Paul Stillwell, who served as the first-ever Editor-in-Chief of Naval History magazine in the 1970s and ’80s, has been named 2021’s Naval Institute Press Author of the Year for his book Battleship Commander: The Life of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr. Stillwell’s study, which was excerpted in the April 2022 issue of Naval History is the first biography of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr., who served a key role during World War II in the Pacific.
Stillwell is an independent historian and retired naval officer. In addition to being Naval History magazine’s inaugural editor, he worked as the U.S. Naval Institute’s oral historian. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including four on battleships, including Battleship Arizona, and an award-winning volume on the Navy's first African-American officers, The Golden Thirteen.
Battleship Commander explores Lee’s life from boyhood in Kentucky through his eventual service as commander of the fast battleships in the Pacific War. Stillwell draws on more than 150 first-person accounts from those who knew and served with Lee from boyhood until the time of his death. Decades in the making, he considers this book one of his major achievements. From the Preface:
“My research on Lee began more than forty years ago, and I am embarrassed that the completion of the project has only now come to fruition. Many other books, articles, and oral histories intervened on my agenda in the meantime. I am particularly rueful that all but a few of those who provided information for this book are no longer alive to read the result they helped to bring about. On the other hand, I am grateful that the admiral’s story can now revive the reputation he acquired in his lifetime. In addition . . . the description of Lee’s life can also serve as an inspiration to Navy professionals of this century.”
Stillwell relates the sequential building of a successful career, illustrating Admiral Lee’s focus on operational, tactical, and strategic concerns. During his service in the Navy Department from 1939 to 1942, Lee prepared the U.S. Navy for war at sea, and was involved in inspecting designs for battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers, and destroyers. Focusing on the need to equip U.S. warships with radar and antiaircraft guns, Lee was one of the few flag officers of his generation who understood the tactical advantage of radar, especially during night battles.
In 1942 Lee became commander of the first division of fast battleships to operate in the Pacific. During that service, he commanded Task Force 64, which achieved a tide-turning victory in a night battle near Guadalcanal in November 1942. In his flagship USS Washington (BB-56), Lee engaged the battlecruiser Kirishima at near point-blank range. The Washington’s superior firepower and radar-directed fire control, owing to the admiral’s training, achieved some 20 main battery hits—swiftly sending the Japanese ship to the bottom. Near the end of the war, in the summer of 1945, Lee directed critical anti-kamikaze research efforts in Casco Bay, Maine. In a balanced look at the man and officer, Lee’s wartime successes and failures make for especially compelling reading.
Stillwell, whom Naval History recently interviewed about Battleship Commander also has authored a number of acclaimd large-format illustrated books on battleships, one of which is Battleship Arizona, a classic that is now available again in paperback. It describes in detail the battleship’s 25-year career, including the attack at Pearl Harbor, via the riveting stories of her survivors. Stillwell draws on nearly one hundred interviews of former crewmen and countless official documents to present a full history of the famous warship. The tragic sight of the USS Arizona burning after the attack on Pearl Harbor is etched in the collective memory of the U.S. citizens who lived through that infamous day. The ship sustained more losses in one day than any other ship in the U.S. Navy’s history—1,177 men.
