This Day in Navy History

October 11
1776 - Revolutionaries fight the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain, N.Y. Although defeated, the American flotilla delayed the British advance and caused it to fall back into winter quarters.
1824 - Marquis de Lafayette visits the Washington Navy Yard during his yearlong tour of America. He returned to the yard October 12, to continue his visit.
1942 - Battle of Cape Esperance begins. In the two-day battle, an American task force stops a Japanese attack on Guadalcanal and sinking two Japanese ships in the process, while losing USS Duncan (DD 485).
1945 - Typhoon hits Okinawa, Japan, damaging many Navy ships.
1950 - Task Force 77 aircraft destroy North Korean vessels off Songjin, Wonsan and north of Hungham.
1963 - Navy medical team from Norfolk, Va., begins massive inoculation program to safeguard against outbreak of typhoid in the wake of Hurricane Flora.
1967 - Operation Coronado VI began in Rung Sat Zone.
1968 - Apollo 7, the first U.S. three-man space mission is launched, commanded by Cmdr. Walter Schirra Jr. The mission lasted 10 days, 20 hours. Recovery was by USS Essex (CVS 9).

October 12
1914 - USS Jupiter (AC-3) is first Navy ship to complete transit of Panama Canal.
1944 - Aircraft from Carrier Task Force 38 attack Formosa.
1957 - RADM Dufek arrives at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica to command Operation Deep Freeze III during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58.
1961 - Five men cholera treatment demonstration team from Naval Medican Research Unit, Taipei leaves to assist setting up of facilities to treat an epidemic in Manila.
1965 - End of Project Sealab II where teams of naval divers and scientists spent 15 days in Sealab moored 205 feet below surface near La Jolla, California.
1965 - First group of men commissioned into Navy Nurse Corps report for one month indoctrination to Naval Service; LTJG Jerry McClelland, ENS Charles Franklin, ENS Israel Miller, ENS Richard Gierman and ENS George Silver.
1980 - USS Guadalcanal and other ships of Amphibious Forces, Sixth Fleet begin assistance to earthquake victims in Al Asnam, Algeria.
2000 - Terrorists in a boat make suicide attack on USS Cole (DDG-67) while the ship refuels in the port of Aden, Yemen. Seventeen Sailors are killed.

For more information on naval history, visit the Naval Historical Center Web site at www.history.navy.mil