Hyman Rickover Quotes
The future navy will have two kinds of ships: Submarines and targets.
Hyman Rickover, 1900-1986, U. S. Navy Admiral, "Father" of the nuclear submarine, Common statement to military strategists and policy makers
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Most Americans do not realize that our naval forces were disbanded after the Revolution and even the Constitution did not require a navy. We had some Federal revenue cutters to interdict smugglers but no warships and no permanent sailors or officers. The Barbary Pirates had an incredible extortion racket going in the Mediterranean. If nations would pay them an annual sum each year, they would not attack and seize merchant ships of that country and sell the ships and goods while holding the sailors for ransom. See {640850},86703,{640846} & {640848}
Raiders operating out of the Barbary Coast typically would attack any American shipping seizing the goods and the ship and ransoming the crew or passengers or selling them as slaves. English and French governments had paid the Tripoli tribute for safe passage. The President and Congress sent American ships to in effect blockade the corsairs in their harbors.
He didn’t succeed until Mahan wrote his marvelous treatise.
Without much fanfare, the United States was beginning to deploy naval power internationally.
At the time, most Japanese (and American and worldwide) Naval leaders and strategists believed that it was the battleship that was the critical naval weapon. Yamamoto proved to be correct and ironically, the American Aircraft Carriers and Planes were his undoing.
David Bushnell, 1740–1824, was a student at Yale University where he developed the first submarine used in warfare. While at Yale, Bushnell proved that gunpowder could be exploded under water. He also made the first time bomb. He combined these ideas by building the Turtle which was designed to attack ships by attaching a time bomb to their hulls, while using a hand powered drill and ship auger bit to penetrate the hulls. He used the Turtle in attempts to attack British ships which were blockading New York Harbor in the summer of 1776. His efforts failed every time because the Turtle's boring device was unable to penetrate the copper sheeting lining in the ships' hulls which was designed to protect against parasites in their previous station, the Caribbean. (From Wikipedia)
Months after the Tonkin Gulf incident, the President complained about the reliability of the information he had gotten from the navy, The escalaton of the Vietnam War was the result of Johnson acting on this information.
Hyman G. Rickover was an admiral in the U.S. Navy. He directed the original development of naval nuclear propulsion and controlled its operations for three decades as director of the U.S. Naval Reactors office. In addition, he oversaw the development of the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the world's first commercial pressurized water reactor used for generating electricity. Rickover is also one of four people who have been awarded two Congressional Gold Medals.
