Naval History - Spring 1990 - Zeppelin Hunters
Cover: During his long involvement with naval aviation, R.G. Smith has painted many of the Navy's aircraft carriers and aircraft. Here he depicts, in a pencil sketch, the converted collier that became the first U.S. aircraft carrier, namely, the Langley (CV-1). Inside the issue, beginning on page 46, we feature a portfolio of his paintings on the development of carriers through the years.
Issue: Naval History, U.S. Naval Institute, Vol. 4, No. 2, Spring 1990.
The Spring 1990 issue of Naval History feature articles include: On the Back of the Fleet, LST—Large, Slow Target, The Fifth Armed Force, Zeppelin Hunters, Naval Historians and the War of 1812, and More.
Features
14 On the Back of the Fleet
By Commander Brent L. Gravatt, U.S. Navy
The evolution of ship-based aircraft during the interwar years
(1919-41) as a supplement to, and supplanter of, ships' big guns.
19 LST—Large, Slow Target
By Allen Pace and Marx Leva
The versatile LST-386 served in the European theater of World War II as a gunfire spotter, reconnaissance vessel, aircraft carrier, and horse stable.
29 The Fifth Armed Force
By Robert Erwin Johnson
Tracing the history of the Coast Guard as “a part of the military forces of the United States” in World War I and beyond.
37 Zeppelin Hunters
By Frank A. Contey
British Sopwith Camels achieved air superiority above the North Sea in the face of German peril in 1918.
42 Politics, Politics
By Paul H. Nine
A Secretary of the Navy needs to balance the requirements of strategy and tactics against available resources. He doesn’t need politicians kibitzing his every move.
52 Naval Historians and the War of 1812
By William S. Dudley
A contemporary historian critiques the accounts of naval aspects of this war by prominent authors James Fenimore Cooper, Theodore Roosevelt, and Alfred Thayer Mahan.
58 Remember the Maine, One More Time
By John E. Duncan
This “longest ship in the Navy” was, surprisingly enough, sunk not once but twice.
Departments
- In Contact 2
- Special: Men of the Cabot 24
- Pictorial: The Cabot Comes Home 26
- Pictorial: From Langley to Lincoln46
- Technical Report: The Alligator by Roebling 63
- Museum Report: Museum of the Pacific War 69
- The Old Navy: When ASW Was Young 72
- Book Reviews 75
- Bibliographic Review 80
- 1989 Index 82
- In Progress 87
- Oral History: Submariner in a Carrier 92
- Notebook 95
Publisher’s Page
In the winter issue, we published a letter from a professional historian who advocated that Naval History become a scholarly journal, moving away from reminiscences and antiquarianism.
His viewpoint was probably the most strongly stated version of one expressed by a number of the scholars at last fall’s Naval Academy history symposium—that the magazine is short on intellectual muscle.
The letter has provoked a storm of response, nearly all of it disagreeing with the proposal for a substantial change in the character of the magazine.
The letters in this issue’s In Contact section include a sampling of the replies. The consensus of those moved to write seems to be that you, the readers, have been happy with the magazine and want it to continue to provide essentially the same mix of material that it has been.
We think it is possible for both camps to coexist. To accommodate the concerns of those who would like more rigor, we will begin publishing at least one scholarly article per issue, including numerous footnotes. In this issue we have Dr. William Dudley s article about the historians who wrote on the naval aspects of the War of 1812.
As Dr. Dudley’s article demonstrates, scholarly and interesting need not be mutually exclusive. We want to continue to make the magazine interesting, because that quality apparently was the basis for the strong support expressed in your letters.
Elsewhere in the issue we report on the death of one of our oral history interviewees. Vice Admiral John McCrea died shortly before the release of his transcript. In some part, McCrea can be considered a model for the character of Pug Henry in Herman Wouk's epic tale War and Remembrance.
In that story. Captain Henry was naval aide to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and later the first commanding officer of the battleship Iowa (BB-61). Captain McCrea held the same two billets in the same sequence.
In fact, his recollections of FDR go back to 1913, when McCrea was a midshipman at the Naval Academy and the future President was a young Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
We think it is possible for both camps to coexist. To accommodate the concerns of those who would like more rigor, we will begin publishing at least one scholarly article per issue, including numerous footnotes.
In this issue we have Dr. William Dudley s article about the historians who wrote on the naval aspects of the War of 1812. As Dr. Dudley’s article demonstrates, scholarly and interesting need not be mutually exclusive.
We want to continue to make the magazine interesting, because that quality apparently was the basis for the strong support expressed in your letters.
Elsewhere in the issue we report on the death of one of our oral history interviewees. Vice Admiral John McCrea died shortly before the release of his transcript. In some part, McCrea can be considered a model for the character of Pug Henry in Herman Wouk's epic tale War and Remembrance.
In that story. Captain Henry was naval aide to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and later the first commanding officer of the battleship Iowa (BB-61). Captain McCrea held the same two billets in the same sequence.
In fact, his recollections of FDR go back to 1913, when McCrea was a midshipman at the Naval Academy and the future President was a young Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
Publication Information
The U. S. Naval Institute is a private, self-supporting, nonprofit professional society, which publishes Proceedings magazine as a forum for the sea services, and professional books. The Institute is not part of the U. S. Government. Naval History is published quarterly by the U. S. Naval Institute, 2062 Generals Highway, Annapolis, MD 21401. The opinions and assertions herein are the personal ones of the authors.
Second class postage paid at Annapolis. MD. and at additional mailing offices. Annual subscription rates: USNI member. $12.00; USNI non-member, $24.00. International subscribers add $4.00. Copyright © 1990 U. S. Naval Institute. Copyright is not claimed for editorial material in the public domain.
