Passport not required: US Volunteers in the Royal Navy, 1939-1941.

Before the US entered the Second World War, twenty-two American citizens crossed the Atlantic and volunteered with the Royal Navy. They were commissioned between September 1939 and November 1941 and fought in the Battle of the Atlantic and in other theatres.

America’s First Clash with Iran: The Tanker War, 1987-1988.

In May 1987 the US frigate Stark, calmly sailing the waters of the Persian Gulf, was suddenly blown apart by an Exocet missile fired from an Iraqi jet fighter. A fifth of the ship’s company was killed and many others wounded, some seriously. This event began one of the most mysterious conflicts in American history, The Tanker War.