The parent organization of Naval History, the U.S. Naval Institute, soon will be posting sea service reunion announcements on its Internet Web site. In the past, we tried to perform this function in our half-page “Reunions” department. The trouble was, space was insufficient to list all notices submitted, disappointing many reunion organizers. Now, we will have the means to list every one, with the added interactive capability to update information instantly. Prospective attendees also will be able to search and register or communicate electronically with organizers and shipmates. The “Reunions” department will be phased out in the printed magazine. Because this exciting new provision has yet to “go live,” more details will appear in the next issue.
Our cover article in this issue coincides with the U.S. Naval Academy’s 28 April 2003 McMullen Seapower Forum, a 50th anniversary retrospective on the Korean War and its implications today. Retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Jerry Miller’s look at Korea’s “tangled web," beginning on page 20, should incite discussion among attendees, all of whom will receive copies of this issue. The program is free and open to the public and features the top Korean War scholars in the nation. But space is limited. For registration information, log on to www.usna.edu/Seapower.
We also feature a story here with closer ties to us than most of us knew. When “Looking Back” columnist and History Division Director Paul Stillwell read “A Tragedy of Errors,” beginning on page 34, he zeroed in on the photo of Lieutenant Commander Malcolm Cagle, who led the investigation into the shootdown of a PB4Y-2 Privateer patrol bomber by Soviet Lavachkin fighters. This was the same Cagle who was a prolific author for the Naval Institute’s flagship publication, Proceedings, including an article about this very incident in the December 1950 issue, eight months after it happened. Paul also tells us Cagle was serving on the Naval Institute’s Editorial Board when Paul came aboard in the 1970s.
For the first time, the Naval History Author of the Year award goes to two people at the Naval Institute’s 129th Annual Meeting on 2 April—the author and the illustrator of “The Log of Matthew Roving,” Don Wallace and Jan Adkins. In October 2000, we commissioned a series of historically based fiction for young people. At the time, Steve Cohen, a Naval Institute Foundation Trustee, was an executive at Scholastic, riding high as the U.S. distributor of J. K. Rowling’s wildly popular Harry Potter series. He knew just the guy to write a kids’ story for us. Wallace seized the opportunity with gusto, inventing a tale that follows a young boy as he happens on an old ship’s log in an attic and travels back and forth between the present and the Age of Sail, becoming an eyewitness to actual historical events. We teamed Wallace with award-winning author/illustrator Adkins, whose impressive credentials and unique and often whimsical style fit perfectly with this project.
Alas, we failed to sell the idea to our core readers, and reactions were mixed. In this issue is the 16th and final installment of “The Log.” To those who chastised us for publishing fiction, your wait is over, and we appreciate your indulgence. To those who liked it, especially the writer of a recent e-mail, wondering when the next episode would be posted on our Web site for his eager young son, we’re glad you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.