We're very excited to announce the launch of a new website for the Naval Historical Foundation. Our URL has not changed (www.navyhistory.org) but the look and content have been updated and modernized. This new website will allow us to expand our ability to preserve and promote naval history. Among the many new features, we will be maintaining a detailed Events Calendar, which will be easily searchable and feature maps and images. If you have a naval history related event you'd like to promote (ceremonies, meetings, symposia, reunions), please contact Dave Colamaria at dcolamaria@navyhistory.org, and we will post your event on the new calendar.

Additionally, we are particularly enthused about our new blog. We look forward to communicating with our members and the public at large through this dynamic new tool, which will allow us to share video, high resolution images, and links to websites of interest. We plan to republish our member-authored Naval History Book Reviews in this blog, as well as news, updates, and items of historical note. If you have important news, or a topic on naval history you think may be relevant for publication on our blog, please do let us know. 

Please check back frequently, and pass the link along to colleagues and friends!

The 2011 Naval History Symposium will be held at the Naval Academy 15-16 September. Please visit the Symposium website for registration information and a list of programs. The 2009 Symposium was a great success, with over 300 attendees and 138 papers presented. Note that  our chairman and two members of the Foundation staff will be presenting papers this year. Admiral Bruce DeMars will lecture on Admiral Rickover and the nuclear powered Navy, Dr. Dave Winkler will be discussing Franklin Roosevelt and the Foundation's role in building the Navy Museum, and Dave Colamaria will be presenting on naval burial practices during the War of 1812. We know that our membership will have a strong presence at the Symposium, and we look forward to seeing you there.  

Join historian Dr. Sarandis Papadopolous on 13 September 2011 at 12:00 noon at the National Museum of the United States Navy. Pentagon 9/11 provides the most comprehensive account to date of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon and aftermath, including unprecedented details on the impact on the Pentagon building and personnel and the scope of the rescue, recovery, and care-giving effort. Its evocative narrative is based on firsthand accounts of survival, tragedy, and heroism drawn from hundreds of interviews, and features 32 pages of previously unpublished photographs, diagrams and illustrations." Join one of the book's authors, Dr. Papadopoulos, for this special lecture commemorating the 10th anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Tuesday, 20 September at 6PM, at George Mason University, author James Hornfischer will be lecturing on his latest book, Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal. The event is sponsored by the Naval Order of the United States.

The Historic Naval Ships Association is compiling an anthology of sailors' stories describing various aspects of daily shipboard life. Tentatively titled "In a Sailor's Voice," this compilation will consist of oral histories and first person accounts by sailors representing various ships, navies, and eras. Ideally, they would like to have at least one story from each historic vessel in HNSA.

Each account should be representative of a specific aspect of naval or shipboard life that was commonly encountered or experienced by sailors during their careers. An account could be as short as a single paragraph, or as long as several pages. The important thing is that each account represents one particular aspect of navy life, either ordinary or extraordinary - and that they are told by sailors themselves, in their own voice. They are especially interested in the enlisted sailors as most stories are usually published by officers.

Together, they will comprise a sort of "diary" of the daily shipboard life of an average sailor. No matter what sort of ship one served on, in what navy, or in what time period, there are common experiences and aspects of navy life that all sailors have experienced.

They hope to gather enough stories for both a print version and an online collection of "In a Sailor's Voice," for posting on the HNSA website.

For submissions, questions, or further information, please contact:

Dr. Aldona Sendzikas

Assoc. Professor, History Dept

The University of Western Ontario

asendzi2@uwo.ca

Rich Pekelney

HNSA Webmaster

pekelney@rspeng.com   

In our most recent issue of Naval History Book Reviews, Captain Roger F. Jones, USN (RET) review of Potomac Fever: A Memoir of Politics and Public Service, written by J. William Middendorf II, referenced the 1960 Barry Goldwater presidential campaign. He meant the 1964 campaign.