Hill Goodspeed has been the historian at the National Naval Aviation Museum for more than 25 years. The author or editor of five books, he is the recipient of the Admiral Arthur W. Radford Award for Excellence in Naval Aviation History and Literature and the Freedom Foundation Meritorious Award for Public Communications.

Articles by Hill Goodspeed

Pensacola Days

By Hill Goodspeed
August 2005
In letters home, Frank Simpson Jr. chronicled the stress and excitement of training to become a naval aviator in 1917.
A UH-1B of HA(L)-3 flying over PCF-40 in Vietnam

‘I Am a Sailor and a Seawolf’

By Hill Goodspeed
June 2019
It was born in the combat zone and composed of volunteers, and it was a godsend for troops in Vietnam riverine operations. Here is the story of a legendary Navy ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Flight Line

By Hill Goodspeed, Historian, National Naval Aviation Museum
December 2011
The First Century’s Final Decades As the aircraft carrier Nimitz (CVN-68) plowed through the waters of the Gulf of Sidra on 19 August 1981, her crew and their shipmates throughout ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Flight Line

By Hill Goodspeed, Historian, National Naval Aviation Museum
October 2011
Thirty Years of Change The image is well-known: The underwater explosion of an atomic bomb sends a column of water skyward amid a collection of old warships anchored at Bikini ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Flight Line

By Hill Goodspeed, Historian, National Naval Aviation Museum
July 2011
The Defining War On 29 March 1945, the skipper of the carrier USS Hornet (CV-12) wrote in a letter to his wife: “It was a great victory to have stayed ...
U.S. Naval Institute Archive

Flight Line

By Hill Goodspeed, Historian, National Naval Aviation Museum
May 2011
The Interwar Transformation In an era often referred to as the “Golden Age of Aviation”—one marked by the thrilling spectacle of air races, record-setting flights, and larger-than-life personalities—naval aviation was ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Flight Line

By Hill Goodspeed
March 2011
The Great War Catalyst Naval aviation’s early development occurred largely insulated from the cataclysmic events that swept across Europe in 1914. While a handful of naval personnel in the United ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Flight Line

By Hill Goodspeed, Historian, National Naval Aviation Museum
January 2011
The First Tentative Steps In an example of the ironies that pervade history, the initial development of naval aviation resulted from the efforts of three unlikely proponents: a civilian pilot ...

Book Reviews

Reviewed by the Honorable Jerry M. Hultin, Lieutenant Commander George S. Capen, U.S. Navy & Hill Goodspeed
December 1999
Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet: American Sea Power Comes of Age Kenneth Wimmel. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1998. 304 pp. Photos. Bib. Index. $25.95 ($23.35). Reviewed by the Honorable ...