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28 March 2023
Welcome back to our National Maritime Historical Society members and friends who share a love for naval history!
This week we pay tribute and celebrate the life of an individual who embodied the term sailor/scholar: Rear Adm. James Goldrick of the Royal Australian Navy. A participant at many McMullen and other naval history symposiums on two hemispheres, Goldrick built numerous friendships as a naval officer, strategist, and historian, and he will be missed. A retrospective of Goldrick’s remarkable career is our feature article.
Saturday, 1 April, marks the 130th anniversary of the signing of Navy General Order 409 establishing the rank of Chief Petty Officer. Any Navy veteran can tell you that the Chief’s Mess onboard ship, often referred to as “the Goat Locker,” holds nearly sacred-space status, with a knock on the door and permission needing to be granted before a non-CPO may be granted entry. Though GOAT today is an acronym for “Greatest Of All Time,” tradition has it that the term Goat Locker has origins from the era when the Navy kept goats aboard for milk production and food waste disposal. Allegedly, early Chiefs, seeking separate quarters from the more junior enlisted, expressed an interest in bunking with these four-legged shipmates! For more history about the Navy CPO community, we encourage you to visit www.goatlocker.org.
In this week’s “Items of Immediate Interest” we feature a unique offering as the Continental Commandery of the Naval Order of the United States is taking us to Alaskan waters this Thursday evening to have Lt. Will Singletary offer a tour around his Coast Guard Cutter Naushon. Singletary commands one of “the last of the fleet,” as Naushon is one of the seven remaining Island-class 110 ft. patrol boats in service. First entering service in 1986, the Island-class patrol boats have served the nation well. Besides paying homage to the history of these cutters and providing an overview of the cutter’s characteristics, crew, spaces, and life onboard, Singletary will offer a glimpse of serving in the austere Alaskan environment.
Thank you to Richard Dick and Ed Calouro for offering this week’s Naval History Book Reviews.
Finally, we offer a new feature this week: “In Case You Missed It!”—encore presentations of recently published naval history articles. With Opening Day at Fenway Park set for this Thursday, this week’s inaugural “In Case You Missed It!” will take us to the June 2021 Sea History Today posting that covered an even more historic structure: the Charlestown Navy Yard’s Dry Dock #1.
Tuesday Tidings is compiled by Dr. David F. Winkler and Jessie Henderson. As always, comments are welcome at nmhs@seahistory.org.
| ITEMS OF IMMEDIATE INTEREST | |
30 March: Commanding in the Last Frontier: A USCG Patrol Boat Skipper in Alaska
LT Will Singletary, USCG, Commanding Officer, USCGC Naushon
7 PM EDT
Continental Commandery - Upcoming Events (continentalcommandery-nous.org)>>
29 March: Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War Lecture Lessons Learned by Seabees and Civil Engineer Corps in Vietnam
Lara Godbille
Noon PDT
US Navy Museum, Pt. Hueneme, CA
Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War (navy.mil)
6 April: Vietnam POWs: A Conversation with Everett Alvarez Jr.
1 PM CDT
With Commander Alvarez
Pritzker Military Museum and Library
Webinar Registration - Zoom >>
6 April: Movie at the Memorial— South Pacific
7:30 – 9:30 PM EDT
Navy Memorial, Washington, DC
https://www.navymemorial.org/new-events/2023/1/13/south-pacific
19–21 April 2023 CAMM Conference
Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon
Click here for more information and to register >>
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Tuesday Tidings was saddened to hear of the St. Patrick’s Day passing of an outstanding naval officer who had earned international acclaim as a strategist and naval historian: Rear Adm. James Goldrick, RAN. “A massive loss to naval thinking, serious naval history, and the vital link between the two spheres. His wisdom and practical input made us all better practitioners, whether in uniform or civilian roles,” opined British naval historian Andrew Lambert, echoing the thoughts of many of Goldrick’s peers within the international naval historian community. Domestically, Vice Adm. Peter Jones, president of the Australian Naval Institute, described Goldrick as “…a naval officer of exceptional intellect and influence, who became Australia’s most internationally acclaimed naval historian.”
Last year, Goldrick received the US Naval War College’s Hattendorf Prize in recognition for a lifetime body of work that culminated with two acclaimed companion publications. His Before Jutland: The Naval War in Northern European Waters August 1914–February 1915 (Naval Institute Press, 2015) and After Jutland: The Naval War in Northern European Waters June 1916–November 1918 (Naval Institute Press, 2018) were written while the retired Australian flag officer served as a visiting fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford.
In completing these two works, Goldrick’s scholarship had come full circle. His Before Jutland represented a significant revision of his The King’s Ships were at Sea: The War in the North Sea August 1914–February 1915 (Naval Institute Press, 1984). Published as the young naval officer turned 26, this first volume resulted from research initiated while he was an undergraduate at the University of New South Wales and was subsequently completed when he served as aide-de-camp to the Governor-General of Australia.
A not-so-secret reason for Goldrick’s early publishing success was his willingness to write to top scholars of the Royal Navy such as Jon Sumida and Steven Roskill, to share his thoughts and seek guidance. His grammatically perfect calligraphic handwritten letters—a likely outgrowth of a strong Jesuit education—impressed these noted historians, who went on to mentor the young Australian naval officer and welcome him into their ranks. Among those facilitating Goldrick’s intellectual development, John Hattendorf encouraged the mid-grade officer’s 1991 application to be a visiting scholar at the US Naval War College. One eventual outcome of Goldrick’s time in Newport was a second book, No Easy Answers: The Development of the Navies of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (Lancer Publishers, 1997). A second outcome, to be detailed further below, was the initiation of an ongoing association with the academic institution most closely associated with Stephen B. Luce and Alfred T. Mahan.
Read full article >>
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Cleaning the Salute Cannon (USS Constitution October 2014) - While seated on the cannon carriage with a variety of antique and modern tools, including the safety googles on his head, a sailor dressed in his 1813 pattern uniform aboard USS Constitution cleans the dismantled salute cannon, fired only moments earlier during its turnaround cruise on October 14, 2014. | |
NAVAL HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS | |
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First U-Boat Flotilla, by Lawrence Paterson; Pen and Sword Maritime, Barnsley, UK; (2021).
Review by Capt. Richard Dick, USN (Ret.)
...The First Flotilla led the way for the German submarine service in its first “Happy Time,” a period of extraordinary success ended in March 1941 by the death or capture of the top three U-boat commanding officers in the same month, two of whom (Kretschmer, U-99, and Joachim Schepke, U-100) belonged to the First Flotilla. Still, the flotilla continued to savage Allied merchant vessels and warships through the turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic in the spring of 1943. For the rest of the war, the war diary was filled increasingly with the entries “U-XXX vermisst ein Stern,” missing, one star (presumed lost) or “U-XXX vermisst swei Stern,” missing, two stars (confirmed lost), as the growing tide of Allied ASW aircraft, surface ships, mines, and codebreaking overwhelmed the U-boats.
First U-boat Flotilla is a rewarding read—deeply researched, engagingly written, and
well-illustrated with photographs and maps. The author captures the spirit and achievements of
German submariners and their perseverance in the face of insuperable odds.
Read the full review >>
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Crushing The Japanese Surface Fleet At The Battle Of The Surigao Strait: The Last Crossing of the T by Walter S. Zapotoczny, Jr., Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Fonthill Media Limited, (2022).
Reviewed by Ed Calouro
... Of particular interest is the performance of the old American battleships. Since they had previously been on shore bombardment missions, their magazines contained roughly three-quarters HC (High Capacity) and approximately one quarter AP (Armor-Piercing) rounds. A helpful table is provided with the number of shells on board and the number expended during the battle. A section titled “Performance of US Battleships at Surigao Strait” (pp. 138–143) is informative. Zapotoczny makes the appropriate point that the three battleships equipped with Mark 8 Fire Control Radar (FH) got off many more rounds than the three American dreadnoughts which carried the Mark 3 Fire Control Radar (FC) (p. 201). Indeed, the Pennsylvania did not fire any 14-inch shells, and the Mississippi only got off twelve 14-inch rounds. The author demonstrates how each battleship’s position in the battle line also affected its performance. These pages are quite useful. As historian Samuel Eliot Morison noted: “In no battle of the entire war did the United States Navy make so nearly a complete sweep as in that of Surigao Strait, at so little cost…” Readers can determine how this victory was achieved by reading Zapotoczny’s book.
There are two views of Surigao Strait in the picture section, but this volume would have been enhanced if maps were included of other areas of the Pacific Theater.
The book would have been better if there had been more attention to detail, particularly proofreading and editing. There are numerous factual, usage, spelling, and other errors. For instance, on p. 69, Zapotoczny claims Admiral William Halsey did not realize Vice Admiral Willis Lee’s seven battleships were with him as he steamed north. It was Vice Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, not Halsey, who did not know the whereabouts of Task Force 34 and Lee only had six battleships, not seven. Also on this page, the author wrote: “Starting at 8 a.m., USS Mitscher launched 180 aircraft…” There was no aircraft carrier named after then Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher during WWII, and it certainly did not carry 180 aircraft. Details of the sister battleships California and Tennessee are listed on pp. 149–152. The author claims the California had a complement of 2,243 sailors, while the Tennessee carried a crew of 1,083. One wonders what accounted for this more than 1,000-man supposed differential.
Though Crushing The Japanese Surface Fleet At The Battle Of The Surigao Strait: The Last Crossing of the T provides a good deal of information, one might benefit from first reading some of the general histories of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Should readers wish to learn more about the Japanese perspective, they can consult Anthony Tully’s Battle of the Surigao Strait.
Read the full review >>
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NOTE FOR AUTHORS OF VIETNAM NAVAL HISTORY BOOKS: The Capital Commandery of the Naval Order of the United States has been provided a tent on the National Mall for the forthcoming Vietnam Veterans welcome home event to be held in the nation’s capital from 11 to 13 May. To provide historical context for the thousands of veterans expected to attend, the Naval Order seeks authors of sea service Vietnam-themed books to be on hand to autograph books and talk history with those who served in SE Asia. If you are interested in participating, contact Dave Winkler at david.winkler@usnwc.edu. | |
NAVAL HISTORY BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW | |
NAVAL HISTORICAL ANNIVERSARIES OF NOTE | |
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The Chief Petty Officer
The earliest known use of the term “chief petty officer” dates back to 1776 onboard Continental Navy Ship Alfred, when the title “chief cook” was conferred upon cook’s mate Jacob Wasbie. This was an informal designation that noted Wasbie as the foremost ship’s cook, but was not officially recognized nor consistently used throughout the Navy.
The chief petty officer, as recognized today, was officially established 1 April 1893, when the rank “petty officer first class” was shifted to “chief petty officer.” This originally encompassed nine ratings (occupational specialties): chief master-at-arms, chief boatswain’s mate, chief quartermaster, chief gunner’s mate, chief machinist, chief carpenter’s mate, chief yeoman, apothecary, and band master. Chief petty officer could be either an acting (temporary) appointment, designated as AA, or a permanent appointment, designated as PA. The Career Compensation Act of 1949 created an E-7 grade that standardized pay for all chief petty officers, regardless of acting or permanent status. Acting status for chief petty officers was not eliminated until 1965. A 1958 amendment to the Career Compensation Act added two new pay grades, senior chief (E-8) and master chief (E-9), and created six new rating titles.
Read more here >>
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Navy General Order 409
The following Executive Order is published for the information and guidance of all persons concerned.
B.F. Tracy,
Secretary of the Navy
EXECUTIVE MANISON, WASHINGTON, DC, February 25, 1893
On and after the 1st day of April, 1893, the pay of the Petty officers and other enlisted men of the Navy shall be as follows, but his order shall not reduce the pay or rating of any enlistment, below, the rate or pay at which he was enlisted, or in which he is now serving , unless he shall be reduced in rating as provided by law or regulations:
See full order >>
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NAVAL HISTORY CALLS FOR PAPERS | |
UPCOMING NAVAL & MARITIME HISTORY GATHERINGS | |
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14–16 April 2023: National Maritime Historical Society 60th Annual Meeting, The Mariners' Museum and Park, Newport News, VA
19-21 April 2023 Council of American Maritime Museums (CAMM) Conference, Columbia River Maritime Museum, Astoria, OR
9 May 2023: National Maritime Awards Dinner, National Press Club, Washington, DC
17–20 May 2023: North American Society for Oceanic History Conference, Maritime Museum of San Diego, CA
18–21 September 2023: Historic Naval Ship Association Conference aboard USS Slater
21 September 2023: Navy Memorial Lone Sailor Award Dinner, National Building Museum, Washington, DC
21–22 September 2023: McMullen Naval History Symposium, US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD
17–22 October 2023: Naval Order of the United States Congress, San Diego
| Click here to watch Dr. Michael A. Verney's presentation of his book: A Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early US Republic. | PREBLE HALL NAVAL HISTORY PODCAST | |
A naval history podcast from Preble Hall – the United States Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland. Preble Hall will interview historians, practitioners, military personnel, and other experts on a variety of naval history topics from ancient history to more current events.
Click here for the latest episode: 179: The Golden Fourteen: The First African American Women to Officially Serve in the US Armed Forces>>
Click here for all Preble Hall Podcasts >>
| NAVAL HISTORY & HERITAGE COMMAND H-GRAMS | |
H-Gram 078: 20 March 2023 >> The Revolt of the Admirals, Ship Renaming
| DRACHINIFEL YOUTUBE CHANNEL | INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NAVAL HISTORY | |
The International Journal of Naval History (IJNH) provides a preeminent forum for works of naval history, researched and written to demonstrable academic standards, with the goal of stimulating and promoting research into naval history and fostering communication among naval historians at an international level. IJNH welcomes any scholarly historical analysis, focused on any period or geographic region, that explores naval power in its national or cultural context. The journal is independent of any institution and operates under the direction of an international editorial board that represents various genres of naval history.
Click here to read the February 2023 edition and archived issues on the IJNH website >>
| SUPPORTING US NAVAL HISTORY & HERITAGE | |
With the 250th anniversary of the US Navy on the horizon, NMHS seeks your support as we plan to honor those who have provided for our maritime security.
Click here to donate today >>
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