Lt. Cmdr. (Dr.) Victor G. Prather, medical observer, and pilot Cmdr. Malcolm D. Ross, U.S. Naval Reserve, sit in the gondola of the Office of Naval Research Stratolab High V balloon, preparing to launch from USS Antietam (CVS 36), May 4, 1961.
May 1
1898 - Battle of Manila Bay, Adm. Dewey defeats Spanish at Manila, Philippines.
1934 - Lt. (later Rear Adm.) Frank Akers demonstrates blind landing system at College Park, Md. in OJ-2 aircraft.
1945 - Vice Adm. Daniel E. Barbey lands Australian troops on Tarakan Island, Borneo, supported by naval gunfire.
1951 - USS Princeton (CV 37) aircraft attack Hwachon Dam using aerial torpedoes, only use of this weapon in Korean War.
1980 - 11 Navy ships begin operations assisting Coast Guard in rescuing Cuban refugees fleeing Cuba in overcrowded boats.
May 2
1975 - U.S. Navy departs Vietnamese waters at end of evacuation.
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 World War I 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 Cmdr. Malcolm D. Ross, USNR, and medical observer Lt. Cmdr. Victor A. Prather Jr., ascended in two hours to 113,740 feet in Stratolab V, a 411-foot hydrogen filled balloon launched from the deck of USS Antietam (CVS 36). This remains the highest altitude attained by man in a balloon. Tragically, Prather drowned during the recovery.
1994 - Operation Restore Hope begins in Somalia.
May 5
1944 - USS Comfort (AH 6) is commissioned in San Pedro, Calif.; first ship to be manned jointly by Army and Navy personnel.
1948 - VF-17A becomes first carrier qualified jet squadron.
1961 - Cmdr. 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.
1980 - USS Robert E. Peary (FF 1073) 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 (BB 25) off Virginia Capes to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels in Washington, D.C.
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 HMS Diligent off Cape Charles.
1934 - Constitution completes tour of principal U.S. ports
1940 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt orders Pacific Fleet to remain in Hawaiian waters indefinitely.
1942 - Carrier aircraft sink Japanese carrier HIJMS Shoho during Battle of Coral Sea.
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