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20 February 2024
Welcome back to our National Maritime Historical Society members and friends who share a love for naval history!
Happy 209th anniversary of USS Constitution’s victory over HMS Cyane and HMS Levant. With the decommissioning of USS Simpson (FFG 56) in 2015, Constitution remains the only commissioned warship in the fleet to have sunk an opposing warship in combat.
Congratulations to Sam Tangredi and the directors of the Western Naval History Association for again pulling off a marvelous annual symposium in San Diego this past weekend.
Naval History Book Reviews offers a review from Dr. Satterfield on John Zobel’s new release from the Naval Institute Press on Eugene Ely. We understand new shipments of books are inbound, so we expect an updated availability list next week!
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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 | |
20 February 2024 - Military Classics Seminar 5:30–9 PM
Trent Hone will discuss Craig Symonds’s Nimitz At War
Fire Works Pizza, 2350 Clarendon Blvd, Arlington, VA 22201. Seminar sessions begin at 5:30 PM with a no-host reception, buffet dinner starting at 6:20, and the formal presentation beginning at 7:30. Dinner is now $40 per person. Questions should be directed to hdv3001@yahoo.com.
22 February 2024 - NMHS Seminar Series
God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America's Most Hated Man
with historian and author Jack Kelley.
7 PM (EST) (Virtual)
22 February 2024 - NOUS National Commandery Speaker Series
Women on Aircraft Carriers – Has it Really Been Only Twenty Years? with Capt. Ormond, USN (Ret.)
7–9 PM (EST) (Virtual)
22 February 2024 - Shipwreak: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade Running, and the Slave Trade With Jonathan White
7–9 PM (EST) (Live-Virtual)
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From the Naval History and Heritage Command
NHHC opens 2024 Navy History and Heritage Awards Program
1 February 2024
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Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) officially announced the 2024 Navy History and Heritage Awards (NHHA) Program season on 1 Feb.
Location:
Washington Navy Yard
This annual awards program was established in 2020 to recognize public, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organizations, including museums and individuals, who incorporate the history and heritage of the United States Navy into their publications, documents, and artifacts at their facilities. Organizations eligible for the program encourage and publicize scholarly, well-researched historical stories that depict the Navy’s history and heritage as well as preserve and maintain artifacts on loan from the Navy.
“These awards are for those museums that serve as force multipliers in informing the public of our Navy’s history and the importance of sea power to the security of the nation,” said NHHC Director Samuel J. Cox, US Navy rear admiral (retired).
This program supports and promotes effective programs in non-federal organizations for exhibits, artifacts, and historical research. The awards program of 2024 mark the third iteration of this annual awards program.
Read full article>>
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NAVAL HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS | |
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Eugene Ely: Pioneer of Naval Aviation By John H. Zobel, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, (2023)
Reviewed by Dr. John R. Satterfield
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...Ely’s contribution to aviation technology ended soon after his demonstrations on the two warships with his death in October 1911. He was 24 years old.
Author Zobel clearly wanted to write a definitive biography of Ely, even though the record of his short life is threadbare. Zobel added a wealth of contextual information about the early development of aviation, so the book is very worthwhile. Many myths and fabrications about Ely have risen over the 100+ years since the pioneer died, and Zobel is able to dismiss most of these, although in many cases he cannot provide substantive alternatives to replace the falsehoods. Zobel himself died before he could edit the draft, but his wife, Laverne Woods, revised the manuscript, cutting it to about half its original length. Despite, or perhaps because of, the reduced detail, the book, at about 350 pages, is informative, smooth, and entertaining reading for anyone interested in learning more about the peripatetic, dangerous dawn of powered flight.
Read full review>>
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NAVAL HISTORY BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW | |
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USS Constitution vs HMS Cyane and HMS Levant
The British warships HMS Cyane, commanded by Captain Gordon Thomas, and HMS Levant, commanded by Captain the Honorable George Douglass, fought USS Constitution, with Captain Charles Stewart, on 20 February 1815 about 100 miles east of Madeira. The war had actually finished before this action with the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent by both sides, but the combatants were not aware of this.
After sighting Constitution, the two British captains resolved to fight rather than split up and try to escape. At first they tried to delay battle until after nightfall, but Constitution was approaching too rapidly and they formed in line, with Levant ahead of Cyane. The combined broadsides of the two British ships were slightly heavier than Constitution’s, but almost exclusively from short-range carronades, and at the range at which the action commenced, Constitution’s main deck battery of 24-pounder long guns had the advantage against the British vessels.
See more here>>
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USS Constitution (Frigate)
Designed by Joshua Humphreys and launched on 21 October 1797 at Boston, Massachusetts, USS Constitution began her service as the oldest commissioned warship in the US Navy by participating in the Quasi-War with France, 1798–1800, and in the First Barbary War, 1801–05. During the War of 1812, she was victorious in battle against HMS Guerriere on 19 August 1812 (where she gained her nickname Old Ironsides), HMS Java on 29 December, and HMS Cyane and HMS Levant on 20 February 1815.
By 1833, Constitution needed repairs and was about to be scrapped when Oliver Wendell Holmes’ poem “Old Ironsides” helped to save her. Recommissioned in 1835, she served in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific, where she became the first US warship to conduct a show of force against Vietnam in May 1845. While serving with the African Squadron in November 1853, Constitution captured American slaver H. N. Gambrill, her last prize.
Decommissioned in 1860, she then trained midshipmen at the US Naval Academy. Following reconstruction in 1870 and training sailors in the Atlantic, she returned to Boston to serve as a receiving ship and was saved again from destruction in 1905. Renamed Old Constitution in December 1917 due to her name having been assigned to a projected battle-cruiser, Constitution regained her name in 1925 after the Washington Navy Treaty cancelled the warship.
Following restoration that began in 1925, she was recommissioned in July 1931 and sailed on a 90-port tour along United States coasts. In May 1934, she received the classification of IX-21, which was rescinded in 1975. Reconstructed in 1995 and 2015, Constitution still makes an annual Turnaround Cruise in Boston Harbor on July 4th and serves as a educational and outreach symbol of the US Navy’s great days of fighting sail and of courageous and patriotic naval service.
See more here>>
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Dr. Claude Berube, Director of the US Naval Academy Museum, interviews Dr. Nicholas Lambert on his forthcoming book, The Neptune Factor: Alfred Thayer Mahan and the Concept of Sea Power.
Dr. Lambert completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Oxford University. He was the Class of 1957 Chair at the US Naval Academy from 2016 to 2018. His previous books include Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution, Planning Armageddon, and The War Lords and the Gallipoli Disaster.
Listen here>>
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NAVAL HISTORY CALLS FOR PAPERS | |
CONTEST SUBMISSION DEADLINE | |
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Charles Dana Gibson Award
For the best article on North American maritime history published in a peer-reviewed journal in 2023
Honorarium: $1,000
Closing date for entries/nominations: 1 March 2024
Send copy and complete citation for the article to: NASOHGibsonaward@gmail.com
Selection: Articles will be evaluated by a three-person committee of NASOH members
Announcement of award recipient: TBD.
***The Recipient must be present at the NASOH conference to receive the award.****
NASOH presents the Charles Dana Gibson Award annually to the author of the most significant article on any aspect of North American maritime history published in a refereed journal during the previous year.
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Kings Maritime History Seminars
22 February 2024 – Rewriting Women into Maritime History: Visibilising diverse histories and futures, 1700–2023.
Jo Stanley, Blaydes Maritime Centre, University of Hull
7 March 2024 – Interplay of Empires: The quest for influence in the nineteenth-century Mediterranean
Cemal Atabaş, Marmara University, Istanbul
21 March 2024 – The Coal Black Sea: Winston Churchill and the biggest naval catastrophe of the First World War
Stuart Heaver, journalist and author
Note: This session will be delivered entirely online.
25 April 2024 – Ship of State? Regionalism and Cold War soft power aboard La France
Claire O’Mahony, University of Oxford
9 May 2024 – The Ordered Sea: Naval diplomacy in the Mediterranean, 1815–1911
Erik de Lange, King’s College London
23 May 2024 – The Post-Napoleonic Employment of Former Warships in the British Southern
Whale Fishery, 1815–1845
Julie Papworth and Roger Dence, King’s College London
Seminars for 2023–24 will continue as hybrid events, which means that they may be attended in person or online (with the exception of the entirely online event on the 21st of March). As always, attendance is free and open to all. To take part, you must register by visiting the KCL School of Security Studies Events page. Those of you attending online will receive instructions shortly before the event, by email, about how to join. Otherwise, we will meet in person, as usual, in the Dockrill Room, K6.07, at King’s College London. Papers will begin at 17:15 GMT. The King’s Maritime History Seminar is hosted by the Laughton Naval Unit and the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. It is organized by the British Commission for Maritime History in association with the Society for Nautical Research. For further information contact Dr. Alan James, War Studies, KCL, WC2R 2LS.
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UPCOMING NAVAL & MARITIME HISTORY GATHERINGS | |
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29 February–1 March 2024: Women’s History Symposium, National World War II Museum, New Orleans
18–21 April 2024: Society For Military History Annual Conference Arlington, VA
24–25 April 2024: Council of American Maritime Museums, Constitution Museum, Boston, MA
18 May 2024: Naval Dockyards Society 28th Annual Conference
From Yards to Hards: Preparing Allied naval forces for the 1944 Normandy Landings The D-Day Story, Portsmouth - Partner and Venue: Clarence Esplanade, Southsea, Portsmouth PO5 3NT
3–5 June 2024: Warships Resting in Peace, Suomenlinna, Helsinki, Finland
20–23 June 2024: Joint NASOH/CNRS Conference, St. Catherines, Ontario
September (TBD): Historic Naval Ship Association (HNSA) Symposium
24–28 September 2025: 12th Maritime Heritage Conference, Buffalo, NY
| 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: 223: Interview with Dr. Cameron McCoy, Part 2>>
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 >>
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