electronic reconnaissance effort would become obvious.

Deteriorating relations with the Soviet Union - recently America's wartime

ally- forcedthe Navy,and the Pentagon,to reassessnational strategy.

Aggressive Soviet actions in Europe such as the Berlin blockade and the

Czechoslovak coup in 1948 gave rise to justifiable fears that conflict with the

Soviet bloc might be inevitable, indeed imminent. Such fears of Communist

aggression grew acute the following year with two events that stunned

Washington: the fall of China to Mao's Red armies and the USSR's exploding of

an atomic bomb years before the Pentagon believed that possible, thanks in

part to Soviet espionage in the u.s. Together, these events altered the global

strategic playing field, to America's disadvantage.

In the early years of what would soon be known as the Cold War, America's

strategy to stave off Communist aggression relied on massive retaliation with

nuclear bombing by the u.s. Air Force. Yetthis was a precariou~. policy since it

depended on targetinginformation about Sovietmilitaryforcesand industry -

intelligence that late 1940sAmerica did not possess. Regarding internal events

in the Soviet bloc, the newly established u.s. Intelligence Community knew

very little indeed.

Unlike the situation in World War II, the u.s. had very little signals intelligence

(meaning ELINT plus communications intelligence or COMINT), no real

human intelligence or HUMINT, and no photo intelligence either, since

overflights of Soviet territory were impossible. Although America's Cold War

strategy depended on knowing what to bomb and how to penetrate Soviet

airspace, American intelligence in the late 1940s was essentially flying blind.

Therefore, national policymakers, fearing war with the Soviet bloc could erupt

at any time, embarked on a high-risk strategy to gain desperately needed

intelligence about Soviet air defenses and military industries. This required the

Air Force and Navy to dispatch vulnerable reconnaissance aircraft close to the

enemy's frontiers to collect ELINT against Communist targets. This was a

gamble, putting crews' lives at considerable risk, but the payoff was deemed

worth the potential cost. This highly secret program was given the euphemistic

title of the Special Electronic Search Project (SESP) by the Navy,which began

outfitting aircraft from its patrol squadrons for these missions.

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That this was a dangerous business was obvious from the start. In the first

place, the aircraft were slow and vulnerable to attack, being lightly armed with

machine guns. Seldom would fighter escort be available to protect aircraft on

SESP missions. Moreover, the missions were very long and mostly over water. If

aircraft were lost due to enemy attack or mechanical problems, the odds were

against successful crew rescue due to the distances involved and the high

secrecy of the missions.

Nevertheless, it was a terrible surprise on 8 April 1950 when the Soviet Union

shot down a Navy SESP aircraft over the Baltic Sea; an unprovoked attack that

shocked the nation. The Cold War had not yet gotten hot - the Soviet-backed

North Korean invasion of South Korea was still two months off - and such a

wanton act of Soviet aggression against a u.S. aircraft flying over international

waters provoked anger in Washington.

The lost aircraft was "Turbulent Turtle:' a PB4Y2 Privateer (BuNo 59645), part

of a secret SESP detachment assigned to Patrol Squadron 26 (VP-26). This was

a typical reconnaissance mission in the early Cold War, consisting of a modified

heavy bomber hosting a lO-man crew and heavily laden with top secret

intelligence collection equipment. Like most SESP missions at the time, most of

the crew were aviators and electronic specialists, assisted by one or more sailors

from the Naval Security Group (NSG) who were specialists in ELINT and

cryptology. On this flight, the NSG sailor was CT3 Edward J.Purcell.

There was no complacency when

"Turbulent Turtle" took off early

on 8 April 1950 for what was

supposed to be a very long

intelligence-gathering mission

that would take the aircraft from

North Africa to the Baltic Sea

and back again. Mechanical

problemswereroutine - a year PB4Y.2BuNo59645Vp.26"Turbulent Turtle"

before, a VP-26 PB4Y2 on a SESP mission ditched only three miles out from

base when it suffered engine failure immediately after takeoff. Luckily, the entire

crew was rescued. Over the last few years, several Navy reconnaissance aircraft

flying near Soviet airspace had been confronted by aggressive Soviet fighters,

who sometimes fired cannon bursts near the u.s. aircraft,but as yet,no lives

had been lost.

The eighth of April 1950 would prove tragically different, for reasons never

fully clarified. The Privateer was shot down by Soviet MiG fighters about 80

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miles southeast of Liepaja, Latvia; an unprovoked attack that took the lives of

all 10 sailors aboard "Turbulent Turtle" (NSG personnel are denoted with an

asterisk):

AT! Frank L. Beckman

AL3 Joseph J. Bourassa

ENS Tommy L. Burgess

AD 1 Joseph H. Danens

LT John H. Fette

CT3 Edward J. Purcell*

LTJG Robert D. Reynolds

An Joseph N. Rinnier

LTHoward W. Seeschaf

AD 1 JackW. Thomas

Although some wreckage was eventually recovered, there was no trace of the

missing men, who were presumed dead due to the fact that the lumbering

PB4Y2was blasted out of the sky, as evidenced by the bullet-ridden state of

what wreckage was found. Soviet authorities were unhelpful about the missing

men. The Navy had little public comment on the incident, as the SESP missions

were top secret and considered of vital importance to national security.

Establishing a precedent for the remainder of the Cold War, the Navy told the

familiesof the missingsailorslittle about the loss- in part becausethe Navy

did not know much, asthere were no survivors- but the lackof information

gave rise to unfortunate yet unsubstantiated rumors that the missing men

might be alive in Soviet captivity. ,C<

The Years of Living Dangerously

The young men of "Turbulent Turtle" became the Navy's first casualties in

the secret reconnaissance war with the Soviet bloc, but they would be far

from the last. Yet despite the considerable risks involved in the SESP program,

there was no question that it had to continue. The Cold War had just begun,

and the need for intelligence on the Communist enemy only grew more

pressing with the Korean War, when the Pentagon feared that a global atomic

conflagration could break out

without notice. The SESP

program expanded, and soon

the mission would be taken over

by specially trained Fleet Air

Reconnaissance Squadrons

(VQ), with VQ-1 for the Pacific

Fleet and VQ-2 supporting the

Atlantic Fleet. PB4Y2in Flight

Naval crews began flying ELINT missions against the Soviet Union and its allies

on a daily basis, attempting to give the fleet and the Intelligence Community a

current picture of enemy air defenses and force dispositions. Such a high ops

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tempo took a toll on sailors and their aircraft. On 7 March 1951,VP-26's special

detachment (soon to be called VQ-2) lost another PB4Y2,this time to

mechanical failure. The SESP craft abruptly lost three of its four engines over

the Mediterranean and was forced to ditch. Although the Privateer went down

only a few miles off the Italian coast, eight of its 14-man crew were lost and

presumed drowned:

ET2 Russell Aiken

AOC Andrew A. Andrews

ADAN Ernest E. Craig

AOAN Frank J.Dacunto

ENS Elmer E. Jackson

AL3 Donald E. Jones

LT Richard E. Lampkin, Jr.

ADC Roy R. Radcliff

Although six sailors were rescued (including cn Robert Warner ofNSG), the

loss of the majority of the crew due to engine failure illustrated the hazardous

nature of every SESP mission. Only a year later, on 7 September 1952,VQ-2

lost a P4M -1Q Mercator on an electronic reconnaissance mission over the

eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea due to engine failure. The aircraft ditched

in the middle of the night just off the Turkish coast. Fourteen crewmen were

saved after many hours in the water, but the pilot, LTRobert B. Hager, gave his

life while saving others. Although the twin-engined Mercator was a more

modern and reliable aircraft than the World War II-vintage Priv~teer,

mechanical difficulties continued to plague the SESPprogram due to the

extreme stresses the long-range missions placed on man and machine.

P4M-1Q of VQ-2compared in sizewithan 18-wheeloil transportruck

For VQ-1 sailors in the Pacific, the risks were no less. Indeed, they were possibly

greater since there was not just one enemy, but two. The People's Republic of

China took unkindly to American reconnaissance aircraft operating off its

coast and, like the Soviets, the Communist Chinese regularly challenged the

flights and sometimes shot them down.

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The first SESPloss in Asia came on 6 November 1951 when a P2V Neptune

patrol bomber assigned to VQ-l was attacked by two Soviet La-II fighters over

the Sea of Japan, about 18 miles from the Soviet coast near Vladivostok. All ten

crewmenwerelost- three daysof searchand rescueoperationsrevealedno

trace of them - and declared dead by the Navy in 1952:

AO1 Reuben S.Baggett

AD1 Paul R. Foster

LTJGJudd C. Hodgson

AL2 Paul G. Juric

AD3 Jack Lively

AT2William S. Meyer

AT! Erwin D. Raglin

LTJG Sam Rosenfeld

ENS Donald A. Smith

AL2 Ralph A.Wigert, Jr.

At the time, the Navy informed the public that the lost P2V was engaged in a

weather reconnaissance flight when attacked; the SESP mission would remain

classified until the Cold War ended four decades later. As with most shootdowns, the only surviving witnesses to the crash were the Soviet pilots, who

recalled that they downed the Neptune at about 10 a.m., approximately 18

miles off the Soviet coast, and that the u.s. aircraft exploded after it "fell,

burning, into the water;' making it exceptionally unlikely that any crew

survived.

The Soviets attacked and shot down another VQ-l SESP Neptuii'e on

4 September 1954, when a P2V was downed over the Sea of Japan 40 miles off

the Soviet coast. The fatally damaged craft was able to ditch and nine of the 10

crewmen were rescued by an Air Force SA-16 amphibian aircraft, but one

officer, ENS Roger N. Reid, was lost while saving others.

P2VNeptuneofVP-19,circa19505

Two years later, Communist China proved that it could be just as aggressive as

the Soviets. PRC fighters regularly tailed Naval reconnaissance aircraft and, on

occasion, had opened fire, but they did not shoot down an SESPplatform until

22 August 1956, when a P4M-1Q Mercator was downed in an unprovoked

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attack 32 miles off the coast of China and 180 miles north of Taiwan. The

aircraft radioed that it had encountered hostile fighters and was not heard from

again. All 16 crewmen were missing:

AT2 Donald W. Barber

AO2 Warren E. Caron

AT3 Jack A. Curtis

LTJGJames B. Deane

LTJGFrancis A. Flood, Jr.

AT! William F.Haskins

AO3 William M. Humbert

LCDR Milton Hutchinson

AD1 Harold E. Lounsbury

AT! Albert P.Mattin

AT2 Carl E. Messinger

LCDR James W. Ponsford

AE2 Wallace W. Powell

AT3 Donald E. Sprinkle

AT2 Leonard Strykowski

AD3 Lloyd L. Young

The VQ-l aircraft (BuNo 124362) was lost at night and, despite an intense search

and rescue operation, the body of only one of the 16missing crewmen was

recovered by the destroyer USS Dennis]. Buckley.The remainder were presumed

dead (the PRC would later return the bodies of three crewmen). It was the

costliest Naval reconnaissance loss to date. Unfortunately, the secrecy of the

mission, combined with the Navy'slack of hard information about what

happened to the aircraft, gave rise to rumors among families and the "secret

sailors" of the SESPprogram that some of the missing aircrew were in Chinese

captivity.Yetno credible evidence ever came to light to substantiate such rumors.

P4M-1Qof VQ-1

Lessthan a decade into its existence, the Navy's secret national reconnaissance

program had delivered a great deal of badly needed intelligence on the

Communist bloc, but at a steep cost. Six airframes and 46 lives had been lost to

shootdowns or mission-related accidents, but the program would continue due

to the pressing need for the sensitive and timely intelligence that only aerial

electronic reconnaissance could deliver.

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J
The Middle Years

Although the program would continue, it was evident that more had to be

done to protect the crewmen who put their lives on the line by flying

alone and exposed in the secret intelligence war with the Communist bloc.

Part of the solution was technical. Older platforms, such as the P4M-1Q, were

phased out of squadron service by the early 1960s (the obsolete PB4Y2 left

frontline service by the mid-1950s); they were slow and prone to mechanical

difficulties. There were two replacements on hand which proved better suited to

the role. The EC-l21 was the Navy's version of the famous Super Constellation

airliner and an ideal platform for long-range fleet reconnaissance. It could carry

a large crew and an impressive electronic array. Although unarmed, the EC-121

was both faster and more reliable than the aircraft it replaced.

The Navy's other new reconnaissance aircraft was the A3D-1Q Skywarrior, the

largest airframe ever to fly off aircraft carriers. Designed at the beginning of the

Cold War as a nuclear bomber, the twin-jet-engined Skywarrior found its niche

as a reconnaissance platform. Entering fleet service in 1956 and redesignated

the EA-3B in 1960, the ungainly Skywarrior - known to its crews as the

"Whale"- compensatedfor itssmallpayloadwith high speed.Basedon the

losses of the 1950s, it was evident to the Navy that speed could get a

reconnaissance plane out of danger.

Moreover, as the Navy's sole carrier-based national reconnaissance aircraft, the

EA-3B could be deployed anywhere across the world's oceans, not needing land

airbases. This gave the "Whale" exceptional operational flexibility that kept it in

high demand to the end of the Cold War.

Fortunately for the "secret sailors" of the aerial reconnaissance program (the term

SESPfellfrom use by the 1960s),both the Soviet Union and Communist China

curtailed their aggressiveconfrontations with u.s. aircraft. Unwilling to risk a

wider confrontation, Soviet and Chinese fighters would not shoot down another

Naval reconnaissance plane. Although their tactics remained aggressive- virtually

every veteran of the program earned vivid memories of Soviet or Chinese fighter

pilots who would routinely get dangerously close to u.s. aircraft - no longer did

they routinely resort to gunfire, not even during the most tense confrontations of

the 1960s,such as the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.During this crisis,

Naval reconnaissance aircraft performed sterling service against the Soviet Navy

and helped enforce the embargo of Soviet missilesfrom Cuban waters.

The 1960s proved an exceptionally busy decade for the Navy's national

reconnaissance program. The crews ofVQ-1 and VQ-2 were in high demand

tracking multiple crises that put men and aircraft into harm's way from

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confronting Castro's Cuba to the Southeast Asian conflict, where Naval

cryptologists played a noteworthy role against North Vietnam. At the beginning

of the decade, President Kennedy, a proud Navy veteran, exhorted Americans

"to pay any price, bear any burden" in defense of freedom, and the sailors of the

secret struggle in the ether did so across the globe, every day.

Naval cryptologists and the aviators and specialists who flew with them were

especially busy in Northeast Asia. Kim II Sung's North Korea, which had been

at semi-peace with the United States since an armistice was declared in the

KoreanWar during summer 1953- there wasnever a formal peacetreatygrew increasingly aggressive as the American war in Vietnam reached its height.

North Korea provoked numerous border incidents with u.s. and South Korean

forces in 1966-69, with loss of over 300 South Korean and American lives.

Just how confrontational the North Koreans were willing to be became painfully

evident on 23 January 1968,when they seized the USS Pueblo;a virtually unarmed

u.s. intelligence collection vessel.The unprovoked assault occurred in

international waters, killing one crewman, FN Duane D. Hodges. The 82

remaining crewmembers were taken prisoner. The captives,many of them NSG

cryptologists, endured North Korean captivity and maltreatment for almost a year

before being released. ,"

The Puebloincident arrived in the darkest period in the history of the Naval

Security Group. Only a half-year before, on 8 June 1967, another Navy

intelligence collection ship, the USS Liberty, was attacked and nearly sunk by

Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats in an incident that has never been fully

explained. Thirty-three sailors were killed (most were NSG personnel), and

nearly all the rest of the crew were wounded.

An equally tragic and inexplicable incident for NSG was soon to come. In the

wake of the Puebloseizure, an all-out war with North Korea seemed possible,

even likely.The Pentagon, therefore, ordered increased intelligence collection

against the Communist hermit kingdom, and the Navy played its part by

adding additional reconnaissance flights. On 15 April 1969, one of those flights

came to grief in the worst loss in the history of American aerial reconnaissance.

The doomed aircraft was an EC-121 belonging to VQ-l. For the aircrews,

reconnaissance flights off the coast of North Korea had become an almost daily

occurrence, and a degree of complacency is detectable with hindsight. The

Navy had not lost a reconnaissance aircraft to hostile fire in over a decade, and

there had not been a serious incident with North Korea in years, not since a

VQ-l P4M -1Q was shot up by two North Korean MiGs in June 1959 and

limped back to its home base.

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It was therefore especially tragic that the lost EC-1ll (BuNo 135749) was flying

its last mission with a double crew, 31 men in all, for training purposes. Nine of

those aboard were NSG personnel.

EC.121ofVQ.1

The 15April shootdown remains mysterious. Such aggressiveNorth Korean

tactics against u.S. reconnaissance aircraft were very much the exception, and

the incident has never been fully explained. The shootdown came suddenly and

without warning. The Navy knew little about the action, since there were no

survivors to tell the tale, and Pyongyang offered nothing but gloating. All that

can be said for certain is that the unarmed EC-121 was attacked suddenly and

blasted from the sky by at least one North Korean MiG and downed over the

Sea of Japan while performing its reconnaissance mission. The EC-121 was

under orders not to come closer than 50 miles to the coast. Extensive search and

rescue operations revealed only debris from the lost EC-12l. It was impossible

that there had been survivors among the 31 crewmen:

ADR2 Louis F.Balderman

AT! Stephen C. Chartier

AT! Bernie J. Colgin

ADR1 Ballard F.Connors

CT3 Gary R. Ducharme"

LT John Dzema

LTDennis B. Gleason

ATN3 Gene K. Graham

ABC Laverne A. Greiner

ATR2 Dennis J. Harrigan

ATN2 Richard H. Kincaid

SSgt Hugh M. Lynch, USMC"

ADRC Marshall H. McNamara

ATR2 Timothy H. McNeil

CT3 John A. Miller, Jr."

LCDR James H. Overstreet

LT Peter P. Perrottet

CT! John H. Potts"

AN Richard T. Prindle

CTC Frederick A. Randall"

LTJGJoseph R. Ribar

AT! James 1. Roach

LTJohn H. Singer

CTC Richard E. Smith"

CT3 Philip D. Sundby"

AT! Richard E. Sweeney,Jr.

LTJGRobert J. Sykora

LTRobert F.Taylor"

CT2 Stephen J. Tesmer"

LTJGNorman E.Wilkerson

ATN3 David M. Willis

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In the aftermath of the April 1969

tragedy, the Navy would adopt new

procedures to provide its unarmed

reconnaissance aircraft with a higher

degree of protection from the fleet and

Naval aviation. In addition, the EC-121

would be withdrawn from servicewith

VQ-l and VQ-2, being replaced by the faster EP-3,which remains in service today.

Two-and-a-half years after the EC-I21 shootdown, six NSG sailors would lose

their livesin another unexplained aerial incident in Asia.On 12 December 1971,

a Navy C-2A transport aircraft en route from the Philippines to South Vietnam

was lost for undetermined reasons. No wreckage was ever found, and the cause

of the mishap remains unknown. Six of the 10 sailors aboard the C-2A were

Naval cryptologists:

CTO3 James M. Coon*

CTISN John M. Deremigio*

CTOI Donald E. Dickerson*

EP-3Bof VQ-1

CTOSN Stephen H. Elliott*

CTRI Walter R.Woods, Jr.*

CTM2 Gregory K. Zeller*

Cold War Victory

Supporting the fleet and the nation with aerial reconnaissance remained a

dangerous business to the end of the Cold War. Although Communist air

forces shot down no Naval reconnaissance aircraft after the 1969 EC-I21loss,

in-air confrontations were a regular occurrence.

The missions themselves, with their

long ranges and heavy payloads,

were highly precarious, particularly

EA-3B operations off carriers.

Flying off aircraft carriers is a

hazardous undertaking in ideal

conditions- to saynothing of

nighttime operations in rough seas,

as was often the case. The "Whale;'

thanks to its large size, was a

difficult aircraft for even an

experienced carrier pilot to handle,

and mishaps were frequent.

TwoEA-3Bsof VQ-2overGibraltar

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Fortunately, they usually resulted in a damaged EA-3B rather than lost lives,but

an accident in the waning days of the Cold War revealed that aerial

reconnaissance remained among the most dangerous activities undertaken by

the Navy and the Intelligence Community.

On 25 January 1987, Ranger 12, an EA-3B (BuNo 144850) belonging to VQ-2,

was lost while attempting to land on the USS Nimitz. Ranger 12 was returning

from an operational mission in the Mediterranean and crashed off the Nimitz's

flight deck. While the crews of other EA-3Bsthat crashed off aircraft carrier

decks had survived the ordeal, in this case, all seven aircrew were killed:

LTStephen H. Batchelder

LCDR Ronald R. Callander

AT2 Richard A. Herzing

LTAlan A. Levine

Despite this tragic loss, the last of the Navy's Cold War fatalities in the aerial

electronic reconnaissance program, the EA-3Bwould remain in frontline

service with VQ-l and VQ-2 until October 1991,serving with distinction in

one last conflict, Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM.

CTI3 Patrick R. Price*

LTJames D. Richards

CTI3 Craig H. Rudolf*

Counting the Cost

The Navy's national reconnaissance program did not disappear with victory

in the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet empire. The nation and the

fleetstill require the sensitive and timely intelligence that only aerial platforms

can provide. VQ-l and VQ-2 remain on duty, as does the Naval Security Group.

Most recently,they have

served with distinction in

the Global War on

Terrorism in Operations

ENDURING FREEDOM

and IRAQI FREEDOM.

Current -day operations,

however, like those bravely

conducted during the Cold

War, remain shrouded in

secrecyby necessity. EA-3BBuNo144850"Ranger-12"

That this remains a dangerous business was demonstrated on the world stage in

April 2001 when an EP-3E ofVQ-l emergency-landed in China after a PRC

fighter collided with the Navy aircraft. The Chinese pilot, conducting overly

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aggressive maneuvers to intimidate the u.s. aircrew, collided with the EP-3E

and was killed. Luckily, the Navy crew emerged alive, thanks to the bravery and

skill of the sailors aboard.

Although aerial reconnaissance remains filled with hazards by its very nature, it

is hoped that no more lives will be lost in defense of freedom - though old

sailors know this is unlikely to be so. The sacrifices of the Naval aircrews who

gave their lives during the Cold War, the 90 brave men remembered in this

booklet and at National Vigilance Park, deserve to be remembered by a grateful

nation. The missions they flew and livesthey lost were shrouded in secrecy for

decades. Now, at last, can their story of dedication and sacrifice - for fellow

sailors, for the Navy, for the country - be told, celebrated, and commemorated.

THEY

SERVED

IN

SILENCE

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