Since the establishment of the U. S. Naval Academy in 1845, the names of its graduates have become an integral part of the history of the United States. No school text in American history would be complete without inclusion of Admiral Dewey's victory at Manila, Admiral Sampson's achievement at Santiago, the exploits of "Fighting Bob" Evans, the explorations of Admiral Byrd, and the deeds of many others who have at one time or another worn the uniform of midshipmen at Annapolis. The magnificent achievements of such men are in no way disparaged or ignored here by the necessity of limiting a discussion of historic graduates of the Academy to those whose contributions to the service have been philosophical rather than dramatic, whose labors have made the traditions of education and training at Annapolis and in the fleet what they are today. Admirals Luce, Mahan, and Sims, whose names may not be so familiar to the general public as some others, personify in the minds of Navy men many of the standards that Annapolis now adheres to.
The Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, is in many ways a monument to the foresight and untiring determination of one of the Naval Academy's earliest graduates. Stephen Bleecker Luce was born in Albany, New York, in 1827, and at the age of fourteen, four years before the founding of the Academy, was appointed a midshipman in the fleet from New York. The North Carolina, the Congress, and the Columbus afforded him practical training for seven years before he was ordered to the Academy. He was graduated the next year with the rank of Passed Midshipman. During the early years of the Civil War, Luce was acting as head of the Academy's Department of Seamanship at Newport, where the institution was moved for safety in 1861; and it was during these years that he wrote his famous book Seamanship, for a long time the standard text on that subject. In 1865, however, Luce saw action in co-operating with General Sherman in the capture of Charleston. His next service at the Academy was as Commandant of Midshipmen under the lively and colorful regime of Admiral Porter. Luce finished his naval career in the rank of rear admiral, retiring in 1889.
Today at the Naval Academy, the building in which the Department of Seamanship and Navigation is housed bears the name of Rear Admiral Luce; but the memory of Luce is honored even more in the minds of Navy men for his great contribution to the education of officers. Luce, early in his career, realized that a naval officer's education should not stop on the day of his graduation from the Academy. At a time when the Navy was reduced and neglected, he constantly worked for the betterment of the service; and, convinced of the value of tactics and strategy, he put the ships he commanded through such rigorous and difficult maneuvers that officers under him frequently protested. Eventually his arguments for postgraduate study for officers broke down the indifference of seamen of the old school, and in 1884 an order was issued for the establishment of the Naval War College. Luce himself with the rank of commodore, was appointed first president of the college. There officers for sixty years have been receiving advanced instruction in history, international law, tactics, and strategy; and the college has become the model for similar institutions established in England, Germany, and Japan.
One of the lecturers on tactics and naval history whom Luce secured during his presidency of the Naval War College was Alfred Thayer Mahan. Mahan, most widely famous of early graduates of the Naval Academy, was, paradoxically enough, born at West Point, the son of a professor of mathematics at the Military Academy. Before he entered the Naval Academy, he was a student for two years at Columbia University. At Annapolis, he made a brilliant record as a scholar, graduating second in the Class of 1859; but, because of his shy and studious nature and his rigid code of honor and correct manner, he was not very popular among his classmates. In the Civil War, he saw action at Port Royal and off Charleston. Thereafter, for twenty years, he led the life of any naval officer in peacetime, alternating between sea and shore duty and "drifting," as he himself wrote, "on the lines of simple respectability as aimlessly as anyone very well could."
It was Mahan's appointment as lecturer on tactics and naval history at the Naval War College and later his succession to the presidency of that institution that introduced him to the kind of work that was to make him internationally famous. In preparing for his lectures, Mahan laid the groundwork for his first great book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, which outlines the rise and fall of great maritime nations within the period and discusses the relationship of sea power to political history. This book and his later volume, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution, 1793-1812, which was published in 1892, were regarded first in Europe and later in the United States as the handbooks of colonial expansion. On a visit to England, Mahan was received by the Queen, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany ordered his books placed on all German war vessels. President Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge were strongly influenced by Mahan's doctrines, and in 1899 the Admiral was sent as a delegate to the first Hague Peace Conference, where he stood firmly opposed to international arbitration that might interfere with America's independence. He died in 1914 while preparing the material for a book on the relation of sea power to American expansion.
As Admirals Luce and Mahan labored for improvement in the education of naval officers, so Admiral William Sowden Sims brought about reforms in the training of men in the fleet. The headline in the New York Times of September 29, 1936, announcing Admiral Sims' death, describes him as the man who "taught the Navy how to shoot."
Sims was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1858, the son of American parents, and was graduated from the Naval Academy in 1880. His early years in the Navy, spent uneventfully aboard the Philadelphia, the Charleston, and the Saratoga, gave no hint of the tempestuous career that lay ahead of him, but in 1895 he began to send in reports from the China station criticizing the construction and the gunnery of American warships. "The Kentucky," he wrote bluntly at one time, "is not a battleship at all. She is the worst crime in naval construction ever perpetrated by the white race." For six years, Sims submitted adverse reports and they eventually piled up to the grand total of 11,000 pages; at the end of that time, in November, 1901, he wrote directly to President Roosevelt, apologizing for going over the heads of his superiors, but pointing out that he was calling the chief executive's attention to his unheeded reports in the interest of the U. S. Navy. The result was a tempest in the White House and the Navy Department. "Give Sims entire charge of target practice for eighteen months," President Roosevelt is reported to have ordered. "Do exactly as he says. If he does not accomplish something in that time, cut off his head and try somebody else." That Sims lived to command American naval operations in European waters during World War I is sufficient proof that, under President Roosevelt's order, he "accomplished" something.
Admiral Sims' contribution to the philosophy of the Navy was that of a relentless and courageous critic, rather than a formulator of large policies. He criticized and reformed American naval construction and gunnery; he spoke out bluntly about American foreign policy; he attacked the system of training at Annapolis and the system of promotion in the Navy itself. He was often at outs with his colleagues. But he was respected by all who knew him, and on the day of his death, fourteen years after his retirement, some of the men whom he excoriated most severely joined in his praises.
The list of famous men in the uniform of the United States Navy has grown to enormous proportions since Pearl Harbor. The names of Halsey, Spruance, Hewitt, Kirk, Ingersoll, Turner, Mitscher, and many others are familiar to every school boy in America. Full justice to the graduates of the Naval Academy who have brought glory to their country and their alma mater in the present conflict would require volumes, for such an account should not be limited only to men of admiral's rank but should include many on whose ensign's commissions the ink is hardly dry. To economize in space, this account must be limited to the three contemporary naval officers who have achieved the distinction of becoming five-star admirals; but it should be understood that a tribute to them is an implied tribute to the many thousands of others of all ranks who have fought and are still fighting in World War II, for, without their courage and loyalty, the distinguished labors of Admirals Leahy, King, and Nimitz alone would be of no avail.
Admiral Ernest Joseph King, Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, learned to fly at the age of forty-nine; and it is that spirit of modernity and aggressiveness which has raised him to the most powerful position ever held by an officer in the United States Navy. Admiral King was born in Ohio in 1878 and was graduated fourth in scholastic standing in the Naval Academy class of 1901. During World War I, he was assistant chief of staff to the Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, and at the close of the war he superintended the reopening of the Postgraduate School at Annapolis. In 1933, President Roosevelt, discovering that no admiral in the Navy knew how to fly, took Captain King from his billet as skipper of the Lexington and made him chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics. In 1938, he became vice admiral in command of the Aircraft Battle Force. Two years later, he was made an admiral and given command of the Atlantic Fleet, and in 1941 he assumed his post as commander in chief.
The tradition of the U. S. Navy is and always has been that a naval officer should be well versed in all departments of his duties and capable of undertaking any assignment given to him ashore and afloat. In an age of specialization, it has become more and more difficult to uphold this tradition; yet Admiral King, a submariner, a flyer, and a commander of surface ships, has proved, in his own person, that nothing is impossible. He has been, therefore, in large part, responsible for the teamwork and the modern aggressive spirit of the U. S. Navy in its time of severest trial. Always a stern disciplinarian, he has imbued his service with the same spirit that he himself exhibits.
Since 1942, Admiral William Daniel Leahy has occupied the position of Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, the first man in history to hold such a position. Born in Iowa in 1875, Admiral Leahy was graduated from the Naval Academy in 1897. He undertook his first service during the Philippine Insurrection in the Spanish-American War. He was chief of staff of the Nicaragua occupation in 1912 and of the Haitian campaign in 1916 and attained the rank of captain during World War I. With the rank of rear admiral, he headed the Bureau of Ordnance and the Bureau of Navigation and was Chief of Naval Operations upon his retirement in 1939. In that year, he was appointed governor of Puerto Rico and was later made ambassador to France before being called back to active duty in his present position.
A student, a quiet, reflective man, Admiral Leahy has distinguished himself as a man who is always prepared for his next assignment. Those who work with him always remark upon his studiousness, his intense concentration upon the job in hand during working hours and upon the job just ahead during his leisure time.
The third of our five-star admirals held during the war the title of Commander in Chief of the U. S. Pacific Fleet. He is Chester William Nimitz, born in Texas in 1885 and a graduate of the Naval Academy in the Class of 1905. A few years thereafter, he was given command of a submarine and eventually became commander of the Atlantic Submarine Flotilla. In submarines during World War I and frequently since that time, his career was chiefly one of commands afloat until, on December 17, 1941, he undertook the highly important job of directing the naval war in the Pacific. A man unselfishly devoted at all times to his duty and in love with his profession, Admiral Nimitz is noted throughout the fleet for the personal loyalty that he inspires in the men who work under him. A natural leader, an intuitive judge of men, he exemplifies the U. S. naval officer at his best.
The Naval Academy is thought of only as an institution designed for the training of officers in the U. S. Navy, and that, of course is its sole purpose. Yet men who have been retired from the Navy or who have resigned in peaceful times when there was but a limited opportunity for officers to advance have proved that the basic training at the Academy is a sound preparation for success in other activities than those of the Navy. Many civilians have reflected credit on their alma mater in Annapolis.
Graduates of the Naval Academy who resign from the Navy to become educators usually turn to the sciences because of the nature of their training at Annapolis. Robert Lee Flowers, of the Class of 1891, although he became a professor of mathematics at Duke University after resigning his commission, is an exception to the rule. Since 1941, he has been president of Duke and his additional offices as president of the South Atlantic Publishing Company, director of the Durham and Southern Railway Company, and trustee of Greensboro College testify to the breadth of his interests.
Professor William Frederick Durand, who served in the Engineering Corps of the Navy for seven years after his graduation from the Academy in 1880, is another alumnus who, though his principal interest has been mechanical engineering, has participated in a wide variety of intellectual and social activities. For four years professor of mechanical engineering at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Michigan, for thirteen years professor of marine engineering at Cornell University, and for twenty years professor of mechanical engineering at Leland Stanford, Jr., University, he is now a professor emeritus of the last institution he served. Professor Durand's horizon, however, has not been limited to the classroom. To list only a few of his broader activities, he has been scientific attaché at the American Embassy in Paris, a member of the Interallied Committee on Inventions, a member of the advisory board of engineers of the Boulder Dam Project, and a member of the American Academy of Sciences, and has won many medals for research and experiment.
The Naval Academy has produced three successive presidents of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Ira N. Hollis, who was graduated in 1878 and resigned in 1893, served an apprenticeship for that office for ten years in the chair of engineering at Harvard University. In 1913 he became the president of Worcester and held that office for twelve years. He was succeeded by another Academy man, Ralph Earle. Earle, of the Class of 1896, who held the rank of rear admiral upon his retirement, experienced thirty years of active and productive service in the Navy before he became a professional educator. He saw action in the Spanish-American War and World War I, but his great claim to fame in the Navy is that as wartime head of the Bureau of Ordnance he put through the mine field across the North Sea in World War I and he promoted plans for depth charges later developed to such effectiveness in the present war. Successor to Admiral Earle and present incumbent at Worcester is Admiral Wat Tyler Cluverius, who also was graduated from the Academy in 1896. Admiral Cluverius served actively and in many capacities in the Navy for forty-three years before retiring.
It is not surprising that graduates of the Academy who resign to become journalists and writers should devote their literary talents to naval affairs. Hanson W. Baldwin, whose columns and articles in newspapers and magazines have guided the thinking of many readers in World War H, graduated in 1924 and served for three years aboard battleships and a destroyer before resigning to become police reporter for the Baltimore Sun. Since 1942, the year in which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, he has been military editor of the New York Times. Herbert Paul Schubert, journalist and lecturer, author of Sea Power in Conflict, is another Academy man who has become an authority on naval affairs. He was graduated in 1919 and retired in 1924. The Literary Guild selection of On the Bottom in 1929 brought fame as a writer to Edward Ellsberg, who was graduated first in the Class of 1914 at the Academy and served for twelve years before resigning. He is now on active duty in the Naval Reserve as a captain. Others of his books that have reached a large public are Hell on Ice and Captain Paul. No list of Naval Academy authors would be complete without the name of Winston Churchill, who was graduated in 1894 and resigned the same year. The famous author of Richard Carvel, The Crisis, and The Inside of the Cup sold his first short story to Century two years after graduation, and his list of publications is now of very impressive proportions.
Although politics is a subject that plays a very small role in the life of a midshipman and a naval officer, the Naval Academy has produced its share of men who have succeeded in political life. At least two cabinet members, three senators, two ambassadors, and a representative in Congress are notable among them. John Wingate Weeks, of the Class of 1881, once a member of Hornblower and Weeks in Boston, and later a representative and then a senator, served as Secretary of War in the cabinets of Presidents Harding and Coolidge. Curtis Dwight Wilbur, Class of 1888, whose midshipman record in the hop, skip, and jump incidentally still stands, studied law after resigning from the Navy and eventually became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California, from which seat he resigned to become President Coolidge's Secretary of the Navy. The Academy's two senators, besides Weeks, are R. Beecher Howell of the Class of 1885, who served two terms from Nebraska, and Admiral Thomas Charles Hart, of the Class of 1897, who was recently appointed senator from Connecticut. Admiral Leahy's services as ambassador to France have already been mentioned. Admiral William Harrison Standley, who graduated in 1895, was appointed ambassador to the U.S.S.R. shortly after his retirement from the Navy and served in that capacity during the crucial period 1942-43. A member of the House of Representatives since 1937, Edouard Victor Michel Izac is a graduate of the Class of 1915. He was on active duty in the Navy for twenty-one years before entering Congress, and made a daring escape from a German prison camp in World War I.
In the 1920's when, because of the reduction in the size of the Navy, officers were encouraged to resign, representatives of large corporations visited Annapolis to interview members of the graduating classes. They had found and they were frequently quoted as saying that graduates of the Naval Academy were valuable assets in any business firm because Navy men were trained in loyalty and co-operation and their discipline stood them in good stead in business. To list all the graduates of the Academy who have succeeded in business would be an endless undertaking. Four men, therefore, may be taken as representative.
Joseph Wright Powell was graduated in the Class of 1897. He served in the Spanish-American War, was later sent to study at the University of Glasgow, and finally resigned his commission in 1906. In 1914, he became president of the Fore River Shipbuilding Corporation. Utilizing his experience and prestige in this business when we entered World War I, he organized the five shipyards of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, which in 1917 had undertaken the greater part of the Navy's destroyer program. He was for a time thereafter president of the United States Shipbuilding Emergency Fleet Corporation. During the present conflict, he has been special assistant to the Secretary of Navy and deputy chief of the office of Procurement and Material.
Homer Lenoir Ferguson's career as a shipbuilder has closely paralleled Mr. Powell's. Graduated from the Academy in 1892, he too studied at the University of Glasgow. He holds several honorary degrees from such institutions as the University of Richmond, Duke University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Since 1905, he has been with the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, as president and general manager from 1915 to 1937, and as chairman of the board and president since 1938. His services in the last two wars have contributed greatly to the speed and magnitude that have characterized our shipbuilding programs.
The name of Deering is familiar to anyone who has spent any of his life on a farm during the past fifty years. Charles Deering, of the Class of 1873, resigned in 1881 to become secretary of the Deering Harvester Company, and he served for many years as chairman of the board of the International Harvester Company when it was merged with the Deering firm.
Sidney Zollicoffer Mitchell, one of the originators of the modern holding company, is a name familiar to all who have followed the activities of big business during the past half century. He was graduated from the Academy in 1883 and resigned from the service after two years. Once chairman of the board of Electric Bond and Share, Mr. Mitchell was for many years associated with public utilities.
Above all else, the Naval Academy is famous for the scientists and engineers it has produced; and, although many of the men already mentioned are or have been scientists in their own right, it might be well to round out the list with three famous names—McFarland, Sprague, and Michelson.
Walter Martin McFarland, Class of 1879, resigned in 1899 and became vice-president of the Westinghouse Electric Company. Later he was manager of the marine department of the Babcock and Wilcox Company. His great distinction in the history of the Navy is that in 1890 he was the first to propose that the speed of ships on contract trials might be determined by the curve of speed and engine revolutions obtained on progressive trials on a measured mile.
Frank J. Sprague, who resigned five years after his graduation in 1878, founded the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company, famous for many "firsts" in transportation and electrical science, among them the first modern trolley railway in the United States at Richmond, Virginia. Sprague himself invented the multiple unit system train control and engaged for years in promoting underground rapid transit.
Albert Abraham Michelson, the famous physicist, 1852-1931, was born in Germany. His parents brought him to this country when he was two years old and eventually were attracted by the gold rush to California and later to Nevada. Michelson, by great tenacity of purpose, obtained an appointment to the Naval Academy through the influence of the Commandant of Midshipmen after failing in interviews with his Congressman and President Grant. Graduating from the Academy in 1873, he later served for four years as an instructor in physics and chemistry. After further study in Berlin, Heidelberg, and Paris, he was a professor for many years at the Case School of Applied Science and Clark University and ultimately head of the Department of Physics in the University of Chicago. Professor Michelson's fame, however, is not dependent upon his career as an educator but upon his scientific career, begun while he was still a midshipman. That career is associated with the word "light." His experiments with light fall into two departments: the determination of the velocity of light and the study of optical interference. With apparatus of his own design and construction at a cost of less than ten dollars, he first measured the speed of light while at Annapolis. He continued to refine and perfect this original experiment throughout the remainder of his life and for this one achievement more than any other his name is of classic importance in the history of science.