Several weeks ago, an announcement arrived by e-mail, detailing an exhibition that had just opened at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. In summer 1942, nearly every magazine in the United States published some version of the American flag on its cover, and the museum now has many of them on exhibit. We found the idea so compelling (even though it wasn’t necessarily “naval”) that we decided to do the patriotic thing this issue by publishing several of those renditions on our cover. We also feature a story on that campaign of 60 years ago and its theme—as appropriate now as it was then—“United We Stand.”
Later that summer of ’42, the U.S. Navy, flush from its victory at Midway in June, suffered what some consider its worst defeat of the war at Savo Island. In light of this costly reversal, the flag cover campaign could not have come at a more crucial time. The effort was conceived to help sell bonds and stamps in support of the war effort.
In our search for an appropriate way to commemorate that darker side of the Pacific War and the veterans who participated in it, we needed look no farther than the “story bank” right here in the editorial offices. A long time ago, the Editorial Board of the U.S. Naval Institute, the parent organization of Naval History, adopted a pay- on-acceptance policy regarding submissions for publication. What that means is, we often purchase more material than we can use expeditiously. That is a luxury for editors but sometimes a disappointment for would-be published authors who want to see their work in print more than they want to receive the fees we pay.
Such was the case with the article in this issue about Savo Island. We bought the manuscript eight years ago, hoping to find a place for it in the puzzles we assemble for each issue. But we never could seem to make it fit. Now, we are happy to report the time has come—the 60th anniversary—for Captain George Kittredge’s dramatic account of his service on board the cruiser Chicago at Savo. We believe readers will agree Captain Kittredge has a real knack for telling a story, in this case one so harrowing it made him wish he had—as Sergeant Major Plumley says in the recent film We Were Soldiers—“signed up for submarines.” In fact, Captain Kittredge did just that.