Although in his 50s when war came to America in December 1941, Dr. Samuel Eliot Morison was determined to play a role. A professor at Harvard at the time, he joined many of his students in volunteering for duty in the Navy. When turned down because of his age, he decided to try a different tack.
In a letter to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Morison proposed that he be given a commission in the Navy and the freedom to move about in the various theaters of operation by sailing “on naval vessels of all types, in various combat areas” to observe firsthand “how things are done in this war.” Based on that experience and much documentary research, he proposed to write a history of the Navy’s role in the war “from the inside.” Morison offered as his credentials “my historical and practical maritime training, and my ability to present maritime subjects in a readable manner.” An experienced sailor, Professor Morison had earlier sailed the same routes taken by Christopher Columbus while researching his two-volume biography, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, which appeared in January 1942 to much acclaim (and later netted a Pulitzer Prize).
When Knox rejected his proposal, Morison then appealed directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a fellow Harvard graduate, former assistant Secretary of the Navy, sailing enthusiast, and personal friend. Not too surprisingly, Morison soon received a letter from Knox expressing his willingness to “discuss the matter with you at any time in the near future when it is convenient for you to come to Washington.” The “near future” proved to be the very next day, and Morison emerged from the Navy Department that afternoon with his commission as a lieutenant commander and an agreement that he was “not to be censored” and was limited in what he could write only by security concerns.
What followed was an amazing odyssey that put Morison in virtual company with Homer and Thucydides as he traveled the world, embarking in various ships to observe, experience, and record a war in progress. Beginning his quest on an antisubmarine warfare (ASW) patrol off the New England coast in the USS Guinevere (IX-67), a privately owned schooner converted to a Navy patrol craft, Morison at first had to “move warily and gingerly” among the crew because of his “unprecedented position,” but he was soon able to “exorcise the academic curse” when they learned that in addition to being a college professor, he was an accomplished sailor and navigator. Moving on to the light cruiser USS Brooklyn (CL-40) in time to observe the landings in North Africa for Operation Torch, Morison subsequently participated in a wide variety of operations, including PT boat patrols near Guadalcanal, the landings at Saipan, Coast Guard ASW operations in the Atlantic, and a near-miss with a kamikaze off Okinawa.
On his 54th birthday, Morison admired the bucolic scenery of the waters around the Solomons, recording that it reminded him “of the Hudson at Hyde Park,” but noting further that there were “no Japs in the Hudson, only Republicans.”
The result his odyssey was the now-classic 15-volume History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Still one of the first sources consulted by serious students of World War II and by historians who recognize its unusual authenticity, it has never gone out of print.
Morison continued to write prolifically and to acquire a great many awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In presenting that award in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson described Morison as a “scholar and sailor” and as an “amphibious historian” who “has combined a life of action and literary craftsmanship to lead generations of Americans on countless voyages of discovery.”