United States Naval Academy - Lucky Bag Yearbook (Annapolis, MD)

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PEARL HARBOR AND AFTER -mm- THE JAPANESE ATTACK on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, marked the commencement of the most brilHant period in our Navy ' s history. Today we find our ships carrying the fight to the enemy wherever he appears, conducting the most vast and most complicated sea oiTensives on record. The story of the transition from the crippled navy left on the bottom oi Pearl Harbor that December day to the most power- ful fleet ever to take the sea in the history of the world is the story of the men that lead this Navy. These men have proven the importance of the Naval Academy as a safeguard of our democracy, for long before the present conflict began the Naval Academy was preparing them for the problems they face today. The most important phase of this preparation was not academic, but rather that unconscious process of instilling in the men at the Academy the traditions of our Navy. Years have added wisdom to the minds of the oflicers who today fight the Fleet, but the determining factors in their eventual success are still learned at Annapolis. The spirit of every great hero of the American Navy from Jones on down to Farragut and Dewey is ground into the soul of the mid- shipman at the Academy. This spirit, handed down from class to class, is ever present in the Fleet today. It instinctively guides and steadies every officer as he makes his decisions. The tendency is to emulate the men of other wars in every way. The weapons and ships are diflFerent but the determination and courage are the same. When Com- mander H. W. Gilmore, mortally wounded on the conning tower of his submarine by Japanese bullets, turned to his junior officer and ordered him to Take her down ! he paralleled the self-sacrifice of Commander Herndon in 1857. When Captain Mike Moran, Commander of the U. S. S. Boise, engaged a Japanese fleet in a night action off the Solomon Islands he displayed the same aggressive determination to win that character- ized the exploits of John Paul Jones. These men, along with the hundreds of other officers that have left the Naval Academy to lead their men and ships to victory over our enemies in the many battles of this war have added new chapters to the story of the Navy. It is a story that goes on and on, never ending, always keeping the same theme of perseverance unto victory, the theme that first runs through the mind of the officer when he enters the Academy and thereafter never leaves him. This tradition, handed down by the naval great of each generation from the incipience of our Navy to the present day, is the trust of the Naval Academy — the trust that makes this institution the true Mother of Navy men and guardian of a free and liberty blessed America.

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ix ii i confidence in our armed forces with the unbounding determination of our people we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF