Pull Together Spring/Summer 2012
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Preservation, Education, and Commemoration of Naval History Vol. 51, No. 2 Spring/Summer 2012 PULL TOGETHER Newsletter of the Naval Historical Foundation Dudley Knox Our Vanishing History and Traditions Also in the issue: Message from the Chairman, p. 2; Navy Museum News, pp. 15-18; Naval History News, pp. 22-25; News from the NHF, pp. 26-31. Message From the Chairman I want to open my remarks with a salute to Vice Adm. Bob Dunn, who stepped down after 14 years as president of the Naval Historical Foundation. Bob steered the Foundation through some tumultuous times in the wake of the attacks of 9/11 over a decade ago and today the organization is as robust as ever, with a greater outreach to academia and the retired Navy community to provide historical resources to the active duty Sailor. Under Bob’s stewardship, the Foundation conducted its fi rst capital campaign, raising funds for a series of exhibits for the Cold War Gallery—the most recent being entitled “Into The Lion’s Den.” We then parlayed those exhibits into educational outreach to America’s high schools through a STEM-H teacher fellowship program now in its second year. If you contributed to this program, thank you again! Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn with Admiral Bruce DeMars in the Cold War Gallery To relieve Vice Adm. Dunn, who will remain on the board of directors, the NHF members voted at the recent annual meeting to accept the nomination of Rear Adm. John Mitchell to serve as our president. Rear Adm. Mitchell is a retired Engineering Duty Offi cer who has served two years on the Board and who has a pedigree of corporate experience. John has been providing the NHF with sage advice as a member of our Executive Working Group. He looks forward to building closer ties with the Navy, our partner organizations, and our most valued asset, our members. With regards to the Navy, we heartily welcome Capt. Jerry Hendrix, who recently took the helm at the Naval History and Heritage Command. At our June board meeting he received a vote of support and confi dence following his overview of the challenges and opportunities his command is facing in the coming years. Most welcome was his announcement of the reestablishment of the SecNav Advisory Subcommittee on Naval History to provide input to Navy leaders. Because new leadership is now in place at both NHF and NHHC, the theme of this edition of Pull Together—“Our Vanishing History and Traditions”—is timely. The challenges Dudley Knox faced and how he met them are well worth reviewing. Though his 1926 article that led to the establishment of the Naval Historical Foundation focuses on written records, it turns out Knox was involved in all aspects of preserving naval history and thus it was during his tenure as president of the NHF that Adm. Arleigh Burke signed the directive establishing the Navy Museum. With your support, the NHF remains committed to supporting our Navy story through education, preservation, and commemoration. Bruce DeMars 2 Pull Together • Spring/Summer 2012 1 By Captain Dudley W. Knox, U.S. Navy, Retired due to glaring defi ciencies in our continued to destroy shipping in written naval history, which in their increasing totals on the sea. In turn arise from the extraordinary in- a military sense, this meant that accessibility of authentic sources. the Americans were infl icting The general condition is best il- heavy damage upon the British, lustrated by reference to the Revo- while the British were fi nding lutionary War, in which it has been themselves unable to do damage claimed that we had more sailors en- to the Americans. gaged than soldiers. At all events the spontaneous uprising on the sea was We are compelled to the conclu- on a scale quite comparable to that sion that a military situation like ashore. Its general character has been this could not exist through all described by Captain T. G. Frothing- the years of trial, unless there ham, secretary of the Massachusetts was a strong surge underneath. Military Historical Society in the fol- Such a determined resistance of lowing words: a people must mean a mighty im- pelling force. We must recognize The dogged resistance of the this military test as proving that he early history of any great Americans was maintaining this the rising' of our ancestors was nation is not only of espe- successful defence at home in one of the instinctive primitive cial interest to succeeding the face of military defeats in set movements of a people which Tgenerations, but also of vi- battles, and, in addition, it must can be brought about only where tal constructive value to the progress be kept in, mind that, with the long continued causes have pro- of the world, because the youthful British thus brought to an im- duced the inevitable effect of virile stage of development most passe in the American colonies, creating an irresistible force. clearly marks the fundamental forces the Americans themselves were This force was the spirit of our which have been at work. When we able to carry on an offensive, ancestors, created by their inborn look forward several hundred years which was doing decisive harm instinct for self-government, and and vision the maturity of the United to Great Britain. It is a fact that this should be emphasized at our States―her magnitude in all things the real offensive of the Ameri- coming anniversary observances. material and her leadership in all can colonies was on the sea, things cultural and spiritual we be- where the American privateers The importance of the naval side gin to realize how important it is to were taking such an unprecedent- (including irregular forces) of the the advancement of civilization that ed toll of British commerce that Revolution is manifest. Why has no the record of the origins and early these heavy losses to the British comprehensive history of all this na- development of this potential giant merchants were bringing about val activity ever been written? The of a country should be carefully pre- the demands in Parliament to let explanation is very simple. Many of served. the Americans go. It is not gen- the records, of course, have been lost, A great deal is now being done to erally understood, but our whole but hundreds of thousands of others this end in many fi elds of American offensive strength, in the true still in existence are so badly scat- history, but, unfortunately, much less military sense of doing damage tered as to make it almost impossible in the naval fi eld than in any other to the enemy, was thus upon the to fi nd and collate the information one of importance. The infl uence of sea, and the widespread losses which they contain and to piece to- naval and maritime affairs upon the infl icted upon British commerce gether anything approaching a com- course of the nation's history has provided the argument for setting plete history of what occurred. For- been very much greater than can pos- free an obstinate people, who not tunately there are a number of large sibly be recognized by the average only had shown that they refused collections of Revolutionary docu- person. This is, undoubtedly, largely to submit on the land, but also ments in state archives and in the 1 This article is an abridged version of the original published in the January 1926 Naval Institute Proceedings. Pull Together • Spring/Summer 2012 3 fi les of historical societies and librar- naval archives. New material is con- offi cial fi les as belonging to the offi - ies. But probably the greater num- stantly coming to light. Only within cer himself. Upon the detachment of ber are distributed in small groups the last few days the writer learned an offi cer of rank, he seems to have among thousands of small libraries, of three groups of very early manu- taken the fi les of his offi ce with him, county court houses, small historical script, one of them containing about as a matter of course. This practice societies, and private collectors. 1,000 documents, which have been continued even after the Civil War. Recognizing this unsatisfactory in a garret or otherwise inaccessible The thirty volume printed Offi cial situation, Congress appropriated for more than a hundred years. Every Records of the Union and Confed- $30,000 in 1913 for the purpose of effort is being made to obtain at least erate Navies could not have been photographing the scattered Revo- copies of these before they are acci- made even approximately complete lutionary military and naval docu- dentally burned or sold and scattered without reference to the thousands of ments and making a federal collec- to the four winds. originally offi cial documents in the tion of copies which would be suf- One might imagine that after personal possession of nearly every fi ciently complete to serve histori- the adoption of the Constitution and offi cer, who had served in command cal needs. The commission which the formation of the existing feder- rank during the Civil War. started this work very soon decided al government, pains were taken to Many large collections of this that their funds would limit efforts to keep reasonably complete offi cial kind were temporarily loaned to the a few states, and decided to concen- naval fi les. But such is unfortunately Navy Department for the purpose of trate upon Massachusetts, Virginia, not true. The case is illustrated by the being copied, preliminary to print- and North Carolina.