Look at the largest monument in the Naval Academy Cemetery, raised to remember the doomed Arctic voyage of USS Jeannette. It remembers the 1881 loss of USS Jeannette while exploring the Arctic ice. Jeannette, with a crew of 33, collapsed and sank under surging ice in the summer of 1881.
Her crew, commanded by George W. DeLong, took to the ice dragging three small boats. When open water was found the boats were used to sail to the Lena Delta of Siberia, 700 miles distant. DeLong commanded a boat of 14 total crew members; his Executive Officer Charles W. Chipp's boat carried eight; Engineer Officer George W. Melville's boat held eleven.
Chipp's boat was lost at sea with all hands. Melville's boat landed in the southern delta, and DeLong's came ashore farther to the north on 17 September 1881. Melville quickly found aid, as did the two hardiest sailors of DeLong's crew soon after, but the 12 remaining, including DeLong, perished from starvation or exposure.
In all, 20 of the original 33 did not survive the expedition. Ten of the lost twelve from DeLong's boat were discovered by Melville on 23 March 1882 and interred on the Lena Delta. Twenty of the Jeannette's original thirty-three men never came home, a toll this monument was raised to keep you from forgetting.