USS Enterprise was the world’s first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, and would see an exceptional five decades of active service throughout an astounding number of operations, including being the first nuclear powered ship to engage in combat. However, Enterprise’s deadliest day was not off of Vietnam, but off of Hawaii.
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.