From the famous Civil War ironclads
that clashed in its waters to the great battleships that gathered off Norfolk’s Sewell’s Point as part of President Theodore Roosevelt
’s Great White Fleet, the Hampton Roads region of Virginia
has maintained a proud naval tradition. Into the twentieth century, the maritime region has remained on the cutting edge of military technology as the nucleus for the birth of naval aviation and the training site for scores of men who stormed the beaches of Europe and the Pacific during World War II
. Through her fascinating research and incredible array of rare and striking photographs, military historian Amy Waters Yarsinske guides readers through the storied history of the navy in Hampton Roads.
American Civil War lasted from the bombardment of Fort Sumter in 1861 to the surrender of the Confederacy in 1865. The Confederates armored the former US Navy vessel Merrimac, renamed it CSS VIrginia, and engaged the USS Monitor in the first naval battle between ironclads at Hampton Roads in 1862. Theodore Roosevelt was a progressive political leader, conservationist, war hero and adventurer. Virginia was the site of the first permament English settlement in the American colonies and was the largest state at the founding of the country. World War II was fought between the Allies and the Axis powers between 1939 and 1945.