Pilot John Leppla, right, was a WWII Navy ace, credited with shooting down five Japanese aircraft in aerial combat before he was shot down and declared Missing in Action. (U.S. Navy/National ...

May 8, 1942, Battle of the Coral Sea. Lieutenant Stanley "Swede" Vejtasa from Scouting Squadron FIVE (VS-5) in an SBD Dauntless, is in patrol over the aircraft carrier U.S.S. YORKTOWN (CV-5).

This story appears in the May 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine. Not far beneath the surface of the Coral Sea, where the Great Barrier Reef lives, parrotfish teeth grind against rock ...

Alfred Thayer Mahan would be appalled. The great 19th-century strategist and navalist surely would be shocked and mystified that we have allowed the country with which we are most likely to fight a ...