The United States Naval Academy, in establishing the James Forrestal Fellowships in Naval History, has passed another milestone in its progress as an educational institution. Now, in addition to its primary aim of educating midshipmen, the Academy proposes to foster research in a field where it is sorely needed.
The Naval Academy, through the work of its faculty, has already made substantial contributions to the sum of human knowledge. For examples one needs only recall the work of Carroll Alden, Allan Westcott, Richard West, and Charles Lee Lewis in naval history and the early work of Albert A. Michelson in physics. But with the setting up of a definite and continuing program of research, Annapolis brings itself in line with the broader aims of colleges and universities in this country and elsewhere. The Academy, in short, intends to broaden its scope by advancing boldly into the field of knowledge- seeking.
The sponsors of the project, Rear Admiral James L. Holloway, Jr., Superintendent of the Academy, and Captain Robert H. Rice, Head of the Academy’s Department of English, History, and Government, take more than, an antiquarian interest in having neglected records unearthed and their contents organized. They perceive in the Forrestal Fellowships an opportunity for assessing the lessons of the past and thereby providing aids for future planning. Accordingly, they desire to see brought out the unchanging elements which apply equally to wars of the past, to World Wars I and II, and to possible wars of the future. Nor are their interests narrowly naval. They regard military history as indivisible and hope to see the story of sea power related to that of air power and of land power. Studies which lead to a better understanding of the general history of warfare will, the sponsors believe, prove a valuable contribution to unified national defense. Organizing of the Forrestal Fellowships in
Naval History follows the plan which has proved fruitful in other fields of historical research. Since no government funds are available for the project, raising money is an important first step. Contributions are already coming in from patriotic citizens, and important sums have also been received from established research foundations whose administrators see in the Fellowships a practical means of carrying out vital work. When the minimum amount of $75,000 has been collected, the Secretary of the Navy will appoint a committee including civilian scholars and prominent educators to award the Fellowships and administer the funds. Next will come the most important part of the task, the seeking out of candidates and choosing among them. Certainly the incumbents of the Fellowships must be persons whose interests are in line with the aims of the Foundation. They must, moreover, have demonstrated their ability in the exacting sphere of historical research and yet not have passed the meridian of their achievements.
Once the man (or woman) has been found for the job, he will be brought to the Naval Academy and there provided with quiet working space and other necessities for the task before him. The choice of Annapolis as the center for the Forrestal Fellowships is important, for, in the words of Admiral Holloway’s original announcement, “this type of work requires, besides philosophic detachment and immense patience, a particular kind of environment—convenient to materials, stimulating yet serene, military as well as academic. Such an environment the Naval Academy can provide, for here are assembled civilian historians and naval technical experts. Here or within an hour’s journey are the world’s greatest collections of military records. Here, where a dynamic present is illuminated by an atmosphere of noble traditions, the history of sea power has been taught continuously for more than fifty years.”
The Forrestal Fellows will be told, in effect: “Here are the records and here is your office. You have been chosen for your interests and your abilities, and now you are on your own. When you need clerical help it will be furnished. If you wish advice at any time, you have only to apply to the Navy, to the Academy faculty, or to the Fellowship Committee—or you may apply elsewhere if you desire. When you are ready to publish, we will help you get your work into print. At no time will there be any pressure on you for quick results or any attempt to influence the trend of your studies.”
Though obviously no long-term objectives of the Forrestal Fellowships can be decided upon until the necessary funds are obtained and the advisory committee has been set up, certain trends in the thinking of military historians will doubtless have their effect. We may suppose that the Forrestal studies will tend more and more to range beyond the limited field of naval history and concern themselves increasingly with the general history of warfare. In due course, as the records are corrected and the gaps filled, there should be a tendency to unify and correlate the studies. An end product could be a several-volume military history, kept continuously up to date and made as complete and definitive as anything of that sort can be. Such a work is needed, for nothing of the kind now exists.
The concept of the Forrestal Fellowships grew out of the recognition of a definite lack. For the plain and regrettable fact is that we know far too little about the history of warfare. Whereas the last century has seen a growing body of scientific and organized study in the fields of political, social, and economic history, the story of the world’s armies and navies—how they were organized and how they conducted their campaigns— remains fragmentary and garbled. Here and there scholars have delved deep into the abundant but neglected records and illuminated a little corner of military history. In so doing they have made it possible, within the limited sphere of their studies, to distinguish the transitory elements from what Alfred Thayer Mahan called “the eternal principles of war.” But the record is far from complete and much of it remains in the shadowland of history, where confusion abounds, where legend mingles with fact, and where the principles are hard to discern.
Aside from the important aim of getting the records straight and thereby adding to man’s knowledge of his past, research in military history will unquestionably bring out parallels which will prove instructive in current and future military planning. At first glance, the wars of the past would seem to have little in common with modern warfare employing new and terrible weapons. Such limitations, however, apply chiefly to tactics. In the areas of organization, strategy, psychological warfare, logistics, and even grand tactics, universal principles are more readily discernible.
A striking similarity appears when we compare the earliest war of which we have dependable records with the most recent war. In 480 B.C. Xerxes, king of Persia, prepared to invade Greece from Asia Minor. An attack across the southern Aegean upon the island of Cythera would have provided the Persians with a base for intercepting grain ships from Egypt and invading the Greek peninsula from the south. But the experience of an earlier Persian ruler had shown that overseas assault in sufficient force was not practicable with the small transport vessels of the times. Accordingly, Xerxes was obliged to march his army westward around the curving shore's of Thrace and Macedonia and thus approach Greece from the north, while his fleet followed along the coast to cover the army’s seaward flank, and cargo ships provided a train for both sea and land forces. By this roundabout approach the Persian king placed himself at a severe and increasing disadvantage, subjecting his fighting ships to the perils of a treacherous coast and dangerously stretching his communication line. More important, he rolled the enemy back towards its own source of supply and replenishment, the cultivated plains and populous cities of Southern Greece and the “grain line” between Egypt and Cape Malae. Thus the Greeks in retreat grew relatively stronger while the Persians grew relatively weaker until at length Greek could meet Persian on equal or superior terms and administer a crushing defeat.
Following the Battle of Midway in World War II, our chiefs of staff faced a problem in the Pacific which, on a grander scale, was not unlike that faced by the king of Persia. The time had come for our forces against Japan to assume the offensive. The question was where to strike. Armchair strategists, and several newspapers, pointed to the Aleutian chain, extending by the Kuriles, as the royal road to Japan. But had we followed this route we should have been subjecting ourselves to handicaps similar to those under which Xerxes suffered in his northern approach to Greece. On the way we should have been obliged to contend with the vile Aleutian weather, which would have hindered operations and rendered almost impossible the setting up and maintaining of logistic bases. Then, supposing we at last reached northern Japan by this unlikely route, we should have found ourselves rolling the enemy back toward his source of supply and replenishment in the southern Japanese islands and at the same time constantly shortening his vital “oil line” up from the East Indies via the China Sea. We rejected the northern route, of course, and struck across the South Pacific in a drive which carried us to Luzon. Thereby we not only cut off Japan’s supply of East Indies petroleum but provided ourselves with a huge rear base for invasion of the Japanese home islands. Here is a parallel which twenty-five centuries of changing weapons and concomitant changes in tactics have in no way invalidated. It illustrates a principle which Mahan had already put into words when he wrote: “As between the two ends [of the enemy’s line], strike at the one upon which the enemy depends for reinforcements and supplies to maintain his strength.”
Another remarkable parallel, which applies to the subject under discussion, is that between the period in which Mahan did his most important writing and the situation today. Then, as now, advancing technologies had shattered old concepts of warfare, and the United States was assuming a position of greater power and influence. It was in this time of confusion and uncertainty that Malian laid down certain principles which have been guideposts in strategy and diplomacy for more than half a century. It is important to note that Mahan drew his principles largely from past history. When he was wrong, as he occasionally was, his errors were generally the fault of the poor historical materials he was obliged to use. His analysis of the Battle of Trafalgar, for example, is not entirely correct. It could not have been otherwise, for the data on which he based it were fragmentary and incomplete. It is a lamentable fact that for a century following this most famous of all sailship engagements, nobody had any definite idea of how it was fought. Not until 1913 did the British Admiralty get around to sponsoring a study which made it possible to draw a correct diagram of the battle which stripped Napoleon of sea power and removed from England the threat of invasion.
It is the aim of the Forrestal Fellowships to begin the task of clearing up the remaining dark corners of military history. It is its further aim to provide a body of reliable data upon which textbooks and staff studies may be based. And if in these times of recurring crises and military tension a Mahan or a Clausewitz or a Jomini should arise to search history for new lessons in strategy, it is hoped that the work of the Fellows will go far towards providing him reliable material with which to work.
The fellowships are named in honor of the late Secretary of the Navy who became our first Secretary of Defense. Friends and admirers of James Forrestal are agreed that there can be no more fitting memorial for a man of his vision and selfless patriotism. His wartime record and subsequent efforts at increasing the efficiency of the armed services testify to his interest in the aims which the Fellowships are intended to fulfill.
The sponsors of the Forrestal Fellowships believe that when the goals of the project are understood and their importance realized, monetary support will be forthcoming. As stated above, no appropriated funds are available for the purpose. The Naval Academy earnestly solicits contributions, large or small, as an aid in the realm of ideas to our national defense. Donations, which are tax exempt, should be sent to The Superintendent, U. S. Naval Academy. Checks should be made payable to the Treasurer of the United States (for Credit to the U. S. Naval Academy General Gift Fund).