This Day In Naval History - June 15

1775 - Abraham Whipple takes command of Rhode Island's coastal defense ship, Katy, and captures a tender of HMS Rose. In December, Katy is taken into the Continental service and renamed Providence.

1864 - During the Civil War, the side-wheel steamer, USS Lexington, commanded by Lt. George Bache, and a boat crew from the side-wheel steamer, USS Tyler, capture three steamers aiding Confederates off Beulah Landing, Miss.

1944 - Following intensive naval gunfire and carrier-based aircraft bombing, Task Force 52 lands the Marines on Saipan, which is the first relatively large and heavily defended land mass in the Central Pacific to be assaulted by US amphibious forces.

1944 - TBFs and FM-2s (VC 9) from USS Solomons (CVE 67) sink German submarine (U 860) in the South Atlantic.

1956 - USS Canberra is recommissioned as (CAG 2) at Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pa. She was previously a Baltimore-class heavy cruiser.

1963 - The combat stores ship, USS Mars (AFS 1), is launched. She is the first of a new class of underway replenishment ships that combines the functions of the stores ship (AS), the stores issue ship (AKS), and the aviation supply ship (AVS).