|
16 December 2024
Welcome back to our National Maritime Historical Society members and friends who share a love for naval history!
| |
|
As the saying goes, “That’s a Wrap!” This will be the final edition of Tuesday Tidings for 2024. With the 250th birthday of the US Navy and other anniversaries, such as the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Erie Canal, 2025 promises to be a busy year for conferences and celebrations. The year will kick off with the Western Naval History Association Symposium in San Diego at the start of February. We offer you a preview of the program, along with the Call for Papers for the North American Society for Oceanic History, which is having its conference in Mississippi in mid-May.
A Huzzah to Navy for Beating Army 21–13 on Saturday in Landover, Maryland! Check out a discussion on the history of the game in our In Case You Missed It segment.
We have two new books received from the UK and Australia on naval combat in the Southwest Pacific during World War II. Check out our list of books available for review. For this week we feature David McDonald’s observations about a new study looking at Americans who served in the Royal Navy in HMS Belvidera during the War of 1812.
| |
|
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 and naval history news items are welcome at nmhs@seahistory.org.
| |
|
2025 Western Naval History Association Symposium
The program this year is still under development, but it includes workshops and historical presentations including:
Richard Frank: “Did US Submarines Kill More Japanese than the USMC in WWII”
Carla Rahn Phillips: “Juan Cabrillo Controversy & Spanish Exploration of San Diego Bay”
Steven Shay, Secretary of Universal Ship Cancellation Society: “Collecting Naval Postal Covers”
Len Heinz: “Radar in Pacific Night Battles, 1942–1943”
Parks Stephenson: CEO USS Kidd Museum: “Diving on Warship Wrecks”
Ed Offley: “USS Scorpion—Buried at Sea”
Larrie Ferreiro: “The British-American scientific cooperation that won the Battle of the Atlantic”
David Winkler & David Kohnen: “Editing and publishing Combat Diaries and Memoirs”
Brian Walter: “Central Role of Maritime Logistics in WWII”
Hal Friedman: “US Navy Planning for the Pacific, 1946”
Other topics will include the Vietnam War, a roundtable discussion of the Scorpion debate, and the participation of other speakers, including Norman Polmar and Jon Parshall.
Physical attendance is $60, which includes lunch, refreshments, admission to the USS Midway, and WNHA membership. The program will be live with just one remote presentation scheduled. It will be streamed, as in past years, and registrants who are not able to attend will receive a link.
For questions write Vince O’Hara at vohara@gmail.com.
| |
|
2025 Call for Papers
Continental Connections: Inland Waters and the Shaping of Maritime North America. The North American Society for Oceanic History invites you to join us at the Grand Hotel in Natchez, Mississippi, for our 2025 conference from 15–17 May.
For thousands of years, a vast complex of inland waters shaped the lives and cultures of indigenous North Americans. These same waters allowed European states to establish and maintain outposts of empire thousands of miles from the Atlantic Ocean. During the early decades of the nineteenth century, inland waters made it possible for millions of Euro-Americans to move west and establish the cities and farms that became the foundations of North America’s modern agricultural and industrial economies.
This year NASOH is recognizing the complicated historical legacy of North America’s inland waters by meeting at Natchez, Mississippi. Located on the Mississippi River at the western terminus of the Natchez Trace, an overland trail connecting the Mississippi, Cumberland, and Tennessee rivers, Natchez was a natural point of exchange and location of important Indigenous ceremonial mounts. The French, recognizing the area’s importance-built Fort Rosalie in 1716. The present city is named after the Natchez Indians, and its subsequent culture and history are the products of Indigenous, French, English, Spanish, African, and American influences. A natural stopping place and base for keelboats and flatboats, and later steamboats, Natchez became the first capital of the Mississippi Territory and the second-largest slave trading market in the United States. Celebrated for its surviving antebellum architecture and southern heritage, Natchez is also a testament to the enduring and pervasive influences of maritime connections and inland waters in North America.
Session and individual paper proposals are encouraged. Sessions should have no more than 4 papers.
Proposals should include: A) title; B) 150-200 word abstract; C) a 150 word (maximum) biographical statement; D) contact information, including phone number, address, affiliation, and email. This information should be submitted as a single Word document (not pdf), single-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font.
Please note that conference registration is required for papers.
PowerPoint presentations are encouraged, and projectors will be provided. Please note that requests for specific audio-visual equipment, special outlets, or accommodation for disabilities should be included in the proposal.
The deadline for proposal submission is 15 February 2025. Please submit proposal packets electronically to NASOHconference25@gmail.com.
For general questions, please contact Dr. Amy Mitchell-Cook, amitchellcook@uwf.edu.
Additional information regarding accommodations and registration will be available on NASOH’s website, https://nasoh.org/.
Student Travel Grants
Students may apply for a Chad Smith Travel Grant to assist in travel to present a paper at the conference. Additionally, each year NASOH bestows the Clark G. Reynolds Student Paper Award to the author of the best graduate student paper delivered at the conference. Please see the awards section of the NASOH website for details. Students wishing to be considered for either award must indicate so as part of their paper proposal. For more information about these grants, please go to: https://nasoh.org/student-awards.
| |
Get your 2025 Maritime Art Calendars! | |
NAVAL HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS | |
|
Going Among English Sailors—American Tars Aboard HMS Belvidera, 1809–1814 By Andrew J. Lyter, Pilottown Press, Lewes, DE (2024).
Reviewed by David McDonald
| |
| |  | HMS Belvidera, a 36-gun frigate, was typical of the 5th-rate vessels of the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. Commissioned in 1810, she saw extensive service in the North Sea, and in 1811 she was assigned as flagship of Admiral Herbert Sawyer on the North American station at Halifax, Nova Scotia. After the United States declared war on 18 June 1812, Belvidera patrolled the American coastline from Maine to the Delaware Capes, enforcing the blockade, and capturing American merchantmen and privateers. She also was involved in two well-known encounters with US Navy vessels, but her wartime record is not the focus of this study. Like most Royal Navy vessels of the period, maintaining manpower levels sufficient for routine operations was a major challenge. Belvidera was rated for a crew of 264 officers and men to sail, maintain and fight the ship. As a result, her enlisted crew was composed of a mixture of raw and experienced seamen of many nationalities. Notable for this examination is the fact that during the period 1810–1814, twenty-two American citizens served in the Belvidera. Some were there due to impressment, one of the major reasons why the US went to war against Britain, but a significant number of others were volunteers. Which raises the question: Why would an American citizen serve on ships of the Royal Navy during a period of increased tension between Britain and the United States, and the War of 1812?
Going Among English Sailors—American Tars Aboard HMS Belvidera, 1809–1814 considers this conundrum in the context of the social history of the period and the world of the 19th-century merchant seaman. Lyter draws upon a variety of sources to document and understand the experience of American sailors among the British. Ship’s muster rolls and logbooks, applications for sailor protection certificates, personal correspondence and newspaper accounts help offer insight into the lives of individuals who were often illiterate and lacking a permanent home. Newspaper accounts also reveal the economic and political realities of the period, which drove mariners to seek employment outside the United States. The Non-Importation Act of 1806 and the subsequent Embargo Act of 1807, intended to counter British and French interference with American trade, had a devastating effect on shipping interests and put thousands of American sailors out of work. As a result, many sought employment in foreign vessels, often migrating to Canadian or other ports to find a berth. Others, previously impressed aboard a Royal Navy vessel, chose to join another ship as a volunteer when discharged. With the declaration of war in June 1812 these mariners were faced with a choice: continue their current service as voluntary or involuntary crew or apply for release on the basis of their US citizenship. The decision may have been affected as well by the fraternal bonds among seamen of the period, where loyalty to one’s ship, one’s shipmates, and self-interest carried more weight than national allegiance. Lyter’s examination of these factors includes three major segments: the service career of HMS Belvidera, a review of the American tars who volunteered to serve aboard her, and those who were impressed to her service. The cases of three sailors, hailing from Maine, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, are presented in depth as examples.
Going Among English Sailors offers an insightful view of the experiences of American sailors on board HMS Belvidera that is well-researched and presented. Extensive notes and references support the material, which is enhanced by Lyter’s personal experiences sailing as the sole American in a British crew of a sail training vessel. The author holds an MA in maritime history from the University of Portsmouth, England, and is currently pursuing a PhD in maritime history. A frequent lecturer at historical conferences both in the United States and abroad, Lyter currently serves as executive director and curator for the Lewes Historical Society in Lewes, Delaware.
David McDonald is an amateur historian with special interest in maritime history. While working at the Maryland Historical Society 2007–2017 he reviewed several maritime titles for the Maryland Historical Magazine. In 2014, he wrote and designed a traveling exhibit: The Baltimore Privateers—Fast Ships, Bold Captains and their Role in the War of 1812, for The Pride of Baltimore, Inc.
| |
NAVAL HISTORY BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW | |
|
Preble Hall Podcast
Episode 243: Army-Navy Game 2024 with NHHC’s Christopher Havern
To start Army-Navy week of 2024, Dr. Stephen Phillips discusses the Army-Navy Game with
Christopher Havern, a historian at the Naval History and Heritage Command, but also an Army
veteran and fan.
Listen here>>
| |
|
McMullen Naval History Symposium: 18–19 September, 2025
The year 2025 marks many significant milestones for the United States and its navy. Of special note is the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and the founding of the Continental Navy. Many other significant naval events celebrate lesser milestones this year as well, including the end of the First Barbary War and the War of 1812, the end of World War II, and the founding of the US Naval Academy. The History Department of the United States Naval Academy invites proposals for papers to be presented at the 2025 McMullen Naval History Symposium on these and any other topics related to the naval and maritime history of the United States or the world. While we encourage in-person attendance and participation, the 2025 McMullen will be equipped for very limited virtual participation for participants from outside the United States. Proposals should include a one-page curriculum vitae and an abstract of no more than 250 words that summarizes the research and its contribution to historical knowledge. Panel proposals that include three presenters and a chair are highly encouraged, and should include all relevant material on the presenters, as well as a one-page CV for the chair. The chair will function as a moderator for the panel; there will be no separate comment, apart from audience Q&A. When submitting proposals, either individual or panel, please put all materials into a single file.
Email proposals to navalhistorysymposium@gmail.com by midnight, 14 February 2025.
The program committee anticipates announcing a draft program by the end of April 2025. Online registration for the conference will begin in the spring of 2025. A small number of modest travel stipends are available to graduate students and recent PhDs who do not hold a tenure-track position or full-time employment. Support for these grants comes from the generosity of the McMullen Sea Power Fund established in honor of Dr. John McMullen, USNA Class of 1940. Please indicate your desire to apply for a travel stipend with your proposal. The committee will publish a volume of proceedings in the New Interpretations of Naval History Series, containing the best papers presented, at a future date. Further information on the 2025 McMullen Naval History Symposium, including hotel registration, will be available online at www.usna.edu/History/Symposium in early 2025. Specific inquiries may be directed to the director, Captain Stan Fisher, or deputy director, Dr. Abby Mullen, at the email address listed above.
| |
|
Maritime Communities Celebrating Milestones
SAVE THE DATES!
24–27 September 2025 • Buffalo, NY
We are delighted to be holding the 12th Maritime Heritage Conference in Buffalo in September 2025.
The conference brings together organizations and participants that engage in all aspects of maritime heritage. This includes maritime museums, historic lighthouses, tall ships for sail training and youth, small craft, marine art, sailing, naval and maritime scholars, advocacy, and more. It is also a gathering of the leadership of the maritime heritage community. Buffalo will host the first Maritime Heritage Conference to be held in the Great Lakes region.
The 12th Maritime Heritage Conference (MHC) will bring together nautical heritage organizations and individuals for an information-packed conference encompassing a broad array of topics on the banks of Lake Erie at historic Buffalo, New York. Following in the wake of the World Canal Conference, which concludes with a bicentennial celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal, the 12th MHC will use that historic milestone to open a three-day program that invites attendees to consider other historic nautical milestones worthy of broader public attention.
The MHC has earned a reputation for its high take-away value, networking opportunities, and camaraderie. The conference steering committee invites you to become involved as a presenter; both session and individual proposals are encouraged. Don’t miss this opportunity to gather with individuals from all segments of the maritime community.
Call for Papers & Session Proposals
Papers and session topics include, but are not limited to:
• Inland Water Commerce and Seaport Operations (Erie Canal bicentennial!)
• Maritime and Naval History (2025 marks USN/USMC 250th Birthday)
• Maritime Art, Literature, and Music
• Education and Preservation
• Underwater Archaeology
• Trade and Communications
• Maritime Libraries, Archives, and Museums
• Marine Science and Ocean Conservation
• Historic Vessel Restoration
• Maritime Heritage Grant Program
• Maritime Landscapes
• National Marine Sanctuaries
• Small Craft
• Shipbuilding
• Marine Protected Areas
Focus sessions include, but are not limited to:
• Non-Profit administration
• Event Management
• Fundraising
• Media and Publications
• Media and Social Media
Submissions
Individual paper and session proposals should include a 250–400 word abstract and a one-paragraph biography about each presenter.
Please e-mail proposals and other queries to Dr. David Winkler at: MHC@seahistory.org
Deadline for proposals for papers and sessions is 31 May 2025.
| |
|
Society for Nautical Research Winter Lecture Series 2024–25
The Society for Nautical Research is delighted to announce the schedule for the forthcoming winter lecture series. These online talks will highlight new and ongoing research being undertaken by members of the society and its affiliations. The series aims to promote research into economic, social, political, military and environmental aspects of nautical history, drawing on British, European and international experience.
The 12-part lecture series will be held fortnightly on Wednesday evenings at 6:30PM (UK) between October 2024 to March 2025. Lectures will only be available online (via Zoom) and will be FREE to paying members of the SNR.
Not yet a member?
Sign up now from as little as £22.50 a year. Get access to exclusive events and talks, quarterly editions of the Mariner’s Mirror, and discounts at affiliated museums and gift shops! https://snr.org.uk/become-a-member/
Dates for your calendar:
18th December 2024: Bill Lindsay (independent scholar), “William Schaw Lindsay; Victorian Entrepreneur”
Christmas Break
15th January 2025: Prof. Rodrigo Pérez Fernández (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid), “The past, present and future of shipbuilding”
29th January 2025: Dr. Alan James (King’s College London), (full title TBC)
12th February 2025: Dr. Matthew Heaslip (University of Portsmouth), (full title TBC)
26th February 2025: Dr. Michael Roberts (University of Bangor), Archaeological exploration of historical shipwrecks in the Irish Sea (full title TBC)
12th March 2025: Dr. Jo Stanley (independent scholar), “Diversity at Sea: How sharing historical research can make a difference to the present and future of the maritime industry and public understanding”
19th March 2025: Dr. Cathryn Pearce (University of Portsmouth), “‘Bandied about for a place of refuge’: Extreme Weather, Coastal Shipping, and the Loss of Lord Nelson, 1840”
How to attend the lectures?
Zoom details will be circulated prior to each of the lectures but details can also be found in the “events” section of the members area of the SNR website (Click Here).
For any questions or queries please contact the convener (daisy.turnbull@myport.ac.uk).
| |
UPCOMING NAVAL & MARITIME HISTORY GATHERINGS | |
|
31 January–2 February 2025: Western Naval History Association Symposium (WNHA), San Diego, CA
27–30 March 2025: Society for Military History (SMH) Annual Meeting, Mobile, AL
9–11 April 2025: Council of American Maritime Museums Annual Meeting, Pensacola, FL
24–25 May 2025: Canadian Nautical Research Society Annual Conference Port Hope,
Ontario
18–19 September 2025: McMullen Naval History Symposium, US Naval Academy
24–27 September 2025: Historic Naval Ship Association (HNSA) Symposium/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 interviews 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: 243 - Army-Navy Game 2024 with NHHC's Christopher Havern>>
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 >>
| | | | |
