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9 May 2023
Welcome back to our National Maritime Historical Society members and friends who share a love for naval history!
A belated happy birthday to naval aviation, as yesterday marked the 112th anniversary of the procurement of a Curtiss A-1 aircraft, and birthday wishes to the Navy Nurse Corps, which turns
115 this Saturday!
Tonight is the National Maritime Awards Dinner at the National Press Club. Congratulations to Congressman Joseph Courtney, the Oyster Recovery Project, and the USS Constitution Museum for well-deserved recognition, as well as to the National Maritime Historical Society for hosting this annual event. A salute to the USS Constitution Museum featured below!
Two major conferences are occurring on back-to-back weeks. Beginning tomorrow, the Naval War College is hosting a gathering of naval historians from around the world for a three-day conclave titled “The League of Peace and a Free Sea,” Sir Julian Corbett and the Application of History in the Twenty-First Century. Though the Naval War College is closely associated with Alfred Thayer Mahan, his British contemporary counterpart has been the subject of much recent attention, as illustrated in Kevin McCranie’s recent Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought (Naval Institute Press, 2021). Coverage of this event will be featured in a future edition of Tuesday Tidings.
A week later, the North American Society of Oceanic History (NASOH) will hold its annual conference in San Diego. Several of the panels and papers have naval themes. A complete conference schedule can be found at: Conference Schedule (nasoh.org).
Also, Dr. Bob Browning tipped us off that the CSS Neuse Museum will be hosting a two-day symposium on North Carolina naval history in the era of sail and steam next month on 23–24 June. Details of the planned presentations can be found below in our upcoming conference listings.
For this week’s “In Case You Missed It” feature and book review we are going to cherry-pick from the most recent edition of the International Journal of Naval History, which is now hosted by the National Maritime Historical Society. The article selected, “US Asiatic Fleet Submarines 1941–42: An Evaluation of Senior Leadership,” is a product of ongoing research to fill a void in submarine historiography by retired Capt. Jim Ransom, an adjunct professor with the College of Distant Education of the Naval War College, who teaches the Strategy and War course in Mayport, Florida. With Julian Corbett being the subject of a conference in Newport this week, Dr. Joseph Moretz’s critique of the aforementioned McCranie book is timely.
Please check our updated list of books available for review and as always send your requests to david.winkler@usnwc.edu.
Tuesday Tidings is compiled by Dr. David F. Winkler and Jessie Henderson. As always, comments are welcome at nmhs@seahistory.org.
| ITEMS OF IMMEDIATE INTEREST | |
9 May 2023: National Maritime Awards Dinner (non-streaming event)
6 – 9:30 PM EDT
National Press Club, Washington, DC
www.seahistory.org
10 May 2023 - Curator Talk: “Goats on Boats”: Pets in Naval History (Non-streaming)
Noon – 1 PM EDT
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, (Room 401E), Washington, DC
Curator Talk with Gordon Calhoun: “Goats on Boats”: Pets in Naval History (navy.mil)
11 May: Movie at the Memorial (non-streaming event)
Top Gun
7:30 – 9:30 PM EDT
Navy Memorial, Washington, DC
Events — United States Navy Memorial
11–13 May 2023: Camp Legacy Vietnam Veterans Welcome Home
10 AM – 6 PM each day (EDT)
CampLegacyFlyer.pdf (vva.org)
12 May 2023: Author Talk with ADM James Winnefeld Jr., “Sailing Upwind: Leadership, Risk, and Innovation from Top Gun to the Situation Room” (non-streaming event)
Noon-1:00 PM EDT
National Museum of the US Navy - Building 76, Washington Navy Yard, DC
12 May 2023: Father Neptune: US Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles (Streaming Live)
Noon – 1 PM EDT
The Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, VA
Father Neptune: US Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles - The Mariners’ Museum and Park (marinersmuseum.org)
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Navy Museum to Host Former JCS Vice Chairman Adm. James Winnefeld Jr., USN (Ret.) | |
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The National Museum of the US Navy will be hosting an author talk this Friday at noon, featuring an admiral who has been a strong proponent for naval history in recent decades and is contributing to our understanding of late Cold War and post-Cold War naval history with the publication of Sailing Upwind: Leadership, Risk, and Innovation from Top Gun to the Situation Room. This highly anticipated Naval Institute Press book is a memoir of this distinguished naval officer’s highly diverse career, offering reflections on how he managed risk and challenged assumptions and processes to effect change in his professional and personal life.
A graduate from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in Aerospace Engineering having received his commission through Georgia Tech’s NROTC program, Winnefeld began his naval service as a fighter pilot, flying the F-14 Tomcat during several deployments to the Western Pacific and Arabian Gulf regions, and served as an instructor at the Navy Fighter Weapons School, also known as TOPGUN. During this period, he was also senior aide to General Colin L. Powell.
After fighter squadron command, Winnefeld graduated from the Navy’s nuclear power school and subsequently commanded USS Cleveland (LPD 7) and USS Enterprise (CVN 65). He also led the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group in support of our troops in Iraq. Later he commanded NATO Joint Command Lisbon, Striking and Support Forces NATO, and the United States Sixth Fleet. After serving as the Joint Staff Director of Strategic Plans and Policy, he assumed command of the United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).
Admiral Winnefeld retired in 2015 after four years serving as the ninth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nation’s number-two ranking military officer. A frequently published author, he currently serves as Distinguished Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, where he is also a member of the Engineering Hall of Fame. He is a senior non-resident fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He also serves on several boards, including the US Naval Institute and Raytheon Technologies, and in advisory positions in the business community.
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Historian Samuel Eliot Morison inaugurating the opening of the USS Constitution Museum in April 1976.
Photo: USS Constitution Museum Collection.
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“United States Ship, Constitution, preserved through the efforts of the people of the United States and the Navy, is now here in all her pristine beauty and charm and color and she is now given a new lease on life by having this Museum created in her honor.” Samuel Eliot Morison.
Tuesday Tidings congratulates the USS Constitution Museum on receiving the well-deserved National Maritime Historical Society Distinguished Service Award. Having recently celebrated
its 50th anniversary, the USS Constitution Museum embraces its mission to engage all ages in the story of “Old Ironsides” to spark excitement about maritime heritage, naval service, and the American experience.
As the memory and educational voice of USS Constitution, the USS Constitution Museum preserves, displays, and interprets artifacts and archival material related to the Ship and her crew through interactive exhibitions, compelling programs, and engaging outreach initiatives. The museum was incorporated in 1972 as a private, non-profit and non-government funded
interpretive complement to USS Constitution, an active-duty US Navy vessel, the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world, and America’s Ship of State. This allowed the Navy to clear Constitution’s decks of display cases so that visitors could see the ship as a sailing vessel, rather than as a floating museum, and for artifacts to be cared for in proper environmental conditions.
On April 8, 1976, naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison cut the ribbon to open the museum to the public in its present facility in Charlestown Navy Yard’s Building 22 (the old pump house for Dry Dock #1), located just across the pier from “Old Ironsides.” Since opening, the museum has doubled in size and quadrupled in visitation. Working with the National Park Service, the museum expanded into two adjacent buildings and built a connecting corridor in the mid-1990s. In 2001, the Museum completed renovations on a new state-of-the-art collections storage facility and research library. Today, over 350,000 people visit the Museum each year to learn, explore, and research, making it one of Boston’s most visited museums.
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USNI SEEKS NOMINATIONS FOR KNOX AWARD | |
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The US Naval Institute is seeking nominations for the Commodore Dudley Knox Medal for Lifetime Achievement. Originally established by the Naval Historical Foundation in 2013, the Knox Award recognizes contributions in scholarship, mentorship, leadership, and/or significant participation in organizations or institutions that promote naval/maritime, and/or military history.
Nominations should include the reason for the nomination and a summary of the achievements of the nominee. Submit your nominations to navalhistorian@usni.org by 15 July 2023. The awardee will be recognized and presented with the Knox Medal at the Naval Institute’s Jack C. Taylor Conference Center on September 21, 2023, following the McMullen Naval History Symposium.
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US Asiatic Fleet Submarines 1941–42: An Evaluation of Senior Leadership | |
By James P. Ransom III, Independent Historian
There exists a misperception of submarines as self-sufficient hunters, prowling the seas and conducting their operations with little oversight, using only the cunning of their commanding officers and resourcefulness of their crews to perform their mission. But the reality is that despite the independent nature of their operations, American submarines in the Second World War, with their cramped living and working conditions and small crews, required significant support from a shore staff of senior personnel with technical and operational submarine expertise.
In pre-war Manila, home of the US Asiatic Fleet, the squadron commander and a small staff provided this support. They were embarked aboard submarine tender Canopus, which spent the majority of her time in port, brimming with repair and logistics experts, with access to the naval repair facility and logistics hub at Cavite Navy Yard. The squadron commander was responsible for directing the operations of the Asiatic Fleet’s submarines on behalf of the fleet commander. He and his staff oversaw the training and material condition of their assigned submarines and crews, and controlled the communications that facilitated their operations. Once hostilities commenced, they established the operational deployment plan for their submarines to achieve strategic effects, provided them with intelligence and information concerning events in theater, and provided the fleet commander with reports sent from submarines in their patrol areas, in order to help bring clarity on the overall strategic picture. When they ordered the submarines into port, they ensured the replenishment of torpedoes, fuel, spare parts, and food, and organized vital repairs. They collected and disseminated lessons learned from recent operations, and certified the submarines ready for their next underway period. The submarines could not perform their duties without this vital organization.
In evaluating the senior leadership of Asiatic Fleet submarines, two officers stand out for leading their force in challenging circumstances. Despite the eventual disappointing performance of their assigned submarines, these men worked hard to perform their duties to prepare their boats for war, to execute their operational plan in the face of adversity, to reassess and adapt as events unfolded, and to make major decisions that affected their force. They carefully evaluated the results reported by commanding officers to recommend changes in operational plans and tactics, and sometimes to relieve skippers who did not meet their standards of performance.
Read full article>>
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NAVAL HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS | |
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Kevin D. McCranie, Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2021. 320 pp
Reviewed by Dr. Joseph Moretz, PhD, FRHistS
...Living in an age of science, both quite naturally sought to make the understanding of war more scientific while appreciating it would forever remain an art. The taxonomy of the day was one factor why this remained the case, though perhaps a more likely cause was simply the fact that sometimes they spoke past each other in their failure to be clear which level of war they were addressing. Here, Mahan was at a disadvantage as his schooling, notwithstanding his Naval Academy grounding, was essentially the sea. Meanwhile, fitting for a trained advocate of the bar courtesy of Trinity College, Cambridge, Corbett’s writings possess a logic and a precision often lacking with the American. As such, he refrained from employing the catchphrases commonly employed by his rival, which tended to obscure as much as they revealed by their simplicity.
At last ensconced as a lecturer at the Royal Naval War College in the immediate period before the World War, unteaching the baneful influence imparted by Mahan on British officers seemingly occupied Corbett’s time. Whether the latter’s influence had been similarly baneful when war at last arrived as posited by Lord Sydenham (George Clarke) following the fleet action at Jutland might have been considered by the author. In truth, the métier of both remained as historians of the past rather than as all-knowing seers of the future. This does not lessen the debt contemporary practitioners and strategists owe to each, but it does suggest the limits of their utility given the march of technology, the experience of successive conflicts and the collapse of the norms that governed their times.
Illustrated with amplifying maps, diagrams and photographs while anchored in sound, thorough research based on primary sources and the secondary literature, Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought is a welcome addition to the literature of strategic studies and naval history in general and, as such, is warmly recommended to all.
Read full review>>
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NOTE FOR AUTHORS OF VIETNAM NAVAL HISTORY BOOKS: The Capital Commandery of the Naval Order of the United States has been provided a tent on the National Mall for the forthcoming Vietnam Veterans welcome home event to be held in the nation’s capital from 11 to 13 May. To provide historical context for the thousands of veterans expected to attend, the Naval Order seeks authors of sea service Vietnam-themed books to be on hand to autograph books and talk history with those who served in SE Asia. If you are interested in participating, contact Dave Winkler at david.winkler@usnwc.edu. | |
NAVAL HISTORY BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW | |
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In the early 1900s, aviation pioneer Glenn H. Curtiss was a key contributor to the development of the US Navy’s initial aviation program, including the first aircraft to launch from a ship. He invested much of his time and effort in seaplanes (aircraft fitted with floats instead of wheels or skids for landing gear), and his first seaplane designs were light, fast and maneuverable and destined to become the most widely-built aircraft in the US prior to World War I. Curtiss named the amphibious craft the Triad standing for land, sea and air. Later, the Navy designated it the A-1.
At the end of 1910, Curtiss established a winter encampment in San Diego to teach flying to army and naval personnel. At the encampment, he trained Lt. Theodore Ellyson, who would become the first US naval aviator. The original site of this winter encampment is now part of Naval Air Station North Island and is referred to as “The Birthplace of Naval Aviation” by the Navy.
Read full article>>
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Congress established the Navy Nurse Corps (Female) on 13 May 1908. This new group of trained women met the need for a permanent female nurse corps in the Navy and put the service on equal footing with the Army and the civilian medical community.
In November 1908, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery selected its first crop of 20 nurses, which were dubbed “the Sacred Twenty.” Standards for Navy nurses were high. To be accepted into the Navy Nurse Corps, applicants had to pass a rigorous application and indoctrination program. Applicants had to be graduates of a general hospital training school with at least a two-year program and have clinical experience in a hospital. All nurses were subject to an examination of their professional, moral, mental, and physical fitness.
Upon selection, nurses completed three months of orientation and training in naval medicine at the Naval Medical School Hospital in Washington, DC, before being assigned to naval hospitals in Washington, DC; Norfolk, Virginia; Annapolis, Maryland; and Brooklyn, New York.
Read full article>>
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“Historic Flight” 1911 Curtiss A1 Triad Seaplane | San Diego, CA | |
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Fireships
By John L. Morris
Fire Ships were specially-equipped sailing vessels used as incendiary weapons. I once thought they were just ordinary warships pressed into use as giant fire-bombs when one was needed to inflict damage on the enemy when tactically feasible. I was wrong. A visit to the US Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, MD, yielded accurate information. The museum has an 18th C. Scale Model of a purpose-built fire ship, a part of the famous Rogers ship model collection. The didactic for this model reads:
“Griffin, British Fireship, 1702–1737, Length 94’7”, Beam 24’ ”. 1 1/2”, Crew 45, Scale 1/4” = 1’. Fireships, an integral part of warfare at sea throughout most of the Age of Sail, were the guided missiles of their day. A crew of volunteers would steer the ship toward an enemy formation. At the appropriate moment they would set afire a cargo of combustibles packed in the ship’s interior, then escape to a boat towed astern. If all went well, the fireship—by then a raging inferno—would drift into an enemy warship and set it ablaze. Most fire ships were old Fifth- and Sixth-Rates, or merchantmen purchased by the Navy. Some, like Griffin, shown here late in her career, were purpose-built. Model No. 42.”
Read full article>>
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NAVAL HISTORY CALLS FOR PAPERS | |
UPCOMING NAVAL & MARITIME HISTORY GATHERINGS | |
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9 May 2023: National Maritime Awards Dinner, National Press Club, Washington, DC
10 May 2023: 150th Annual Meeting of the US Naval Institute, Annapolis, MD
17–20 May 2023: North American Society for Oceanic History Conference, Maritime Museum of San Diego, CA
4 June 2023: Battle of Midway Commemoration Dinner, Arlington, VA
23–24 June: North Carolina Naval History in the Age of Sail and Steam Symposium, Kinston, NC (See here for more details)
18–21 September 2023: Historic Naval Ship Association Conference aboard USS Slater
21 September 2023: Navy Memorial Lone Sailor Award Dinner, National Building Museum, Washington, DC
21–22 September 2023: McMullen Naval History Symposium, US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD
17–22 October 2023: Naval Order of the United States Congress, San Diego
| Click here to watch Dr. Michael A. Verney’s presentation of his book: A Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early US Republic. | 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: 187: Admiral Mike Mullen, Part 9: CNO>>
Click here for all Preble Hall Podcasts >>
| NAVAL HISTORY & HERITAGE COMMAND H-GRAMS | |
H-Gram 078: 20 March 2023 >> The Revolt of the Admirals, Ship Renaming
| DRACHINIFEL YOUTUBE CHANNEL | 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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