We recently learned with deep sadness of the death of former Proceedings editor Commander Robert P. Brewer. He passed away in late February in his native North Carolina. He was 91.
My first memory of Bob Brewer dates buck to when he interviewed me for a job as Departments editor of the magazine. He endeared himself to me, a novice editor out of St. Louis, by personally picking me up at the bus station in Annapolis. As I soon learned, he was a genial individual, a dedicated family man. and someone who fit the stereotype of southern courtliness. It was a persona that I had a hard time reconciling with his background as a fighter pilot. It was a reminder that each of us has a life filled with many compartments.
When I met him, he was USNI's executive director, responsible for overseeing Proceedings and the Naval Institute Press, our book-publishing arm. His background well qualified him. Before entering the Navy in 1942 he earned a journalism degree at the University of North Carolina. During World War II he was a flight instructor and later a member of an F4U Corsair squadron.
In the late 1940s, Brewer was in a tighter squadron based on board the carrier USS Midway (CVB-41) when she deployed to the Mediterranean. In May 1948 the Saturday Evening Post, one of the nation's premier magazines, published an article about the Fleet in the Med and highlighted his role. A large photo of him appeared with the article; it showed him decked out in flight suit, life vest, sheathed knife, and cloth helmet with goggles. The article described him as "one of our best naval pilots and also a poet"-heady stuff for a lieutenant. The author quoted from an evocative description of the Mediterranean that Brewer had written for the Midway's cruisebook
In later duty, Brewer used his skills as both aviator and wordsmith. He served as officer-in-charge of Composite Squadron Four night fighter detachment; was an NROTC instructor at Duke University; served as founding editor of the aviation safely magazine Approach; taught at the Naval Postgraduate School; and in the mid-1960s was senior speechwriter for Admiral David McDonald. Chief of Naval Operations. On his retirement from active duty in 1966, Brewer became editor of Proceedings and served in that role until 1973, when he became the Institute's executive director.
He didn't completely stop editing at that point, as Fred Rainbow and I discovered in our roles in the mid-1970s as editors of sections of Proceedings. With an eye honed in the CNO's office, Commander Brewer carefully scrutinized galley proofs of items destined for the magazine. Fred and I, whom Commander Bud Bowler, the Naval Institute's publisher, then described as "young bucks," sometimes sent forward material that tested just how "free and open" the Proceedings forum could be. The discussions that followed demonstrated that people who care about the Sea Services can have disagreements and still remain friends. Bob Brewer's contributions were many over the years-both as an aviator and as someone who wrote and edited hundreds of thousands of words to illumine the naval service he loved.