Year of Navy Supply

April 2010 - March 2011

Supporting the Force: Navy Supply in Action—Ready for Sea, Ready Ashore

On April 10, 2010, the United States Navy Memorial will open its latest exhibit honoring the men and women of Navy Supply. Following on popular exhibits in recent years that have honored the Seabees, Navy Medicine and Navy Special Warfare, 2010 has been set aside to honor the Navy’s logistics, culinary and business specialists.

Navy Supply provides the “beans, bullets and black oil” that enable the US Navy to operate around the globe. Navy Supply touches the lives of every sailor with food, laundry, barbers, postal services, and ship’s stores. In 2009, Navy Supply provided 66 million meals and transported 50 million pounds of mail to personnel overseas!

The exhibit will feature ship models, rare historic artifacts including an 1841 Navy Purser’s uniform coat—the oldest known Navy Supply uniform—as well as a World War II WAVE uniform and the uniform and equipment worn by a Navy Advisor in the Vietnam War.

The exhibit will honor the sailors of Navy Supply who’ve given their lives in the Global War on Terror and those who’ve received the Nation’s top honors including:

• Cook James Mifflin, whose steadfast service under intense enemy fire earned him the Medal of Honor, during the 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War.
• Mess Attendant Dorie Miller, the first African-American to receive the Navy Cross, for heroic action during the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The exhibit will also feature hands-on activities for kids: “build a meal” puzzles, interactive cargo handling display model and a “try-on trunk” with flight deck uniforms and equipment used during vertical replenishment operations.

A full schedule of events will accompany the exhibit, including food tastings, films, lectures and equipment displays. The exhibit will run through March 2011.