Digitizing Proceedings
Realizing an important strategic goal, the U.S. Naval Institute has just completed digitizing every issue of Proceedings published over 140 years. With the contents preserved electronically, they will be available to Members now and in the years to come to access, use, and enjoy.
Times were good in the 1950s. The United States was at peace. World War II was an increasingly distant memory. Jobs were plentiful. People were moving from the cities to the suburbs. Television was replacing radio in the home. Rock and roll was overtaking big bands and crooners. Interstate highways were being built and commercial jets were beginning to ply the skies. Eisenhower replaced Truman in the White House, and the Congress focused on ferreting out communists in government and in Hollywood. The draft was still in effect but except for the Korean War, most young men went about their business of getting educated or starting careers.
The armed forces had a slightly different take on all that, however, and much of the prevailing view was reflected in the pages of Proceedings. All the services were still adjusting to the post–World War II drawdown. The Navy and Marines were recovering from battle with the Air Force and others over roles and missions as well. Then, in quick succession came an unexpected war in Korea and a realization that in an accelerating Cold War the Navy and Marines had important roles to play. On top of all that new technologies such as nuclear power, jet propulsion, missiles, and electronics were revolutionizing tried and true systems and ways of doing business.
Meanwhile, there were crises in such places as Lebanon, Suez, and the Tachen Islands, along with the French war in Vietnam, crises wherein the Navy and Marines were on station ready to do whatever the President and the nation called for them to do. Frequently they did respond, much as described by Marine Lieutenant General Lemuel C. Shepherd in his 1951 Proceedings article “As the President May Direct.” Simultaneously other Proceedings authors continued to deliver meaningful historical essays and powerful leadership lessons. For those who might think the 21st century is unique in its challenges, a look at Proceedings in the decade of the 1950s would be enlightening.
Initially, the lessons of World War II had a significant pull on authors. Writings by Fleet Admirals Ernest J. King and William Halsey led the way while Professor E. B. Potter’s “The Navy’s War Against Japan” set the Pacific war context. Others wrote of specific campaigns including Lieutenant General Julian Smith, who led the 2nd Marine Division at Tarawa. In the European theater, Admiral Kent Hewitt’s “The Landing in Morocco” and “Naval Aspects of the Sicilian Campaign” were most enlightening. Proceedings readers were also privileged to read firsthand reports of the war from the other side, such as Japanese commentary on Guadalcanal, “The End of Yamato,” and “I Led the Attack on Pearl Harbor;” German commentary such as “The Invasion of Norway” and “With Rommel Before Normandy;” and from yet another theater, “The Italian Attack on the Alexandria Naval Base.”
The history of World War II notwithstanding, Korea soon attracted attention. “Korea: Back to the Facts of Life,” by Lieutenant Colonel J. D. Hittle, was an early essay and soon was followed by Lynn Montrose’s “Fleet Marine Force Korea,” and “All Quiet at Wonsan,” by Commander Sheldon Kinney. Commander Malcolm W. Cagle then attempted to wrap it all up with “Errors of the Korean War.”
Meanwhile, political leadership focused on the continuing Cold War. Proceedings recognized its importance in more articles than those of any other category. Army Lieutenant Colonel William Kintner set the tone with “War, Politics and the Military,” throwing down the gauntlet to the services in stating that they must understand the political implications of military action. Some of the nation’s leading strategic thinkers shared their thoughts: Admiral Robert B. Carney, Admiral Jerauld Wright, Admiral Walter F. Boone, Rear Admiral Ernest M. Eller, George Fielding Eliot, and Robert Strauz-Hupe among others. In addition, the prize essays in 1953 and 1957 were written by Commanders Ralph Williams and Malcolm W. Cagle, “Sea Power and the Western Revolution” and “A Philosophy for Naval Atomic Warfare,” respectively.
While much Cold War writing and discussion centered on the Soviet Union, China was not neglected. For example, in October 1951 William H. Hessler wrote “Air-Sea Power on the Asian Perimeter.” Then in August 1952, Marine Corps Colonel J. D. Hittle argued in Proceedings that China sought to reestablish itself as the dominant power in East Asia, likely bent on world conquest. Published some 63 years ago, the former reads like the current Air-Sea Battle concept and the latter is eerily current.
Also relevant to a time not so long ago are two essays on Indochina, known to us, of course, as Vietnam. In July 1954 Maurice Dejean, a French official, wrote “The Meaning of Dien Bien Phu,” and in December of that same year a former ambassador to Cambodia, Robert McClintock, wrote “The River War In Indochina.” Both articles proved prescient to our later entanglement in Southeast Asia.
While scholars discussed Cold War strategies and the use of nuclear weapons, technology bloomed in all dimensions and much of it was discussed in Proceedings. In 1951 Harvey P. Lanham described the new F9F Panthers and their carrier operations in “The Jets Come of Age.” In October 1954 Lieutenant Dorothy L. Small wrote about the first steam catapult launches, and Lieutenant Commander James Verdin described in November his record-breaking flight in the XF4D Skyray. On a larger scale, the potential difficulty of task-force defense against the new jets and, soon, missiles, was addressed by Rear Admiral Roy Benson in his June 1958 “Fleet Air Defense: Vital New Role of the Cruiser.” That article proved particularly prescient in that cruiser-directed air defense played a key role in the Gulf of Tonkin during the next decade.
Nor was the continuing need for amphibious expertise ignored. In his June 1951 article, “Command Relationships in Amphibious Warfare,” Admiral W. H. P. Blandy discussed the complexities of modern amphibious warfare. Other essays stressed that in any number of crises scenarios amphibious warfare expertise is vital.
Nuclear power was discussed for Proceedings readers in Commander G. W. Kitteridge’s “The Impact of Nuclear Power on Submarines” in April 1954. Some of what it took to get ready for nuclear power is described in Lieutenant Commander Dean Axene’s “School of the Boat for Nautilus,” a description of the nuclear-propulsion training facility in Idaho, an article certain to be relevant to a generation of line officers who studied at the Senior Officer Ship Material Readiness Course in the 1970s and ’80s. Then, in June 1958 Rear Admiral I. J. Galantin’s “The Future of Nuclear Powered Submarines” served as an accurate predictor of the world as we know it.
In retrospect, all of the articles listed here, and more, give a flavor of the time and explain much of the basis of where we are today. However, none of them made as much a splash at the time as did the May 1956 “Special Trust and Confidence,” by Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Robert Heinl.
Taking his title from that phrase in every officer’s commission that states that the President of the United States places special trust and confidence in that individual, Heinl questioned why lesser authorities, sometimes people with no particular authority at all, refused to place that trust in an officer. His complaints today seem trivial, but at the time they struck a chord. For example, for an officer in uniform to cash a check in an exchange he had to produce identification to a clerk; no officer could run up a tab at an officers’ club on his own recognizance; to pass through a gate at a naval station an ID had to be produced. All these things and more, he believed, compromised the very trust ostensibly placed in that officer by an authority no less than the President. He opined that special trust and confidence had to be recognized and restored.
His article created quite a stir at the time. Rules were reviewed and many changes made throughout the naval services. They didn’t last, however. The changes he advocated have eroded significantly, and today’s commissioned officer takes in stride the things about which Colonel Heinl complained, but in 1956 it was a really big deal.
At any rate, a decade that began in peace with so many yearning to return to pre-World War II norms instead saw a three-year-long undeclared war, a Cold War, an explosion in technology, the hint of a Southeast Asian entanglement, and crises requiring American, mostly naval, response, worldwide. It’s our good fortune that that history and all those lessons learned are recorded in our Naval Institute’s Proceedings, mostly by those who were there.