By Pam Ribbey, Opus (2022) Rebuttal Review By Capt. J.R. Reddig, USN (Ret.) I read a review of this book and wanted to respond. By way of background, I served in three wars in uniform. Three that were declared, anyway. Others were undeclared, like the war in the Navy about communications intelligence. The issues were stark, and play out today in the review you published. Who owned the management of the radio intercept system that collected it? Who provided authoritative analysis of the material that was collected? I joined in 1977, when the lines had been drawn. SIGINT collection had been con ..read more

In the immediate aftermath of World War I, many Americans attributed the naval arms race between Great Britain and Germany as a factor leading to the cataclysmic conflict and had little appetite for further naval spending by the United States. Influenced by pacifist voices as well desiring to cut the budget, President Warren Harding invited hosted a naval arms confrontation in Washington between 1921-22 that resulted in an understanding between the five-post World War I naval powers of the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, France and Italy to place a moratorium on new capital ship construc ..read more

By Pam Ribbey, Washington, DC: Opus Self-Publishing, Politics and Prose Bookstore (2022) Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. This self-published booklet is, in the main, a biography of Pam Ribbey’s grandfather, focuses on her own research and discussions with him on his is role before, during, and immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Capt. Charles Hamilton Maddox, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Class of 1909, served as a United States naval officer and was a veteran of both World Wars. He had also attended the Harvard Graduate School of Applied Science and the Massachusetts Ins ..read more

By Staff Historian Dr. Dave Winkler It was an honor back in 2011 to meet Tom Hudner who toured the Cold War Gallery that the Naval Historical Foundation had raised funds for. Ten years earlier the NHF hosted a symposium about the Korean War to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Korean War and the Hudner rescue attempt to save Ens. Jessie Brown was discussed in detail and retired Vice Adm. Gerald Miller stood up in the back of the Navy Memorial theater to state he had been on the bridge of Leyte when radio transmissions of the loss of Brown’s aircraft and Hudner’s subsequent ditching o ..read more

By Sean Walsh Last week I was able to watch the new movie Devotion along with three other NHF members. The movie centers around the real-life friendship between Ens. Jesse L. Brown, the first African American naval aviator* and Lt. (JG) Thomas Hudner and is based on the book of the same name by Adam Makos, previously reviewed here. I suspect many of you have seen trailers for Devotion on television and are familiar with the basic story. Prior to seeing the film I also re-read portions of Such Men As These by David Sears, about naval carrier aviation during the Korean War and watched the classi ..read more

By J. Michael Wenger, Robert J. Cressman, and John F. Di Virgilio, Naval Institute Press (2022) Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. This is the fourth volume in the Pearl Harbor Tactical Series published by the Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD. The previous three volumes are No One Avoided Danger: NAS Kaneohe Bay and the Japanese Attack of 7 December 1941 (2015); This is No Drill: The History of NAS Pearl Harbor and the Japanese Attacks of 7 December 1941 (2018); and They’re Killing My Boys: The History of Hickam Field and the Attacks of 7 December 1941 (2019) previously reviewed by me in ..read more

John H. Maurer and Erik Goldstein (editors), Naval Institute Press, (2022). Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. The editors are well-published senior scholars, well-equipped to undertake the organization and editing of this volume which focuses on the interwar years of two global conflicts. Professor John H. Maurer is the Alfred Thayer Mahan Professor of Sea Power and Grand Strategy and served as the Chair of the Strategy and Policy Department at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Erik Goldstein serves as Professor of International Relations and History Boston University; his rese ..read more

By Capt. P.T. Deutermann USN (Ret.) St. Martins Press (2022) Reviewed by Capt. C. Herbert Gilliland, USN (Ret.) In his latest novel, P. T. Deutermann continues his successful mining of World War II themes. This time we follow the spectacular fortunes of USS Holland, a destroyer escort sent from convoy duty in the North Atlantic to an uncertain assignment in the western Pacific. In Deutermann’s braided narrative, alternate chapters are told by ship’s CO, Mariano deTomasi, and his XO, Ephraim Edmond “Eeep” Enright. This structure allows each to observe and comment on the other while working wel ..read more

Wednesday, December 7th @ 1:00 PM EST at the Museum Education Center of the National Museum of the United States Navy, Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374 Special Meeting of the Membership – Register Here The post Special Meeting of the Membership first appeared on Naval Historical Foundation ..read more

The NHF Five Star Mess Night beyond the Fight Top in the Navy Museum With Covid restrictions finally lifted, the Naval Historical Foundation hosted its third annual Mess Night on Saturday, November 5 at the National Museum of the United States Navy. As with previous Five Star Mess Nights, the event was built around a theme and this year’s centennial of U.S. naval aircraft carriers provided the appropriate occasion for the event. Although the USS Langley (CV 1) had been placed in commission in March of 1922, it was not until the autumn of that year that the converted collier got underway to con ..read more