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December 1919—The search for an “ultimate weapon”—which began with ’he club and has not stopped with the hydrogen bomb—produced an 18th century doomsday device that is the subject of Edgar S. Maclay’s "How Our Infant Navy Strangled a War Horror.’’
Just before the outbreak of the American rebellion, English artisans perfected a “carcass” laden with four or five hundred mirrors, prisms, and reflectors that could concentrate the sun’s rays on a target two miles away (beyond cannon range) and incinerate human beings and wooden structures.
Royalists managed to smuggle 50 of these diabolical devices on board the Nancy, which was carrying munitions for the British occupying Boston.
Then the Nancy was captured by the American cruiser Lee. General Howe, the British commander, conceded in a letter home that his enemy now possessed “the means of setting the town on fire.”
Boston never burned, but a burning question remains. How many, if any, °f those thousands of mirrors and prisms still change hands unrecognized in 20th century antique shops and flea markets?
December 1939—The first three words of Commander Leland P. Lovette’s essay, “The First Line Strengthens Pan-American Policy," mean nothing 1°day but, in 1939, and for 160 years earlier, they meant everything to a Navy that was America’s “First Line of DefenseLovette, a 1918 Naval Academy graduate who also studied at Georgetown’s Foreign Service School, turned a series of inspiring lectures into the best-selling Naval Cus- <oms. Traditions and Usage in 1934. His essay, “Naval Policy at the Crossroads,” won the Institute's Gold Medal in 1930.
Why, then, is “The First Line . . .” so disappointing? It was written not long alter December 1938, when Latin America joined with the United States in affirming the Monroe Doctrine. Deluded as badly by the Lima Pact as Chamberlain had been by the Munich Pact three months before, Lovette theoretically deploys his First Line forces to ring the hemisphere and, at whatever cost, to protect the Panama Canal. So sure is he of the threat that he mentions Japan only once—as the possessor of 13 battleships—and he mentions aircraft carriers not at all.
But we forgive him for his cloudy crystal ball when he closes with an Oliver Wendell Holmes quote on the Constitution: “It is a symbol, but so is *he flag . . . its red is for our life blood; its stars our world; its blue our heaven. It owns our land. At will it throws away our lives.”
December 1959—Catastrophic Cold War setbacks like Panmunjom and Sputnik have made Proceedings a wailing wall, with penitents lining up to lament all that has gone wrong for the Navy and the nation since V-J Day. One author sees room for improvement in naval education, looking at an officer corps with only one in a hundred enrolled in a postgraduate course and only one lieutenant commander in three possessing a college degree.
A scholarly author bemoans our “geographic illiteracy,” thus implying that the Nautilus, on her way from Hawaii to Iceland last year, must have gone under the North Pole by accident.
A third author warns us to discard the notion that Africa is nothing but a huge game preserve, whose natives still collect human heads. The next Cold War hot spot, he says, will be the west coast of Africa, where both communist-infested Guinea and Angola are located. The Kremlin desperately needs a base of operations on the Atlantic and it won’t get one in Europe without starting World War III.
And, in an otherwise brilliant analysis of our politico-military setbacks in the Cold War, another author suggests a U. S. Navy “shipboard Political Policy Officer.” Let’s see—the Red October had one of those, didn't she?
OFFICIAL
USN Ship Ball Caps ShiPs
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U.S. NAVY SHIP’S CAPS
These are the same baseball caps sold aboard U.S. Navy warships. They are navy blue with service gold embroidery - not a patch or silkscreen. Caps are full (not mesh back), adjustable (one size fits all) and made in USA.
BATTLESHIPS: IOWA, NEW JERSEY. MISSOURI. WISCONSIN, NEW YORK, TEXAS, ARIZONA. CALIFORNIA, WEST VIRGINIA. WASHINGTON. AIRCRAFT CARRIERS: MIDWAY, CORAL SEA, F0RRESTAL, RANGER, KITTY HAWK, SARATOGA. INDEPENDENCE, ENTERPRISE, EISENHOWER, LINCOLN, KENNEDY. AMERICA, NIMITZ, CONSTELLATION, CARL VINSON. ROOSEVELT. RETIRED: U.S. NAVY, U.S. MARINES or U.S. COAST GUARD. SPECIALTY: NAVY, USMC, USCG. TOP GUN, STARK. VINCENNES. EMBLEM: Embroidered with silver and gold metallic thread and available for U.S. NAVY (officer), (officer retired). (C.R0.-E-9. E-8, E-7), (C.R0. rebred-E-9 retired, E-8 retired, E-7 retired), (wings-pilot, flight officer, flight crew), (submarine dolphins), (seabees), (seals). U.S. MARINES, U.S. COASTGUARD. US. ARMY, and U.S. AIR FORCE.
CUSTOM: Any other ship not listed above or any military unit is available as a custom cap. The minimum quantity for a custom cap is two per ship or unit (both with eggs or both without eggs). Custom caps must be ordered in even numbers. The top line is twenty spaces maximum and the bottom line is twelve spaces maximum. EMBLEMS NOT AVAILABLE ON CUSTOM CAPS.
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