It was September 20, 1911 and RMS Olympic, the largest ocean liner in the world, was on its fifth voyage between the ports of Southampton and New York when she was struck in the side by the Royal Navy protected cruiser HMS Hawke. Surprisingly, not only did neither ship sink, but there was no loss of life. Still, the accident had surprising ramifications that deserve to be remembered.
In August of 1918, as the armies of Europe neared exhaustion, American troops of the 28th “Keystone” division were thrown into a nearly forgotten battle that fully represented the horrors of the War to End All Wars.
Of the vaunted ironclad warships of the US Civil War perhaps the mightiest and most terrifying was the confederate ram Tennessee. On August 5, 1864, she would be put to the test in the largest naval engagement of the war, an engagement that defined the divided loyalties of the War of the Rebellion.