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9 January 2023
Welcome back to our National Maritime Historical Society members and friends who share a love for naval history!
Happy New Year! This is the first-anniversary edition of Tuesday Tidings, the weekly naval history situational awareness e-letter that had been initiated by the Naval Historical Foundation as Naval History Book Reviews before morphing into Thursday Tidings. Before we march too far forward into 2024, we want to offer the Canadian Naval Reserve a not-quite-belated shout-out for its centennial. Since it was founded on 31 January 1923, there is still the better part of a month to celebrate. Click here for details of the Canadian Naval Reserve centennial! Of note, should you travel to Québec City, visit the Naval Museum of Québec, which has the history of the Canadian Naval Reserve as its focal point.
Today the Surface Navy Association begins its 36th National Symposium. Dedicated to the professional development of surface navy sailors and Coast Guard cuttermen, the organization has long embraced heritage as a core element for building future leaders. Ongoing heritage efforts include a Surface Warfare Hall of Fame, support for the Surface Navy Museum at the Battleship Iowa and tomorrow’s Heritage Night at the symposium, which you can participate in virtually. This year’s program features the 15th Anniversary of the Maersk Alabama Hijacking, featuring a panel with Adm. Michelle Howard, USN (Ret.); Capt. Frank Castellano, USN (Ret.) – CO, USS Bainbridge; Rear Adm. Scott Moore, USN (Ret.) – Navy Special Warfare; Capt. Gordan Van Hook, USN (Ret) – Maersk; and Capt. Michael Huck, USN (Ret.) – CO, USS Halyburton.
Following tomorrow evening’s 5:30 PM (EST) program, home viewers can then tune in on the Naval Order’s 8 PM (EST) monthly heritage night program. Dr. David A. Smith will discuss his new book on Admiral George Dewey and the rise of the American navy.
Battleships have been making headlines lately, with New Jersey’s pending drydocking at the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and a recent January 5th feature in the Washington Post on how North Carolina is responding to rising waters that have been frequently inundating its parking lots. Over the coming year, Tuesday Tidings will continue to run features on historic ships as well as notable artifacts. Indeed, our lead feature by Tom Duffy provides his assessment of the sole surviving Charles F. Adams-class destroyer that is berthed in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Tom Duffy is a retired American diplomat who, while in the US Navy prior to joining the Foreign Service, was the fire control officer from 1986 to 1988 aboard USS Cochrane (DDG 21), a Charles F. Adams-class destroyer homeported in Yokosuka, Japan. Sadly, at the end of that assessment, we will note the passing of that ship’s curator, Dr. Stephan Huck. For a bit of more positive news, we close with a combo video/narrative feature about a recently relocated Civil War seacoast mortar.
Naval History Book Reviews opens the new year with a review from Capt. Bookie Boland on Cdr. Stan Fisher’s Naval Institute Press book on sustaining carriers during World War II. Thank you to those who responded to review other recent arrivals from Naval Institute Press. A shipment of new titles from Casemate is anticipated soon!
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 | |
10 January 2024: 5:30 PM (EST) Surface Navy Association History Night
The Maersk Alabama Hijacking
10 January 2024: 8:00 PM (EST) Naval Order Heritage Night
Admiral George Dewey and the rise of the American navy
11 January 2024 – 1 PM (EST) Pritzker Military Museum and Library Webinar
War of 1812-Foreshadowing of the Civil War
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An American’s take on FGS Mölders
By Tom Duffy
As part of the November 2023 Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the German Armed Forces (ZMSBw)/Institute for Security Policy Kiel University (ISPK) workshop on NATO maritime strategies and operations (described in the November 21 NMHS Tuesday Tidings), workshop participants were given a special guided tour of FGS Mölders by Deutsches Marinemuseum Director Dr. Stephan Huck. The points below are some observations of one of the tour’s participants, who served aboard USS Cochrane (DDG 21), a sister ship to Mölders.
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FGS Mölders. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. | |
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With their flared bow and additional 19 feet of length over their direct predecessor Forrest Sherman class of destroyers, the 29 guided-missile destroyers (DDGs) of the Charles F. Adams class—produced between 1960 and 1969 for service in the American, Australian, and West German navies—arguably have a strong claim on being one of the most beautiful classes of warships ever produced. As one commentator noted, “US Navy engineers arrived at the top of their game for hull design here. The next Spruance [class of ships] would be completely new animals in that matter, no longer the “sleek racehorse” made until then.” * https://naval-encyclopedia.com/cold-war/us/charles-f-adams-class-destroyers.php
A naval architect once described the Adams class as “graceful and balanced; they do not seem to suffer the bloating effects of other American destroyers [e.g., the Spruance class] [But] the DDGs are not consistent internally with other fleet destroyers. [They have] austere supporting systems and suffocating internal compressions—cramped crew quarters, jammed machinery spaces, and minimal support areas. [They are] uncomfortable to serve in and a problem to maintain.” (Philip Sims, quoted in Norman Friedman’s US Navy Destroyers: An Illustrated History, p. 308.)
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German Navy Museum Director Stephan Huck (1970 – 2024)
It is with sadness we report news passed along from our colleague Sebastian Bruns in Germany of the loss of the director of the German Navy Museum, Stephan Huck, from a grave disease on the evening of January 5. He was 53. He is survived by his wife, Jutta, and two daughters.
Having graduated from high school in Braunschweig in 1989, Stephan joined the German Armed Forces. From 1993 to 1996, he had the opportunity to study history and social sciences at the University of the Armed Forces in Hamburg. Then from 1999 until September 2002, he was a researcher at the German Military History Office (Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, MGFA) in Potsdam. Stephan left the army with the rank of captain and in October 2002 he became the director of the Deutches Marinemuseum in Wilhelmshafen. In addition, he taught museum studies at the University of Oldenburg.
As recent attendees of the November 2023 ZMSBw/ISPK Workshop on NATO maritime strategies and operations that was hosted by the Marinemuseum discovered, Stephan lived for “his” museum that he had ably led for over two decades as an ambassador for naval history, happily discussing the subject with fellow Germans or foreigners whether they be young or old, military or civilians, politicians or poets, and museum visitors and academics alike.
Stephan will be missed dearly, and not just for his advocacy for the causes of naval history, recent evolutions of Deutsche Marine, and both of their proper representations in museums and the public. He was also a creative mind who happily engaged with colleagues from Germany and around the world, junior or senior, military or civilian, politicians and poets, museum visitors and academics alike.
In his early year ass the director of the museum, he pursued his doctorate. His dissertation Soldaten gegen Nordamerika. Lebenswelten Braunschweiger Subsidientruppen im Amerikanischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg on German mercenaries in the American War of Independence was accepted in 2009 at the University of Potsdam. Further publications include editing the Kleinen Schriftenreihe zur Militär- und Marinegeschichte, a series that brought together naval history essays, and a wealth of books that accompanied some of the landmark exhibitions at his Deutsche Marinemuseum.
Thanks to his efforts, the museum has received substantial funding to support a better visitor experience has the historic ships under its charge will be repositioned for better accessibility. Stephan Huck will be sorely missed.
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“Missing” Seacoast Mortar Found
Over the holidays, former Naval Historical Foundation Executive Director Capt. Todd Creekman gained airtime on a local newscast with his discovery of a missing US Navy Civil War seacoast mortar that once stood guard at a cemetery in Dayton, Ohio. To view his solving of a 25-year-old mystery, visit Recovered Relic: how a missing 10-ton Civil War seacoast mortar was found | WJLA. Enjoy! For additional context, this particular mortar is well documented in War Department records at NARA as having been aboard mortar schooner USS John Griffith during the Civil War. Commodore David D. Porter’s mortar flotilla took part in the Battle of New Orleans in mid-April 1862, providing a week-long bombardment of Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip on the Mississippi River below New Orleans, softening up those fortifications to enable Flag Officer David Farragut’s fleet to steam past those forts to capture New Orleans. That action was followed a few months later with bombardment of the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg, Mississippi once again in support of Farragut.
John Griffith took part in West Gulf Blockading Squadron operations and then was assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron until the end of the war, with additional active bombardment in December 1864 as General Sherman’s March to the Sea culminated in the capture of Savannah, Georgia.
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A Navy photo of one of the mortar schooners, unidentified but the same configuration as USS John Griffith. | |
NAVAL HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS | |
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Sustaining the Carrier War: The Deployment of US Naval Air Power to the Pacific By Stan Fisher, Naval Institute Press: Annapolis, (2023).
Reviewed by Capt. Bookie Boland, USN (Ret.)
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...Fisher also gives his readers numerous personal accounts of the ingenuity and perseverance of those who emerged from this vast training establishment and kept the Navy’s airpower ready to defeat the enemy. For example, Aviation Chief Machinists’ Mate David Henriques served with an island-based Carrier Aircraft Service Unit in the Pacific and fabricated unique tools to speed the preparation of aircraft for delivery to frontline carriers. He also discusses the perseverance of men like Aircrewman J. W. Rosenkranz, who repaired his battle-damaged aircraft’s landing gear inflight. These personal stories engage the reader while highlighting the quality of the training received by hundreds of thousands of men and women who, the author successfully argues, served as the backbone of the Navy’s victory in the Pacific.
Sustaining the Carrier War is not a book for the casual reader. There are no dramatic tales of split-second decisions or air combat against determined foes in its pages, but rather a deeply researched and well-written analysis of how the US Navy’s small pre-war aircraft carrier force was transformed into the greatest combat fleet in history. As an historian Stan Fisher has accomplished a rare feat by telling the untold story of the central role of the aircraft technicians along with the shore infrastructure that supported them in sustaining the American carrier forces that led the way to victory over Japan in the Pacific.
Read full review>>
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NAVAL HISTORY BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW | |
NAVAL HISTORY CALLS FOR PAPERS | |
UPCOMING NAVAL & MARITIME HISTORY GATHERINGS | |
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17–18 February 2024: Western Naval History Association Symposium, San Diego, CA.
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
20–23 June 2024: Joint NASOH/CNRS Conference, St. Catherines, Ontario
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: 221: Interview with Acting SECNAV Thomas Modly, 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 >>
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