The U.S. Naval Institute lost a good friend in mid-August with the passing of Rear Admiral Robert W. McNitt at age 97. Tall, slender, friendly, and invariably gracious, the retired Navy officer was the personification of the word “gentleman.” George Van served on board the destroyer Taylor (DDE-468) during the Korean War, when McNitt was the commanding officer. Van remembers his skipper as “the finest naval officer I ever met.” George was a longtime Naval Institute volunteer transcriber, and I gratefully accepted his suggestion to do an oral history with McNitt, who was a truly admirable admiral.
