Captain Roy C. Smith, III, U. S. Naval Reserve (Retired), has been a frequent contributor to the pages of the Proceedings over the years. During active duty service from 1941 to 1946 and from 1950 to 1970, his sea duty included tours in the USS Plymouth (PG-51), USS Coates (DE-685), USS Humboldt (AVP-21), USS Cassin Young (DD-793) and USS Markah (AD-21). Shore duty included tours with NATO at Gibraltar and as Naval Reserve Area Commander and CO Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Training Center, Washington, D.C. Since April 1971, Captain Smith has been Director of Publications for the U. S. Naval Academy Alumni Association and Editor of its magazine Shipmate.

Articles by Roy C. Smith III

Navy Yarns

By Captain Roy Smith III, U.S. Navy (Retired)
December 2001
During World War II, one of the battleship HMS Malaya’s officers told me of a time in the South Atlantic when his ship sighted a lifeboat with survivors of a ...

Navy Yarns

By Captain Roy Smith III, U.S. Navy (Retired)
October 2001
In 1924 Rear Admiral Montgomery Meigs Taylor was commanding the Control Force, Atlantic Fleet (roughly a combination of what today are the submarine and service forces), with his flag in ...

Navy Yarns

By Captain Roy C. Smith III, U.S. Navy (Retired)
August 2001
Admiral Mick Carney, a former Chief of Naval Operations, was a junior officer in the World War I destroyer Fanning (DD-37) when a mess attendant accused of sleeping on watch ...

Navy Yarns

By Captain Roy C. Smith, U.S. Navy (Retired)
June 2001
In 1936, the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) was hauling Spanish Civil War refugees to France. On the morning watch, lookouts reported a British tramp steamer to starboard on a parallel course ...

Navy Yarns

By Captain Roy C. Smith III, U.S. Navy (Retired)
April 2001
In 1811, Commodore John Rodgers in the frigate USS President met HMS Little Belt in a fog off the New Jersey coast. The President hailed the British ship for identification ...

Navy Yarns

By Captain Roy C. Smith III, U.S. Navy (Retired)
February 2001
After the Civil War, Commander William B. Cushing (who had destroyed the CSS Albemarle in 1864) was commanding the USS Saco on a visit to Shanghai and was being rowed ...

Navy Yarns

By Captain Roy C. Smith, III, U.S. Navy (Retired)
December 2000
Anew captain, who was known for being a bit off his rocker, took command of one of the upriver gunboats on the Yangtze River patrol in China. His reputation was ...

Navy Yarns

By Captain Roy C. Smith, III, U.S. Navy (Retired)
October 2000
A story typical of the bare-bones side of the 1920s Navy was of a Navy-Marine landing exercise in Samoa early in the decade, when shortages dictated simulation of weapons and ...

Navy Yarns

By Captain Roy C. Smith III, U.S. Navy (Retired)
August 2000
On his way to be the executive officer of Rear Admiral S. P. Lee’s flagship Minnesota in Hampton Roads in 1864, Lieutenant Joseph P. Fyffe stopped over in Washington to ...

Navy Yarns

By Captain Roy C. Smith, III, U.S. Navy (Retired)
June 2000
Early in 1954, I was the executive officer in the USS Cassin Young (DD-783), sent out to Japan for Korean service. There I became good friends with an Australian naval ...