This Day In Naval History: April 18

 

1906 - U.S. Navy assists in relief operations during the San Francisco earthquake and fire. Sailors and Marines fight fires and ships carry the homeless and injured to Vallejo, where medical personnel established emergency facilities.

 

1942 - The Doolittle Raid begins with 16 Army Air Force B-25 bombers launching earlier than expected from USS Hornet (CV 8), approximately 650 miles off Japan, after being spotted by enemy ships. It is the first attack by the U.S. of the Japanese mainland since Pearl Harbor. Most of the 16 B-25s, each with a five-man crew, attack the Tokyo area, with a few hitting Nagoya. Embarrassed, the Japanese revise plans and six weeks later attack the American carrier group near Midway sooner than expected.

 

1943 - U.S. Army Air Force P-38s off Bougainville, using signals intelligence, shoot down plane carrying Imperial Japanese Navy Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet.

 

1945 - USS Heerman (DD 532), USS McCord (DD 534), USS Mertz (DD 691), and USS Collett (DD 730), with assistance from destroyer USS Uhlmann (DD 687) and TBM Avenger aircraft (VT 47) from USS Bataan (CVL 29), sink the Japanese submarine I 56, 150 miles east of Okinawa.

 

1958 - Lt. Cmdr. G.C. Watkins flying a Grumman F11F-1F Tiger at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for the second time in three days sets a world altitude record of 76,938 feet.

 

1988 - During Operation Praying Mantis, Navy ships and Navy and Marine aircraft strike Iranian oil platforms, sink the Iranian frigate Sahand and smaller boats, and damage the frigate Sabalan in retaliation for when USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) hit an Iranian mine four days earlier.

 

2009 - USS Stockdale (DDG 106) is commissioned at Naval Construction Battalion Center Port Hueneme, Calif. The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is named after Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale.