Happy 239th birthday to the United States Navy! On Friday, October 13, 1775, the Continental Congress voted to fit out two armed sailing vessels to cruise to attempt to seize arms and stores from Royal Navy transports. The rebel forces were short of just about everything in the early days of the revolution, so stealing whatever they could from the British was an eminently practical idea.  Technically, these ships were the beginning of the Continental Navy and not the United States Navy as the United States did not yet exist.  At the end of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Navy was disbanded, the ships sold and the sailors sent home.  The US Navy was later authorized by the United States Congress on April 30, 1798. So why does the Navy celebrate their “birthday” on October 13, 1775? And what is Navy Day, and why is it celebrated on October 27?

Success has many fathers and the US Navy has several birthdays. The celebration of October 13th is fairly recent. It has been celebrated only since 1972 when Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt authorized the celebration.

Navy Day, on the other hand, has been celebrated on October 27th since 1922.  Why October 27th? As explained on the Department of Defense page, “History of Navy Day“: “October 27 was suggested by the Navy League to recognize Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday. Roosevelt had been an Assistant Secretary of the Navy and supported a strong Navy as well as the idea of Navy Day. In addition, October 27 was the anniversary of a 1775 report issued by a special committee of the Continental Congress favoring the purchase of merchant ships as the foundation of an American Navy.”

But why not just celebrate the founding of the US Navy on April 30, 1798?  The October 13, 1775 date not only predates the founding of the United States Navy, it also pre-dates the founding of the United States of America. To be fair, even though the Navy claims today as its birthday, language that the US Navy “traces its origins to the Continental Navy” often pops up to cover the possible incongruity.

So to return to the question, why not just celebrating the founding of the Navy on April 30, 1798?  This is entirely speculation on my part, but I would suggest that you can blame it on the Marines.  The Marine Corps was authorized by Congress on July 11, 1799 and for many years celebrated is birthday, or Marine Corps Day, on that anniversary. In 1921, however, the Marine Corps decided to change their celebrated birth date to the founding of the Continental Marines on November 10, 1775, which notionally would make the Corps older than Navy.

Why the Navy saw fit to choose the October 13th, 1775 date rather than stick with the October 27, 1775, used on Navy Day is unclear to me, though it may be that legislation is a better historical anchor, so to speak, than a Congressional report.

Given that the US Navy is now larger than the next thirteen of the largest world navies combined (and some argue that that is an understatement), I see nothing wrong with them having as many birthdays as they wish. So, happy  birthday, US Navy! And I’m already looking forward to Navy Day.