May 3
1861 - USS Surprise captures Confederate privateer Savannah
1898 - Marines land at Cavite, Philippines, and raise U.S. flag
1949 - First Navy firing of a high altitude Viking rocket at White Sands, NM
May 4
1917 - First Navy ships, Destroyer Division 8, arrive at Queenstown, Ireland, to provide convoy escorts against German U-boats
1942 - Battle of Coral Sea, first carrier vs. carrier battle, begins
1945 - Japanese attempt to land on Okinawa repulsed; kamikaze attacks damage 6 U.S. Navy ships
1961 - Pilot CDR Malcolm D. Ross, USNR, and medical observer LCDR Victor A. Prather, Jr., ascended in two hours to over 110,00 feet in Strato-Lab 5, a 411-foot hydrogen filled balloon launched from the deck of USS Antietam. This was the highest altitude attained by man in an open gondola. Tragically, Prather drowned during the recovery.
May 5
1944 - USS Comfort is commissioned in San Pedro, CA; first ship to be manned jointly by Army and Navy personnel
1948 - VF-17A becomes first carrier qualified jet squadron (USS Saipan)
1961 - CDR Alan Shepard Jr. makes first U.S. manned space flight. Flight of Freedom 7 (Mercury 3) which lasted 15 minutes and 28 seconds reached the altitude of 116.5 statute miles with a velocity of 5,134 mph. Recovery was by HUS1 helicopter of HMR(L)-262 from USS Lake Champlain(CVS-39).
1980 - USS Robert E. Peary rescues 440 Vietnamese refugees from disabled craft south of Thailand
May 6
1909 - Great White Fleet anchors in San Francisco
1916 - First ship-to-shore radio telephone voice conversation from USS New Hampshire off Virginia Capes to SECNAV Josephus Daniels in Washington, DC
1942 - CAPT Milton Miles arrives in Chungking, China, to begin building an intelligence and guerilla training organization, Naval Group China
1945 - Naval landing force evacuates 500 Marshallese from Jaluit Atoll, Marshall Islands
May 7
1779 - Continental Navy sloop Providence captures British brig Diligent off Cape Charles
1934 - USS Constitution completes tour of principal U.S. ports
1940 - FDR orders Pacific Fleet to remain in Hawaiian waters indefinitely
1942 - Carrier aircraft sink Japanese carrier Shoho during Battle of Coral Sea
May 8
1911 - Navy ordered its first airplane, Curtiss A-1, Birthday of Naval Aviation
1942 - Battle of the Coral Sea ends with Japanese retiring from area
1945 - VE - Day, Germany's unconditional surrender to the Allies
1963 - Navy ships evacuate 2,279 civilians from Haiti during crisis.
1972 - U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft mine Haiphong Harbor in North Vietnam.
May 9
1926 - LCDR Richard Byrd and Chief Machinist Mate Floyd Bennett make first flight over North Pole; both receive Congressional Medal of Honor.
1942 - USS Wasp in Mediterranean launches 47 Spitfire aircraft to help defend Malta
