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23 April 2024
Welcome back to our National Maritime Historical Society members and friends who share a love for naval history!
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We were saddened to hear of the passing earlier this month of Lt. Cmdr. Louis A. Conter, the last survivor of the crew of the battleship Arizona (BB-39). His story, originally posted by the Naval History and Heritage Command, is featured below. We also offer a shout out to Bryon “BT” Smith, who earned a well-deserved promotion in the Navy Reserve. Details below.
A double Bravo Zulu (Well Done!) to the National Maritime Historical Society for hosting another memorable National Maritime Awards Dinner last Thursday at the National Press Club and the Society of Military History for pulling off an intensive three-day annual conference in Arlington, Virginia, which featured numerous panels and papers that had naval history themes. One of the benefits of attendance at such conclaves is the book display tables from the various presses. Expect a wider variety of offerings to those interested in reviewing books for this e-letter.
Speaking of book reviews, we thank Ed Calouro for his constructive review of Brian Lavery’s Two Navies Divided: The British and United States Navies in the Second World War. We still have a good number of titles on our book-for-review opportunity list. Check it out!
Note the deadline for the CNO’s Naval History Essay Contest is coming up! Details below!
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 | |
24 April 2024 - Warrior Women: Fighting to Serve, Serving to Fight
(Registration Deadline 9 April)
2:00–3:15 PM. (In person)
Jack C. Taylor Center, USNI, Annapolis
24–25 April 2024 - Council of American Maritime Museums Annual Conference
Constitution Museum, Boston, MA
25 April 2024 - The Ship that Held Up Wall Street
With Warren C. Riess
7 -8:30 PM (EDT) (In Person/Streaming)
Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, VA
25 April 2024 - Naval Order Continental Commandery’s Maritime History Virtual Lecture: Identifying the Flag Raisers at Iwo Jima: Part History—Part Mystery
With COL Keil Gentry, USMC, Ret
7:00 -8:30 PM (EDT) (Streaming)
Event streamed here>>
8 May 2024 - US Naval Institute Annual Meeting
Jack C. Taylor Center, Annapolis, MD
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Last Survivor of Arizona Passes Away
On April 1, 2024, the last survivor from the crew of the battleship USS Arizona (BB-39) during the Pearl Harbor attack has died. Lt. Cmdr. Louis A. “Lou” Conter passed away peacefully at his home in Grass Valley, California. He was 102. Born on Sept. 13, 1921, in Ojibwa, Wisconsin, to Nicholas and Lottie Conter, his family, to include two sisters, later moved to a farm outside Denver, Colorado. After he turned 18, Conter enlisted in the US Navy in November 1939, where he was paid $17 a month. Following basic training at San Diego, he reported to his first ship, Arizona, at Long Beach, California, as an apprentice seaman. In March 1940, Arizona and the rest of the Battle Fleet were ordered to remain at Pearl Harbor following a major fleet exercise. On Nov. 1, 1941, Conter was selected for the enlisted pilot training program and received orders to return to the United States for training at Pensacola, Florida. Although he was scheduled to transit back aboard SS Lurline, his commander, Capt. Franklin Van Valkenburgh, directed him to remain onboard Arizona for a ride Stateside during a scheduled anti-aircraft weapons upgrade at Long Beach in December. Following a night-firing exercise, Arizona entered Pearl Harbor on Dec. 5 in company with battleships USS Nevada (BB-36) and USS Oklahoma (BB-37). The following day, Arizona took the repair ship USS Vestal (AR-1) on its port side.
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 |  | On the morning of Dec. 7, Conter had just reported to the quarterdeck for duty as quartermaster of the watch when the first Japanese planes began to appear over the horizon. Japanese aircraft from six fleet carriers struck the Pacific Fleet as it lay in port, and in the ensuing two attack waves wreaked devastation on the battleship line and on air and military facilities defending Pearl Harbor. Onboard Arizona, the ship’s air raid alarm went off at about 7:55 AM, and it went to general quarters soon thereafter. Conter was on his way to the bridge when a fourth bomb hit Arizona, which resulted in a catastrophic powder magazine explosion that killed or mortally wounded 1,177 of the 1,512 crew. During the attack, Conter rescued men from the flames, assisted in fighting fires, and helped evacuate the wounded. In all, Arizona alone suffered more than half the casualties of the Pearl Harbor attack. After the attack, Conter was assigned duty as a diver to go into the sunken ship to retrieve his fallen shipmates until it was deemed too dangerous to continue that work.
When the dust had settled at Pearl Harbor, Conter reported to Pensacola in January 1942 and completed flight school later that year. During World War II, he flew 2,000 flight hours during 200 combat missions as an enlisted pilot in PBY Catalina flying boats, mostly along the northern coast of New Guinea. He earned a Distinguished Flying Cross for his role in rescuing more than 200 Australian coastwatchers on New Guinea who had been trapped by a Japanese division’s surprise landing. During the war, Conter was shot down twice. In September 1943, his aircraft was hit by Japanese ground fire, forcing his burning plane to crash land into the ocean. Conter and the crew survived a day in the water, fighting off sharks, before reaching the shore and hiding in the jungle until they were rescued by an underwater demolition team. Two months later, Conter’s plane was shot down by friendly fire while attempting to rescue the crew of a US Army Air Forces B-25 bomber. Although the nose gunner was killed, the rest of his crew survived and the B-25 crew was saved.
Read full article>>
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A Huzzah for Bryon Thomas (BT) Smith, a fifth generation Californian who comes from a family of long-time cattle ranchers. A double major in Political Science and Geography at University of California, Davis, Smith received his commission with distinction from the US Navy’s Officer Candidate School (OCS) and completed flight training with ‘Top Hook’ honors flying the E-2C Hawkeye. He has a PhD in war studies from King’s College London, an MBA from the University of Cambridge, and an MA in National Security and Strategic Studies from the US Naval War College.
Smith survived his tour as Commanding Officer of the now defunct Navy Combat Documentation Unit that had conducted historical collection for the Naval History and Heritage Command for three decades to be selected for flag rank. Rear Admiral Smith is now the Reserve Vice Commander for the US Second Fleet.
Previous to his tour at the Naval History and Heritage Command, Smith’s sea duty tours included flying the E-2C Hawkeye with Early Airborne Squadron (VAW-112) “Golden Hawks” in Point Mugu, California, and deploying in support of Operation Southern Watch, Operation Noble Eagle, and Operation Enduring Freedom with Carrier Air Wing Nine (CVW-9) aboard USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74). Following these deployments, he became the Safety Department Head for Airborne Command and Control and Logistics Wing (COMACCLOGWING) at Naval Base Ventura County, California (NVBC).
Subsequent operational tours include flying the C-130T Hercules with Fleet Logistics Support Squadron (VR- 55) “Minutemen” in Point Mugu, California, where he was awarded both the Reserve Officer Association’s (ROA) Junior Reserve Officer of the Year 2008 and the Association of the United States Navy (AUSN) 11th District’s Junior Reserve Officer of the Year 2009, and with “The Revelers” (VR-54) in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Besides leading the Navy’s only reserve unit that had been focused on collecting history, his other command tours included Fleet Logistics Support Squadron (VR-62) “Nomads” in Jacksonville, Florida where he led the squadron’s deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom; earning the 2012, 2014 and 2015 Noel Davis Battle Efficiency Award and the US Navy’s 2015 reserve squadron of the year. Additional command tours include Navy Reserve, Submarine Forces Atlantic’s Undersea Warfare Operations Unit (NR SUBLANT UWO ORL) in Orlando, Florida, Navy Reserve, US Second Fleet Headquarters (NR C2F HQ), where he was both the Reserve Chief of Staff for C2F and Allied Joint Force Command Norfolk (JFCNF) in Norfolk Virginia and Navy Reserve, Commander Naval Installation Command Headquarters (NR CNIC HQ) at the Washington Navy Yard, District of Columbia.
Smith has accumulated over 3,500 flight hours in the US Navy to include combat sorties in support of Operation Southern Watch and Operation Enduring Freedom. His personal awards include the Legion of Merit (two awards), the Meritorious Service Medal (two awards), Air Medal Strike/Flight, and various other personal, expeditionary, unit and campaign awards.
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NAVAL HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS | |
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Two Navies Divided: The British and United States Navies in the Second World War By Brian Lavery, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, (2023)
Reviewed by Ed Calouro
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 | | As noted, this is a first-rate, very informative, and far-ranging book. Naval specialists and academics are likely to acquire new information by carefully reading it. There is one important caveat, however. This volume would have been enhanced had more time, care, and attention to detail been invested in it. There are at least thirty-eight errors in this over 600-page book. Words are missing, incorrectly repeated, or misused. There are several factual errors. For example, on p. 267, it indicates the battleship Washington sank the IJN battle cruiser Hiei. She sank the Kirishima. Lavery wrote the Duke of York’s main guns did not perform well when she battled against the Scharnhorst in 1944 (p. 230). The German battle cruiser was sunk on Boxing Day in 1943. The author wrote five of the battleships damaged at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1942 were repaired at Puget Sound Yard (p. 192). The Pearl Harbor attack took place in 1941. What is more dismaying is that several of these factual errors are reported accurately elsewhere in the text, so there is little doubt the author and copy editor were aware of the correct information. None of the errors is of critical importance. It is just that there are so many of them, and they are unnecessary. Careful proofreading and copyediting should have discovered these mistakes and revised them prior to publication.
This constructive criticism aside, this is an excellent book. No comparable volume is noted in Lavery’s extensive bibliography. Two Navies Divided should take pride of place on any maritime history lover’s bookshelf.
Read review>>
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NAVAL HISTORY BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW | |
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Last week’s Naval Order History Happenings program on Tailships with Capt. John Rodgaard discussing his latest book about deploying aboard a frigate in the early 1970s that carried towed-arrayed sonars (hence “tailship”) that could listen for Soviet submarines in the Mediterranean below the thermo-layer.
Watch here>>
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Kings Maritime History Seminars
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 20 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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International Maritime History Association - Frank Broeze Prize for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis in Maritime History
Professor Frank Broeze was one of the leading maritime historians of his generation. In his honor, the International Maritime History Association has instituted the Frank Broeze Prize to be awarded to the author of a doctoral thesis which, in the opinion of the panel, makes the most outstanding contribution to the study of maritime history.
As befitting Frank’s visionary approach to the field, maritime history encompasses all aspects of the historical interaction of human societies and the sea. The panel of judges will therefore consider works that focus on the maritime dimensions of economic, social, cultural, political, technological and environmental history.
The Frank Broeze Prize carries with it a cash award of €500 and reimbursement of the registration fee at the Ninth International Congress of Maritime History in Busan, South Korea, August 2024.
To be considered for this prestigious award, those who have completed a doctoral thesis between 1 September 2019 and 31 August 2023 are invited to submit a copy of their thesis for consideration. If the thesis is written in a language other than English, the entrant should provide a summary of their work (minimum 10,000 words) in English.
The judges will apply the following criteria in deciding the winner of the prize:
• Contribution to knowledge and understanding of the maritime past;
• Originality of approach, source material and/or findings;
• Depth and coherence of argument;
• Choice and application of methodology;
• Presentational and stylistic quality.
Eligible candidates should submit their entries, including a letter of support from their supervisor, via e-mail attachment to Prof. Ingo Heidbrink (iheidbri@odu.edu) president of the IMHA, no later than 15 May 2024. The prize will be awarded at the Congress in Busan.
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2024 CNO Naval History Essay Contest
The Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) announces the 2024 CNO Naval History Essay Contest and calls for the submission of papers no later than 30 April 2024. The Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) is the lead for the contest, and the US Naval Institute (which has been sponsoring essay contests since 1878) is supporting.
The Challenge
The CNO invites entrants to submit essays that apply lessons from throughout naval history to solving today's Navy challenges. Entrants should consider that today’s era is marked by:
a. Determined and increasingly aggressive efforts by China and Russia to coordinate their respective instruments of power (e.g., economic, political, and military) to compete for commercial, geostrategic, political, and military advantage and access.
b. Chinese and Russian expansion across the spectrum of military operations (competition, crisis, and contingency) and domains (sea, air, land, space, cyberspace, and electromagnetic spectrum).
c. The rise of China as an economic and maritime power and the importance of the maritime domain as well as the need for the US to integrate Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard operations and multi-domain operational concepts and capabilities.
d. The increased importance of navies, sea control, and allies and partners in a globalized world where 90 percent of world trade (by volume) and information travels via the seas or undersea cables.
e. The proliferation of advanced weaponry and the erosion of key US technological advantages that make it difficult for the US to project power to manage crises, deter aggression, and reassure allies and partners.
f. Fundamental strategic and technological shifts and advances that promise to change the character and conduct of naval warfare and challenge the Navy’s ability to adapt conceptually and materially.
The contest seeks submissions from professional historians, midshipmen and cadets, and rising historians. Guidelines for each group below.
2024 CNO Naval History Essay Contest - Professional Historian | US Naval Institute (usni.org)
2024 CNO Naval History Essay Contest - Midshipmen and Cadets | US Naval Institute (usni.org)
2024 CNO Naval History Essay Contest - Rising Historian | US Naval Institute (usni.org)
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The Australian Naval Institute Commodore Sam Bateman Book Prize | |
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Inaugurated in 2021, the Commodore Sam Bateman Book Prize is awarded annually by the ANI to recognise excellence in books making a major contribution to the study and understanding of naval and maritime matters. The Prize is sponsored by the National Shipbuilding College.
The Prize is named after Commodore Sam Bateman AM RAN (1938–2020), a former ANI Councillor and strategic thinker in recognition of his efforts to raise greater awareness of naval and/or maritime matters and progressing the understanding and value of navies in society.
Award of the Prize
The winner of the ANI Commodore Sam Bateman Book Prize is announced on the second Wednesday of each December. It is awarded in a ceremony in Canberra in March the following the year where the author will be asked to deliver the Commodore Sam Bateman Book Prize Lecture.
Entries are now being received for the 2024 Sam Bateman Book Prize
Entries are to be in the English language and will:
- Raise the understanding of naval and/or maritime affairs,
- Have been published from 2 November 2023 to 1 November 2024 and received between 1 April and 1 November 2024, and
- Be of high literary quality and style
Books can be nominated for consideration by either ANI book reviewers or publishers.
For further information or to submit a book first email books@navalinstitute.com.au for dispatch details.
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UPCOMING NAVAL & MARITIME HISTORY GATHERINGS | |
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18 May 2024: Naval Dockyards Society 28th Annual Conference
From Yards to Hards: Preparing Allied naval forces for the 1944 Normandy Landing
The D-Day Story, Portsmouth - Partner and Venue: Clarence Esplanade, Southsea, Portsmouth PO5 3NT
23–26 May 2024: 75th Annual Conference of the Company of Military Historians, Augusta, ME
3–5 June 2024: Warships Resting in Peace, Suomenlinna, Helsinki, Finland
20–23 June 2024: Joint NASOH/CNRS Conference, St. Catharines, Ontario
16–19 September 2024: Historic Naval Ship Association (HNSA) Symposium, USS Midway, San Diego
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: 228: CDR Randy Gogen - From Yeomanettes to Fighter Jets>>
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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