Recent Additions to the Naval Institute Oral History Program

Keep Oral Histories coming through your tax-deductible donation now.

Recent Additions to the Naval Institute Oral History Program

This memoir of Vice Admiral William Lawrence reveals a great deal about the character and personality of an individual who lived his life with a thoroughgoing sense of honor. As a midshipman he was a leader in devising the Naval Academy’s honor concept. During his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he was stalwart in his resistance to his captors. His achievement has been honored by the naming of the guided missile destroyer William P. Lawrence (DDG-110). The oral history is a treasure trove of material on the Naval Academy, both during Lawrence’s midshipman years and in his tenure as superintendent.
The oral history of James Hair covers his early years in the segregated South, his commissioning as one of the Navy’s first black officers, and his post-naval service. Mr. Hair enlisted in the Navy in July 1942 and went through officer training at Great Lakes in early 1944. In March of that year, he was commissioned as one of the Navy’s first black officers, a group that came to be known as the Golden Thirteen. In his later years he and other members of the Golden Thirteen were active in promoting naval service.
This oral history of Admiral Stansfield Turner covers his time at the Naval Academy in the mid-1940s to his final tour of service as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1977 to 1981. The oral history contains detailed descriptions of his dealings with his Naval Academy classmate, President Jimmy Carter, and with Chief of Naval Operations Elmo Zumwalt.
This oral history of Captain David McCampbell is notable in that it contains the candid recollections of the U.S. Navy's all-time top fighter ace; McCampbell had 34 kills. He earned the Medal of Honor for his exploits during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944. He was one of the few pilots to receive the nation's top award for actions during aerial combat.
In this account, which spans a period from working on a farm in Alabama to receiving an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II, Admiral Leighton Smith provides an unusual degree of openness in describing his career. All told, Smith made three combat deployments to Vietnam, culminating in 1972 with his successful attack on the Thanh Hoa Bridge in North Vietnam.
The most significant part of Admiral Arthur Struble's memoir is comprised of descriptions of his role in the area of amphibious warfare in World War II and Korea. The oral history contains Struble's detailed recollections of the September 1950 invasion of Inchon, Korea.