During the winter, the Taiwan Strait can offer some very rough water. Several times the weather was severe enough that we were restricted to little more than survival, making minimum speed both upwind and downwind. The characteristics of the DER engineering plant dictated that our minimum speed was the idling speed of a diesel, which, under normal circumstances, gave us about seven knots through the water. During the rough weather we would actually make something like three knots going into the wind, and 11 knots going downwind. Thus we were spending about a quarter of the time on the somewhat more comfortable downwind leg and the rest of the time slamming into head seas on the upwind leg. The steep seas made reversing course an adventure, since if we got caught in the trough of the waves we could be in serious trouble. I made it a practice to come to the bridge for every reversal. We would watch for a temporary slackening, then come about with full speed and full rudder. When the weather was like this, about all we could do was hang on.
During a 2009 interview with the Naval War College’s Professor Bruce Elleman, retired Captain James A. Barber recalled his experiences commanding a destroyer escort (the USS Hissem [DE-400]) in 1968 as part of the Taiwan Patrol Force. His story was far from unique. For nearly three decades, many other sailors endured similar conditions (described by one veteran of these patrols as “tougher than a corn cob”). These deterrent patrols began two days after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, when President Harry Truman ordered the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to deter Communist China (the People’s Republic of China) and Nationalist China (the Republic of China) from widening the war by attacking one another. (See “Crisis in the Taiwan Strait,” pp. 14–21.)
Jim Barber was a model surface warfare officer during his 30 years of active service. After the Hissem, he commanded a guided-missile frigate and a guided-missile cruiser, earning him a Bronze Star with Combat V during one of his several deployments to Vietnam. He qualified as special sea detail officer of the deck of an aircraft carrier and as a convoy commodore. As evidenced by his account of service in the Taiwan Patrol Force, he was a superb shiphandler and wrote a book on the subject that is still read by naval officers today.
Commanding a ship (let alone three) requires leadership skills and special talents, both of which Jim Barber had in large measure. But what made him stand out were his additional attributes as a scholar and a warrior. He held four degrees from the University of California and Vanderbilt, as well as a doctorate from Stanford University, and taught courses at George Washington University, the U.S. Naval Academy, the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and the Naval War College, where he held the Stephen B. Luce Chair.
In addition to his shiphandling book, he published several other books, including The Military and American Society: Essays and Readings, coedited with Stephen Ambrose.
The blending of his sea experience and his intellectual accomplishments made him the ideal person to take the helm of the U.S. Naval Institute, an organization whose purposes are symbolized in its sword-and-quill logo. During his 15-year tenure beginning in 1984, he guided the Institute through some major changes and challenges.
Changing attitudes in the Navy necessitated a new relationship with the Institute, causing the Chief of Naval Operations and the Superintendent of the Naval Academy to end their long-term direct participation and precipitating a revised internal structure of the Institute itself, with Barber emerging with the new titles of “publisher” and “chief executive officer.”
The publication of two highly successful novels—Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October and Stephen Coonts’s Flight of the Intruder—both of which were made into major motion pictures, brought the Naval Institute to a new level of fame.
On his watch, the Institute added Naval History magazine, which began as a quarterly periodical and continues today as a bimonthly offering. Proceedings, the Institute’s flagship publication, had long included a measure of naval history in its pages, but the creation of this new magazine permitted a significant increase in that genre, while freeing space in Proceedings for more current topics.
With the support of many of its loyal members, Barber kept the Naval Institute from succumbing to a hostile takeover attempt, emerging with its open forum—judged by many as its most important attribute—stronger than ever.
On his retirement, the Navy recognized his achievements by awarding him its highest civilian award, the Distinguished Public Service Award.
From battling heavy seas in the defense of his nation to navigating the U.S. Naval Institute through rough waters and smooth, Captain Jim Barber served his Navy and his nation—as both warrior and scholar—to the great benefit of both.
