INFORMATION/COMMENT

This page last updated 2/7/08

This page will be used for information articles and any other current printable information material of interest to class. Send it in to fredd@suscom-maine.net and it will appear, at least for a while! If photo's are dark try to lighten your monitor screen to improve appearance.

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1. 10/13/07 Steve Powers provided this compendium of “Salty Sam” articles from our 1st class year in Adobe format. 

Click here to view,  Salty Sam 

 

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2.  9/18/07  Bill Hamel provided this is new Class 50 Year History and its posted in Adobe format. Click here to view, Class 50 Year History .

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3.  12/12/07 Bruce Demars provided this report of our Class Chair status.

 

United States Naval Academy

Stewardship Report 2006-2007

Class of 1957 Chair in Naval Heritage

 

 

Dr. Williamson Murray became the first Class of 1957 Distinguished Chair in Naval Heritage in January 2006.  According to Dr. Murray,

This chair has been the most significant academic honor that I have received in

the course of my academic career, which has included holding the Centennial

Visiting Professorship at the London School of Economics, a Secretary of the

Navy Fellowship at the Naval War College, and the Honor Professorship at the

Marine Corps University. 

 

Dr. Murray’s work is based on the premise that understanding military and naval history is an essential step in developing a military career as an officer in the Navy and the Marine Corps.  Through classes taught over just eighteen months, he has already inspired Midshipmen to learn from the past and apply those lessons to present and future challenges. 

His teaching responsibilities include one section of plebe-year Naval History in the fall semester, and a class on Marine Corps history during the spring semester.  For the latter, LtGen Van Riper, USMC (Ret.), BGen Thomas V. Draude, USMC (Ret.), and Professor Allan Millett of Ohio State University were visiting speakers.  He also taught three senior-level seminars over the past year and a half, including what he calls “quite simply… the best undergraduate seminar that I have taught in my academic career.”  Two seminars were on “War, Morality, and Humane Behavior,” while the third addressed major topics dealing with the history of World Wars I and II.  Next spring, Dr. Murray plans to teach the war and morality seminar again, as well as a lecture course on the history of the war in Europe, 1939-1945.

Additional activities include arranging for respected lecturers to visit the Academy.  The noted British journalist, Sir Max Hastings, lectured at a senior seminar, addressing the Falklands campaign as well as the larger issue of the crucial relationship between journalists and the military in the midst of a major military campaign.  Members of the Class of 1957 were present at the lecture and a dinner which followed.

Dr. Murray also arranged for Colonel Peter Mansoor (Brigade Commander in the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad 2003-2004 and currently General Patreus’ Chief Aide) and Colonel Thomas Greenwood (Commander of a MEU in Iraq and currently the head of the Marine Corps’ Command and Staff College) to present their experiences, and why they both felt the study and understanding of history was so important to the military profession.  The question-and-answer period was particularly interesting, because of the quality of the midshipmen’s questions.

In coordination with a fellow faculty member, Dr. Murray established an informal history club in fall 2006.  10 - 15 mostly non-history majors participated once every three weeks for a one- or two-hour discussion.  Dr. Murray also ran a voluntary film series on weekday evenings with movies that dealt with war, such as “The Battle of Algiers,” “Zulu,” “Conspiracy,” “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “The Winter War,” “A Bridge too Far,” and “The Bridge.”

Due to knee surgery, Dr. Murray cannot teach during the Fall semester of the 2007-2008 academic year, but he will return for the second semester.  Professor Andrew Gordon will fill the Chair during Dr. Murray’s absence.  Both Professor Murray and Professor Gordon helped to moderate panels at the successful Naval History Symposium hosted by the Naval Academy in September 2007. 

                           

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4a.  Profs Murray/Gordon course report 2/4/08

 

Here are the course descriptions and a Power point "Calendar" of the courses being taught by Professor Andrew Gordon, who is sharing the Class of 1957 Chair in Naval Heritage this semester. Note that Professor Gordon welcomes class of 57 members to sit in on any of his periods.

 I attach schematics of both courses. Click to display MURR1.ppt  ,  MURR2.ppt

 

 

 

The Royal Navy class have done their first essays, and have just entered the First World War, which we have got just five sessions to cover, so it's tight.  In immediate prospect are classroom presentations on:

  • The disgraceful escape of the Goeben andf Breslau (by me)
  • The 'Broad Fourteens' disaster
  • The Battle of Heligoland Bight
  • The fortunes and fates of German light cruisers, in W.Indies & Indian Ocean.
  • The Battle of Coronel, in SE Pacific
  • The Battle of the Falklands (1914).
  • The Battle of the Dogger Bank.
  • The Dardanelles (probably by me)
  • The campaign on the African lakes.

 

The Churchill Class have just completed their 'British Army Five Year Appraisals' of 2nd Lt Winston, and have had their introduction to and British Politics and Parliamentary procedures.  We will follow his swift rise to high office, through to 1915 and his dismissal from the Admiralty after Gallipoli, when their next writing task will be set. 

We are about to have classroom presentations on:

  1. His love-life and marriage.
  2. The 'Battle of Sidney Street'.
  3. His relationship with Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher.
  4. His defense of Antwerp i.e. the R N Brigade.

I hope the attached 'passage plans' may be of interest. We have got slightly ahead of the game in one of them, and I need to keep the plans flexible so I can adjust them to class progress. We don't run on rails.  In both cases the classes seem stronger than last semester.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Andrew Gorden

 

4b. Here are those for Professor Wick Murray - he is teaching two courses - both meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays - they are 90 minute periods - the WW2 course has a couple of West Point Cadets in it, and not everyone is a History major. All are 1st or 2nd classmen. It meets at 0955.

 

The War, Morality and Humanity is for History Majors only and is a smaller group, all firsties. It meets at 1330.

 

Both are taught in Sampson Hall, and Professor Murray has extended an invitation to any of us to sit in (with advance notice).

 

Click on file to read courses: WW2Eur.pdf , War.Moral.pdf

 

 

 

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5. Prof Murray Report Posted 6/05/07.

Report to the Class of 1957 – May 2007

 

Williamson Murray

Holder of the Class of 1957 Chair

 

 

 

General Comments:

 

Let me begin by noting that this chair has been the most significant academic honor that I have received in the course of my academic career, which has included holding the Centennial Visiting Professorship at the London School of Economics, a Secretary of the Navy Fellowship at the Naval War College, and the Honor Professorship at Marine Corps University.  In every sense, the Naval Academy has been a welcoming institution from the administration through to the Department of History.  In respect to the latter, the history department has been of enormous help in smoothing my way through the administrative hurdles, while insuring that I have received consistent help in designing and teaching the courses that I have wanted to teach.

 

 I feel that I have been able to make a number of contributions to the department.  The most important of these has been as a representative of military and naval history in a department of history that covers, as it should, a wide variety of subjects and historical issues.  Yet, given the Naval Academy’s mission to prepare young men and women for service as officers, military and naval history should be a major focus of the curriculum as a whole. 

 

It is not that the department is hostile to naval and military history – far from it.  Nevertheless, the Class of 1957 Chair has a duty both in his or her teaching, outside contributions, and advocacy to represent the history of military institutions, campaigns, and leadership within the department.  This does not have to be done in a confrontational manner; in fact I think I have gotten along quite well with my colleagues even in representing military and naval history.  But I have also made my opinion as to their importance clear.  Moreover, I have also made every effort to represent military and naval history to the Academy as an essential element in careers of future officers in either the Navy or the Marine Corps.  I would argue that this area should receive continuing effort and interest from the holders of the Class of 1957 Chair.

 

Teaching

 

During my each of my first two semesters here at the academy, I taught one of the sections of the plebe year “Naval History” course.  I had a great time with the plebes, although I have several comments to make about the students and the teaching of naval history in the plebe year.  First, and this is not meant as a derogatory comment about the Academy: fully one third of the students whom I taught were completely unprepared in basic geographical or historical knowledge to handle the demands of the course.  By this I mean that they had been so badly prepared by their high school courses that they could not find the English Channel on a map or give the dates for the American Civil War within fifty years. 

 

In the largest sense, the teaching of naval history at the Naval Academy occurs at the wrong time in the curriculum.  Similar to West Point’s basic military history course, it should be a two semester course that emphasizes joint military – as well as naval – operations from 1775 through to the present day.  At that point in their academic careers here at the academy, it will make an impression on them and begin the intellectual process of becoming a member of the military profession as a career. 

 

I think that it would also be useful to have honor seminars in this two semester course, so that the best students receive a first rate education and understanding of the problems involved in the projection of military power, the conduct of military operations by U.S. military forces, and the ambiguities and uncertainties – Clausewitzian friction – that are inherent in the conduct of war.  In effect, this course should represent the first step in the professional military education of future Naval and Marine officers – a starting point which the PME study group head up by General Charles Wilhelm last summer argued represents an essential first step in preparing future officers for the conduct of military operations in the twenty-first century.  Admittedly, such a move would require an overhaul of the academy's curriculum as well as the hiring of additional academics -- or education of additional naval and marine officers – in the discipline of military history. 

 

This past semester, I did not teach the plebe naval history course.  Instead at the request of the department chair and because there was no Marine officer available to teach the “History of the Marine Corps” course, I filled in and taught the Marine history course.  To be candid, I agreed to teach the course with considerable trepidation, because I am not an historian of the Marine Corps.  Luckily I had the extensive work of my former Ohio State colleague, Allan Millett on which to rely.  The course is now over, and most importantly, the students have survived without appearing to have any desire to lynch their professor for incompetence.  I might add that my Marine Corps connections proved particularly useful as I persuaded retired Lieutenant Generals Van Riper and Gregson and retired BG Draude to come in and talk to the USMC course (as well as my seminar) on their experiences in the Corps.  I also was able to lasso my old friend Allan Millett into visiting the Naval Academy.  In addition, all four gentlemen talked to the department about why they felt that history was crucial to the military profession.

 

The three senior level seminars I have taught over the past year and a half have given me an extraordinarily good picture of the history majors that the department is producing – and I am impressed.  The best seminar was this past fall; quite simply it may have been the best undergraduate seminar that I have taught in my academic career.  In terms of subject matter, two of the seminars were on the topic of “War, Morality, and Humane Behavior;” the other seminar was on major topics dealing with the history of World War I and II.  As for my teaching schedule next spring (I am off in the fall getting my knees replaced), I am planning to teach the war and morality seminar again and give a lecture course on the history of the war in Europe, 1939-1945. 

 

Extra Curricula Activities

 

In addition to my teaching duties, I have made considerable efforts to contribute to the Academy and the department in other ways.  In the fall I brought the noted British journalist, Sir Max Hastings, to the academy to give a major lecture and talk to my senior seminar.  Sir Max’s lecture was directly on the Falklands campaign, but he addressed the larger issue of the crucial relationship between journalists on one hand and the military on the other in the midst of a major military campaign.  I might add that we had a wonderful dinner and the class of 1957 as well represented at both the dinner and the lecture.

 

In addition, during the fall, I was able to entice Colonel Peter Mansoor, brigade commander in the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad 2003-2004 and currently General Patreus' gatekeeper, and Colonel Thomas Greenwood, commander of a MEU in Iraq and currently the head of the Marine Corps' Command and Staff College, into give an evening presentation on their experiences and why they both felt history was so important to the military profession.  The question and answer period was particularly interesting both for the quality of the questions from the mids and what was interesting them about how US forces are fighting in Iraq.

 

During the course of the fall semester, with the cooperation of one of the faculty members, I set up an informal history club, which largely consisted of individuals who were not majoring in history, but felt history was important for them to know about.  Approximately, 10-15 showed up once every three weeks for a discussion of an article (either written by me or someone whom I thought they ought to know about).  Discussions usually lasted approximately one to two hours, depending on how much work they had to do.  Here it is clear to me that there are substantial numbers of extraordinarily bright midshipmen with deep interest in and knowledge of military history, who are unable to take history courses in areas in which they are interested either because there is insufficient flexibility in their majors or because the upper-level history course they want to take has been filled up by history majors.

 

Finally, for the midshipmen in my classes, I ran a voluntary film series on weekday evenings with movies that dealt with war, such as "The Battle of Algiers," "Zulu," "Conspiracy," "All Quiet on the Western Front," "The Winter War," "A Bridge too Far," and "The Bridge."

 

Plans for Next Year

 

As many of the members of the class know, I had to withdraw from teaching in the fall so that I could have my knees operated on.  I will then teach again in the spring.  Nevertheless, I have agreed to participate in a number of activities involving both the history department and the class of 1957 in the fall even if I have to crawl over here!  I will be giving one of the major addresses at the Academy’s Naval history conference in the fall and have volunteered to be a commentator or chairman of whatever panels need help at that conference.  I also plan to give a lecture – “The Class of 1957 Lecture in Naval History” – sometime in either the fall or spring.  I hope that this lecture will become an annual event which the holder of the chair that year will give with the aim of having it published in a journal – hopefully Proceedings, if it is of sufficient quality.

 

I will also actively be present during your festivities in October.  I am hoping to do a staff ride of the Antietam battlefield for the class, either during your festivities in October or at some other time. 

 

Finally, I am planning this spring or early summer to donate $1,000 to the chair’s endowment and to dedicate my history of the Civil War to the class of 1957.  Again thanks so much for this wonderful opportunity.

 

Williamson Murray

Class of 1957 Chair in Naval History and Heritage