17 October 2023
Welcome back to our National Maritime Historical Society members and friends who share a love for naval history!
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This week, Tuesday Tidings offers a salute to the Naval Order of the United States, which is commencing its National Congress this evening in San Diego. The National Congress will run through Saturday and feature tours of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot and the aircraft carrier Midway.
An impressive lineup of speakers, including Director of the Naval History and Heritage Command, Rear Adm. Samuel J. Cox, USN (Ret.), has been recruited to offer informative talks to attendees. On Saturday, the Naval Order will present its prestigious Admiral of the Navy George Dewey Award to Capt. Don Walsh. Huzzah to Rear Adm. Doug Moore Jr SC, USN (Ret.), and Col. Al Cruz, USMC (Ret.), for assembling an impressive program.
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A Huzzah is also due to the US Naval Academy Museum, led by Dr. Claude Berube.
Four years ago, the museum launched a naval history podcast series and recently posted its 200th episode, featuring Dr. John Sherwood of the Naval History and Heritage Command interviewing New York Times journalist John Ismay (’99) about his career providing us the first cut of history. An interview with Dr. Berube is this edition’s lead story.
Naval History Book Reviews thanks Dr. John R. Satterfield for his fine assessment of Chris Hemler’s new book Delivering Destruction: American Firepower and Amphibious Assault from Tarawa to Iwo Jima. Once again, if you have recently published a naval history-related memoir or history—let us know! The revised book list is attached!
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Tuesday Tidings is compiled by Dr. David F. Winkler and Jessie Henderson as a benefit for members of the National Maritime Historical Society and friends of naval history.
As always, comments are welcome at nmhs@seahistory.org.
| ITEMS OF IMMEDIATE INTEREST | |
Interview with Preble Hall Podcast Director Claude Berube | |
TT: Congratulations to the US Naval Academy Museum’s Preble Hall Podcast Series, which just reached a milestone with its 200th episode featuring Dr. John Sherwood with the Naval History and Heritage Command interviewing New York Times journalist John Ismay (USNA ’99) about his career providing us the first cut of history. It’s been nearly four years since the first podcast on 29 October 2019 with Kate Jamieson discussing Nelson, gunners, and impressment. At this juncture, we thought it might be useful to reflect back on the series and how it has evolved and what is the direction ahead.
TT: First question to set the stage: Just what is a podcast, and how have podcasts gained popularity with audiences across the country/around the world.
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Dr. Claude Berube, Executive Director of the Naval Academy Museum and founder of the Preble Hall Naval History podcast. | Berube: A podcast is a digital audio file that is uploaded to platforms that enable anyone to listen to an episode at their convenience. Part of the appeal is that you can find a podcast on any topic of interest, no matter how minute. Topics can be on a global scale or on a localized level or a topic that might not be covered by any television or radio program because the audience might not be in the millions, but in the hundreds or thousands. It’s a very democratizing platform. I think it’s attractive for listeners in finding whatever topic interests them. | |
TT: Who can we credit for pushing this boulder off the top of the hill and getting it rolling, and what was the inspiration?
Berube: When I was mobilized to Guantanamo Bay in 2018/19, I started listening to a lot of podcasts on national security, especially Net Assessment (from War on the Rocks), Midrats, CIMSEC’s Sea Control, BBC’s In Our Time, etc. I tried finding a podcast that was focused only on naval history and couldn’t really find anything, so when I returned I decided that the Naval Academy Museum might offer an appropriate medium. It’s the oldest Navy museum in the country (its first curator was hired five days after the establishment of the Academy in 1845) and part of its mission is to inform the general public about naval history. I wanted each episode to be a conversation where I would ask very simple or broad questions. I also wanted to learn something from each guest.
TT: What were some of the challenges that had to be overcome...for example...production quality?
Berube: The first challenge was determining what needed to be done to start a podcast. I read a lot and watched instructional videos, devised a game plan, then placed some orders of the equipment and initially some help from the Academy’s Information Technology staff to ensure it was available on our website. Getting consistent quality is a challenge. The sound tends to be better when the interview has been in person at Preble Hall (the Naval Academy Museum) vice via Zoom or Skype. I also budgeted for a proper studio in the museum, but there are always challenges within the government to getting something done. In this case, Public Works couldn’t get a quote for me for nearly a year. They estimated another year to get the job done. Then their quote came in, which was prohibitive. In the end, I kept it simple and have conducted the interviews in an informal setting in my conference room or office. I’ve worked in both the public and private sectors. It’s so much easier to get things done in the private sector.
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Dr. John Sherwood interviewing New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Ismay for the 200th episode of the Preble Hall Podcast. Photo: Dr. Claude Berube. | |
Naval Order of the United States Admiral of the Fleet George Dewey Awardee Captain Don Walsh, USN (Ret.) Ph.D. | |
Photo: US Navy, photographer John F. Williams. | |
The Naval Order of the United States is proud to announce the recipient of the 2023 Admiral of the Navy George Dewey Award is CAPT Don Walsh, USN (Ret.), PhD. | |
Born in Berkeley, California, Don Walsh grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. He joined the US Navy in 1948 at the US Naval Air Station Oakland in 1948. He served as an aircrewman in torpedo bombers until he entered the Naval Academy in 1950. He followed up his academy years with two years in the Amphibious Forces. He enrolled in submarine school in 1956 and served in the submarines Rasher (SSR-269), Sea Fox (SS-402), and Bugara (SS-331). He eventually commanded Bashaw (SSKS 241). Following Bashaw, LT Walsh commanded the Navy’s Bathyscaphe Trieste from 1959-1962. Designated USN Deep Submersible Pilot #1, then LT Walsh was the first submersible pilot in the US, and the first officer-in-charge of the Trieste at the Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego. | |
Lieutenant Don Walsh, USN, and Jacques Piccard in the bathyscaphe TRIESTE. Photo: PD. | |
Lieutenant Don Walsh made history in January 1960 when he and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard dove the Trieste to the deepest place in the world’s oceans, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench: 35,840 feet. He and Piccard were the first people to travel to the furthest depths of the oceans. In March 2012, James Cameron piloted his Deepsea Challenger to the same place but slightly short of Trieste’s record depth. For this achievement, Lieutenant Walsh received the Legion of Merit from President Eisenhower at the White House. | |
LT Don Walsh in 1960
Promoted to commander, CAPT Walsh went on to serve as Special Assistant (Submarines) to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research and Development, and later as Deputy Director of Navy Laboratories. His 24-year naval career included service in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. During this period, CAPT Walsh pursued a PhD in oceanography from Texas A&M University, focusing on remote sensing, and in l969 earned an MA in political science from San Diego State University, where his research was on law-of-the-sea issues.
In 1975, CAPT Walsh retired from the US Navy to be a professor of ocean engineering at the University of Southern California; he was the founding director of the Institute for Marine and Coastal Studies. He then founded the Oregon-based consulting company International Maritime Inc., and he continues to run that business today. Since 1959 CAPT Walsh has participated in diving operations with more than two dozen manned submersibles, piloting seven of them, and has participated in more than 50 polar expeditions. CAPT Walsh dove in Russian Mir submersibles to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge near the Azores, to the wreck of RMS Titanic, and to the WWII German battleship Bismarck. He has been active in the design, manufacture, and operation of manned and unmanned submersibles.
Read full article>>
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2024 Naval Order USN Art Calendars Now Available! | |
Preble Hall EP: 200: New York Times Journalist John Ismay, US Naval Academy Class of 1999
Dr. John Sherwood of the Naval History & Heritage Command interviews John Ismay, USNA Class of 1999 and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with the New York Times about his career.
Listen Here>>
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NAVAL HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS | |
Delivering Destruction: American Firepower and Amphibious Assault from Tarawa to Iwo Jima by Chris K. Hemler, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, (2023)
Reviewed by Dr. John R. Satterfield
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...Helmer, a Marine veteran, does an admirable job in documenting the progress of the extraordinarily complex processes that integrated not only tactics, but outlooks and cultures among the American services. Given the exponential improvements in technologies today, it is difficult to conceive how unprepared for combined arms warfare and joint service operations the US really was throughout much of the war in the Pacific. Sadly, advancement flowed in a river of blood. There is little doubt that the innovations Helmer describes saved thousands of lives, but topography and the Japanese distorted bushido culture that entailed defense to the death combined to create hell on earth for American forces.
Read full review>>
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NAVAL HISTORY BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW | |
NAVAL HISTORY CALLS FOR PAPERS | |
The Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize is a $50,000 prize sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. The award recognizes the best book on American military history in English distinguished by its scholarship, its contribution to the literature, and its appeal to the broadest possible general reading public. Books that touch upon historic military events of other countries may be considered as long as their primary focus is on American military history. Publishers, critics, and authors may submit or nominate books published in the current year.
Please note that as of 2022, only books with a primary focus of American military history can be considered.
To nominate books copyrighted in 2023, please send five copies to the address below before the submission deadline of 31 December 2023.
Daniela Muhling
Book Prize Manager
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
49 West 45th Street, 2nd Floor
New York NY 10036
For more information, please call 646.366.9666 ext.144 or send an email to bookprizes@gilderlehrman.org.
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UPCOMING NAVAL & MARITIME HISTORY GATHERINGS | |
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: 201: 19th Century African-Americans at the US Naval Academy>>
Click here for all Preble Hall Podcasts >>
| DRACHINIFEL YOUTUBE CHANNEL |
Welcome to Navy History Matters, Naval History and Heritage Command’s biweekly compilation of articles, commentaries, and blogs related to history and heritage. Every other week, they gather the top-interest items from a variety of media and social media sources that link to related content at NHHC’s website, your authoritative source for Navy history.
Click here for most recent article>>
| 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 >>
If you are one of those friends who have considered joining the Society or have wanted to recommend membership to friends, the Society is offering a 60th anniversary membership sale: ten bucks! See: Anniversary Membership Special Offer.
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