William V. Pratt
William Veazie Pratt (born February 28, 1869 in Belfast , Maine , † November 25, 1957 in Boston , Massachusetts ) was an American admiral in the US Navy , who was President of Naval War College from 1925 to 1927 and Chief from 1930 to 1933 of Naval Operations . He had a decisive influence on the naval policy of the US Navy in the 1920s and early 1930s through his participation in the naval conferences that took place at this time and contributed to winning the Atlantic Battle in World War II by developing a concept for convoy trains .
Life
Naval officer training and uses
Pratt came from families in New England , in the merchant navy were active and was the son of Nicholas Pratt, who as Acting Master during the Civil War ships of the South and the North Atlantic blockade squadron served and following in Shanghai Steam Navigation Company to worked on the coast of China until his retirement in 1906. Due to the activities of his father Pratt's mother moved with him in 1871 to Shanghai , before returning to Belfast in 1877, where Pratt and primary school later in Farmington , the high school attended.
In the spring of 1885 he entered the US Navy and graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis , which he graduated in 1889 as the sixth-best of 35 course participants. Subsequently, he found work as a passed midshipman on the USS Atlanta , a protected cruiser completed in 1884 , which belonged to the modern ships called the "White Squadron" or "Squadron of Evolution" ('White Squadron' or 'Squadron of Evolution ') of the 1890s. After his promotion to lieutenant at sea ( Ensign ) he was transferred to China in 1891 to serve there on the gunboat USS Petrel under the command of Captain Morris MacKenzie. While the ship was in winter dock in Yingkou because of the frozen waters , he was able to watch the defeat of the Chinese troops in the First Sino- Japanese War from 1894 to 1895.
Spanish-American War and Filipino-American War
In 1895 Pratt left the naval base in China and was an instructor in the mathematics department at the US Naval Academy until 1897 and then as an officer on the gunboat USS Annapolis , before he was transferred to the USS Mayflower when the Spanish-American War broke out in April 1898 again served under Captain MacKenzie.
After the end of the war he was promoted to first lieutenant in the sea in August 1898 and served under the command of Captain Bowman H. McCalla on board the protected cruiser USS Newark in the Philippines . There he took part in various combat missions off Luzon during the Philippine-American War that began in February 1899 , as well as in coastal operations at Aparri and Vigan . Due to his services, he was promoted to lieutenant captain shortly after the war began .
In 1900 Pratt was transferred as an officer to the three-masted full ship USS Severn and then in 1902 to the battleship USS Kearsage , which served as the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief of the North Atlantic Fleet, initially by Rear Admiral Francis J. Higginson and then from July 1903 by Commodore Albert S. Barker . Despite his age, he was used there as a navigational officer until 1906 and then served again for a short time on the protected cruiser USS Newark .
Staff officer and command post
After his promotion to Lieutenant Commander , Pratt found again in 1906 use in the US Naval Academy, this time in the Department of Navigation. Subsequently, he was in 1908 as First Officer ( Executive Officer ) under the command of Captain Albert Gleaves to in Bremerton lying in reserve protected cruiser USS St. Louis added.
On 1 July 1910 he was appointed Commander promoted and was used as a first officer on the under the command of Captain Henry T. Mayo standing and Pennsylvania class belonging battleship USS California . This ship also served as the flagship of Rear Admiral Giles B. Harber , Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Fleet . After three years of sea use, he was called to the Naval War College in Rhode Island in 1911 to teach there as an instructor in the department of tactics . The college's then president, Rear Admiral Raymond P. Rodgers , was his then commanding officer on the USS Kearsage , while the tactics department was headed by the retired William McCarty Little .
In the spring of 1913 he was appointed chief of staff from Captain William S. "Billie" Sims , the commander of the torpedo flotilla of the US Atlantic Fleet . At the same time Pratt was also commander of the flagship of the association of the Chester-class belonging light cruiser USS Birmingham . During this time he was promoted to sea captain in June 1915 .
In November 1915, Pratt was transferred to the Panama Canal Zone , where he was a naval representative on the Panama Canal Defense Committee and was a member of the staff of Major General Clarence Ransom Edwards , the commander in chief of the US forces there. In September 1916 he began a course at the US Army War College in Carlisle .
First World War
After tensions arose in diplomatic relations between the USA and the German Empire in January 1917 because of the so-called Zimmermann Telegram , Pratt worked primarily in the war planning department in the Chief of Naval Operations' office and only rarely attended courses at the US Army War College. After the aggravation of the submarine war and the entry of the United States into the war in April 1917, the course attendance was further reduced before it was finally completely discontinued on May 19, 1917 on the instructions of War Secretary Newton Baker .
To accept the desire of Pratt, in command of a ship, but was not granted because it to the Chief of Naval Operations, Vice Admiral William S. Benson , the senior member of a committee for Central and planning for the management of the submarine war summoned . In the following 18 months he expanded these plans and was finally appointed Assistant Chief of Naval Operations on August 18, 1918 . As such, he organized not only the work of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, but also submarine warfare, the introduction of convoy control and a system of routes, the development of mine warfare, and the preparation of political papers. At the request of Sims, he finally became the latter's personal chief of staff, before he was finally on sick leave after a collapse in the fall of 1918.
post war period
After his recovery, Pratt traveled to Paris with Admiral Benson in November 1918 to take part in the negotiations on the Versailles Peace Treaty regarding the reduction of the previous Imperial Navy .
In January 1919 he was appointed commander of the armored cruiser USS New York , which was part of the US Atlantic Fleet . The USS New York was also the flagship of Rear Admiral Hugh "Uncle Hughie" Rodman , the commander of Battleship Squadron 3. Among the young officers he promoted during this time was Russell S. Berkey , who later became Rear Admiral and was most recently in command of the US Naval Forces in the Far East should be.
Although a former provision providing that a minimum two-year Seekommando was prior to admission to a Commission for the Investigation of promotion to Rear Admiral necessary declared Admiral Benson and Secretary of the Navy ( US Secretary of the Navy ) , Josephus Daniels , that the merits Pratts the Chief of Naval Operations was outstanding for the US Navy's warfare in World War I.
In March 1920 he was briefly ordered to Washington, DC , to testify before the Naval Committee of the US Senate under its chairman Frederick Hale . He had initiated an investigation into the award of medals, the poor preparation and the faulty leadership of the Navy in the First World War. The trigger was a report from Rear Admiral William S. Sims to Minister of the Navy Daniels of January 7, 1920 under the title Certain Naval Lessons of the Great War and which also incriminated the Minister of Navy himself. Pratt pointed out that the staff were certainly unprepared and the fleet was out of balance. Sims was right in his opinion increased protection of convoys, and Benson and Daniels would have acted correctly with increased protection of the troop units instead of protection of the merchant navy . Benson was therefore replaced in November 1919 by Admiral Robert E. Coontz as Chief of Naval Operations.
Washington Naval Conference of 1922
In August 1920, Pratt succeeded Rear Admiral Henry A. Wiley as commander of the destroyer formations of the US Pacific Fleet with the light cruiser USS Birmingham as the flagship. On November 1, 1920 he was promoted to Commodore with Captain Frank Taylor Evans as Chief of Staff. In the post-war years, however, the association was poorly equipped: a third of the ships were in shipyards for repairs, a further third only had around 50 percent of the regular crew, while only a third of the ships were fully staffed, which was only 85 Percent of the personnel under war conditions.
After an examination, Pratt was on June 3, 1921 a member of the General Board of the Department of the Navy. There he was entrusted with the organization of the Washington Naval Conference of 1922 and on the instructions of the Deputy Minister of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. he worked out the basis for negotiating a naval armament, which was discussed in the General Committee in September and October 1921. Unlike the Navy, the head of the US delegation, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes , took the view of a smaller Navy. After three revisions, a gross tonnage of 600,000 was sought, which was discussed in a working group consisting of Vice Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt, Chief of Naval Operations Coontz and Pratt. This came to the result of a 5-5-3 formula, which provided that the USA, Great Britain each have a tonnage of a maximum of 525,000 gross register tons and the Japanese Empire 315,000 GRT and the arms race should be stopped. As a result, a tonnage of 1,000,000 GRT was to be abandoned on the US side. To negotiating participants at this naval conference such as the Minister of the Navy and Prime Minister of Japan , Admiral Katō Tomosaburō , he cultivated partly friendly relations and on the occasion of his death on August 24, 1923 wrote a letter of condolence to his advisor Nomura Kichisaburō .
During the following period of service in the General Committee, he also dealt with the establishment of naval bases, especially on the west coast of the United States and the introduction of Navy Day , which was first celebrated on October 27, 1922, the birthday of US President Theodore Roosevelt . In the spring of 1923 he was on the USS Henderson (AP-1) together with Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby , Admiral Coontz and most members of the Naval Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives observer of the naval maneuvers in the Caribbean Sea .
Commander of Battleship Division 4 and ship disaster at Honda Point
At the end of the maneuver, in April 1923, Pratt succeeded Rear Admiral Charles Frederick Hughes as commander of Battleship Division 4 (BATDIV 4) of the US battleship fleet. On June 25, 1923 he was promoted to Rear Admiral.
In this role he wanted his superiors, Vice Admiral Henry A. Wiley (Commander of the Battleship Divisions of the Battleship Fleet), Admiral Samuel Robison (Commander in Chief of the Battleship Fleet), Admiral Coontz (Commander in Chief of the US Fleet CINCUS (US Fleet) ) and Admiral Edward Walter Eberle (Chief of Naval Operations), convinced that he was suitable for higher duties. The Battleship Division Four included the USS Pennsylvania as flagship as well as the USS Arizona , USS Mississippi and the USS Idaho .
Already on September 9, 1923, Admiral Robison temporarily dismissed him from this command at the request of Vice Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt and Admiral Coontz, after the ship disaster at Honda Point had occurred the day before . Seven destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 11 ran aground at a speed of 20 knots (about 37 km / h). Only two of them were able to maneuver freely again. 23 sailors died. Pratt became chairman of a court martial to investigate the accident.
As part of the court martial and further investigations, it was found that incorrect navigation was the sole cause of the accident. The radio direction finder systems and their results were not faulty. The squadron's commander, Captain Edward H. Watson, took full responsibility. He remained with the same rank in the Navy until his retirement in November 1929. He, Lieutenant Commander Hunter (First Officer of the flagship USS Delphy ) and Lieutenant Captain Blodgett (Navigator of the USS Delphy ) were accused of "culpable inefficiency and negligence". A number of other officers, including Lieutenant Commander Roeseh ( USS Nicholas First Officer ), have been charged with negligence. Watson, Hunter, and Roeseh were found guilty, while Blodgett and the other officers were acquitted. Various officers and seamen were commended for their prudent and courageous behavior during the rescue operations.
After the court martial was completed, he returned to his command post in Battleship Division 4. In June 1924 an accident occurred in his own unit when a flare struck one of the towers of the USS Mississippi and 47 members of the division were killed.
In early June 1925, Pratt was temporarily reappointed a member of the General Committee when the Navy Department was planning to increase the defense capacities of the two aircraft carriers USS Saratoga and USS Lexington , which were under construction , and the new Navy Minister Curtis D. Wilbur was undecided whether the capacity increase of 3,000 each BRT would violate the provisions of the 1922 Washington Naval Conference. Since both the former Vice Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt and Admiral Coontz were not present due to trips abroad, it was his responsibility to write a report that came to the conclusion that the increase in the respective tonnage was not objectionable. This point of view was also shared by former Secretary of State Hughes and George Grafton Wilson , a professor of international law at Harvard University .
On September 4, 1925, Pratt succeeded Rear Admiral Clarence Stewart Williams as President of the Naval War College in Newport. In this capacity he was also an ex officio member of the General Committee of the Navy and advised Navy Minister Wilbur and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Eberle, on issues relating to the limitation of naval capacities. Although he was not a graduate of the college himself, he was awarded the diploma along with the graduates of that year in May 1927.
Commander of the battleship divisions and commander in chief of the battleship fleet
After two years of service at Naval War College, Pratt was promoted to Vice Admiral on September 17, 1927, succeeding Vice Admiral Louis R. de Steiguer as commander of the battleship divisions (COMBATDIVS) of the battleship fleet. The handover of command took place on board the battleship USS West Virginia , which was the flagship of the battleship divisions and the battleship division, whose command Pratt had also taken over himself. In his new role he was Admiral de Steiguer, now Commander-in-Chief of the Battleship Fleet (COMBATFLT), the Commander-in-Chief of the US Fleet (CINCUS), Admiral Wiley, and the new Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Charles Frederick Hughes . Originally Pratt had assumed that he would take command of the battleship fleet instead of Admiral de Steiguer.
On June 26, 1928, however, he was promoted to Admiral and appointed Commander in Chief of the battleship fleet as the successor to Admiral de Steiguer. In this role he made some changes to improve the operational strength and promoted in particular the use of naval aviation associations . During the US Navy's maneuver in the Panama Canal Zone in February 1929, he allowed Rear Admiral Joseph M. Reeves , Commander of the Naval Aviation Squadron of the Battleship Fleet, to attempt an air strike with the aircraft of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga against the defensive positions in the Panama Canal Zone. Due to the successful use, the use of the aircraft carrier during the maneuvers in 1930 became an integral part. Reeves and Pratt thus became the fathers of the carrier task force system .
At this time he tried with Admiral Wiley to an administrative reorganization of the US fleet. As early as 1928, Wiley pursued a reorganization of the fleet into “ type forces” . This envisaged an admiral as commander in chief of the US fleet and a vice admiral as commander in chief of the battleship fleet as well as a vice admiral or rear admiral for the other associations such as aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarine and training squadrons. The entire fleet should operate in one ocean, preferably the Pacific. However, these plans were rejected by the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Hughes.
Commander in Chief of the US Fleet and the London Naval Conference 1930
After Admiral Henry A. Wiley retired from active service, Pratt succeeded him as Commander in Chief of the US Fleet (CINCUS) on May 21, 1929, while Rear Admiral Arthur Japy Hepburn became Chief of Staff.
In the autumn of 1929, voices in favor of reducing the number of naval units were once again raised after the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald visited the USA and had initial talks about a fleet limit. It was agreed that a new fleet conference was to be held in London in 1930. In November 1929, Pratt was called to Washington to present President Herbert Hoover and Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson with his views on fleet reduction.
Due to the President's satisfaction with his remarks, Pratt became Chief Naval Advisor to the delegation at the conference. Former Rear Admiral Hilary P. Jones , a former Commander in Chief of the US Navy, a member of the General Committee of the Navy and a delegate to the Geneva Naval Conference in 1927 , was appointed as a further advisor . In addition, four rear admirals, such as the head of the Aviation Bureau (Bureau of Aeronautics) , William A. Moffett , belonged to the military advisory staff. The political delegation included Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams III , Senators David A. Reed and Joseph Taylor Robinson, and then-US Ambassador to Mexico and future Senator Dwight Morrow .
Jones disagreed with Pratt, mistrusted the British, insisted on the exclusive construction of 8-inch gun-cruisers, and insisted on equality of tonnage with Great Britain for every type of ship. In addition, he did not trust limit agreements or politicians who had promised to build strength through contracts. Pratt, on the other hand, was a pragmatist who trusted Great Britain because he believed that there would never be war between the two countries. Since he assumed that the US Congress would not approve naval building programs in the amount of British intentions, he saw in a fleet limitation the only way to reduce a possible primacy of Great Britain as a sea power.
The London Naval Treaty was drawn up between January and April 1930 and contained so many compromises that Hilary P. Jones left London in February 1930. From Pratt's point of view, he set a higher limit for most of the individual ship categories for the three signatory states, the USA, Great Britain and Japan, and thus offered the opportunity for a well-established navy. Contrary to the opinion of the General Committee and the opponents of a fleet limitation, the American acceptance of a new class of cruisers of 10,000 GRT with 6-inch (152.4 mm) guns, which, from the point of view of Pratt and other members of the naval delegation, the so-called "London Treaty Cruiser", a well-equipped and adequately armed class of ships was. From the point of view of the opponents, however, it represented an unnecessary compromise with Great Britain and a violation of the instructions of the General Committee.
Upon his return in May 1930, Pratt was ordered to Washington to defend the London Naval Treaty before the Naval Committee and the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. There he defended his view that the treaty would satisfy US defense interests. On the other hand, he stressed the obligation of the US Congress to build such ships as long as there was no tie with the British fleet. The naval agreement was then accepted by the US Senate, but led to Pratt losing the friendship of Admiral Hughes because of his dissenting views on the General Committee. At the same time, however, he also lost the trust of numerous naval officers who did not believe in the restrictions of the contract or in elected representatives who would campaign for the construction of the permitted ship capacities.
After the hearings, Pratt officially took command of the US fleet again and carried out maneuvers and target practice off Hawaii . In fact, the London Naval Treaty also satisfied political interests, particularly that of US President Herbert Hoover. This wanted on the one hand to reduce international tensions and on the other hand to reduce national expenditure in order to achieve a balanced budget. The contract actually reduced competitive shipbuilding, but the US Navy fell so far behind in cruiser construction that the pent-up demand for Great Britain continued to grow. Furthermore, from the point of view of the US President, the modernization of the battleships was the direct route to national bankruptcy. At that time, received the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Charles Frederick Hughes, the statement of the President that the Navy budget for 1932 by an additional 30 million US dollars should be shortened. This ultimately led to Hughes' early resignation as Chief of Naval Operations on September 17, 1930.
After the resignation of Admiral Hughes, Pratt took over his position as Chief of Naval Operations on September 17, 1930 and thus as the highest ranking officer and Admiral Chief of Staff in the US Navy. This change was not originally planned for November 1930.
After taking office, he set up a planning team under Rear Admiral Montgomery M. Taylor , who took care of the day-to-day business and should relieve Pratt. Rear Admiral John Halligan, Jr. later became Assistant Chief of Naval Operations, while Rear Admiral Taylor led the new war planning department. At the same time, he appointed numerous younger officers, whom he had promoted in his various functions for years, to his closer advisory staff, such as the later Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Captain Royal E. Ingersoll , who was responsible for fleet training in the Operations Department, or the Lieutenant Commander Calvin T. Durgin , who was responsible for ship movements in the Operations Department , was later to become Deputy Chief of Naval Operations.
As early as October 8, 1930, Pratt gave the personal order that 48 ships and 4800 members of the navy should be removed from the active navy. This enabled the existing ships to be manned with 80 to 90 percent of the necessary personnel. This has saved $ 11 million over a two year period. The second innovation concerned the establishment of four sub-units of the US fleet, signed on November 15, 1930, which came into force on April 1, 1931. In doing so, Pratt implemented the proposals made by Admiral Wiley in 1928/1929 to reorganize the US fleet. In the future, the Commander-in-Chief of the US Fleet was responsible for the battleship units, the reconnaissance units, the submarine units and the naval base units. In addition, an operational commander and a vice-admiral responsible for administrative tasks were assigned to the CINCUS. During this time he also laid the foundations for the increased use of carrier-supported aircraft from aircraft carriers .
Under Pratt's leadership, the General Committee of the Navy presented a 15-year shipbuilding program in late 1930 to bring the US Navy to the strength set out in the London Naval Treaty by 1935 and to ensure the replacement of obsolete battleships. From the point of view of the US President and the US Congress, however, this program was too expensive. He then submitted a ten-year program that provided for the construction of cruisers and the modernization of battleships so that the strength set out in the London Naval Treaty could be achieved and a tie with the Royal Navy could be established. However, this was also rejected at the hearings in the US Congress.
In February 1931, Pratt reported to the Naval Committee of the House of Representatives that after Fleet Exercise XII off the west coast of Central America , his naval officers agreed that air strikes were of less importance for a defense against advancing fleets than previously assumed.
In 1932, after a hearing in the Naval Committee of the House of Representatives, he was allowed to accept the order as Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor . At the same time, at this hearing, the commander of the reconnaissance fleet, Vice Admiral Arthur L. Willard , was allowed to accept the order as commander of the Legion of Honor.
Intended resignation in 1932
After the Republican Herbert Hoover had clearly lost the US presidential election on November 8, 1932 to the Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt , Pratt, who was close to the Republicans himself, intended to resign prematurely from his position as Chief of Naval Operations. However, this met with resistance from the newly elected president, who wanted to keep Pratt in this office. As a result, the then Judge Advocate General of the US Navy , Rear Admiral Orin G. Murfin , decided that the 64-year retirement regime introduced in 1929 would not apply to the Chief of Naval Operations, but only to Navy personnel below the rank of Vice Admiral. Accordingly, he had to complete his four-year tenure as CNO or be fired by the US President. He then continued his work as Chief of Naval Operations.
Like his predecessor Hoover, the Great Depression forced Roosevelt to implement austerity measures that included a ten percent cut in the salaries of all public servants. Pratt supported these austerity measures by closing six naval yards and also offered a transfer of a third of the naval units to the reserve as well as a rotating system of active units. Soon afterwards, however, Roosevelt's New Deal policy began, which envisaged a labor market program that also included naval shipbuilding.
During this time, there were also considerations to subordinate the US Coast Guard to the US Navy for cost reasons. Pratt was not opposed to the plan, but the then Commandant of the Coast Guard , Rear Admiral Harry G. Hamlet , who saw this endangered the national mission. Finally, the plans were abandoned due to opposition in the US Congress, so the US Coast Guard, a separate component under the supervision of the US Treasury (US Department of the Treasury) remained.
Retired from active service and World War II
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In April 1933, the White House announced that Vice Admiral William Harrison Standley , the previous commander of the reconnaissance units, would become the new Chief of Naval Operations. From Pratt's point of view, this was not the first choice as he himself preferred his former chief of staff, Arthur Japy Hepburn.
On June 30, 1933, he was finally taken into retirement and in his permanent rank ('Permanent Rank') as Rear Admiral on the pension list, before he was taken after a new legislation in 1937 with the rank of Admiral on the pension list. Even after retiring from active military service, he was closely linked to naval policy and wrote, among other things, an article on the London Conference of 1935/36 , which became necessary after Japan left the League of Nations in 1933 and on December 29, 1934 had terminated the Five Power Treaty concluded at the Washington Naval Conference in 1922.
In January 1940 he joined the editorial team of the news magazine Newsweek and wrote a weekly column for this until 1946 , which dealt with the Second World War and later the post-war period. In January 1941, Pratt was ordered back into active military service for a period of six months to advise the naval command on questions of submarine warfare . During this time he developed a concept for convoys that should ultimately lead to the victory of the Atlantic battle in the world war.
For his many years of military service, he was awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal and the Army Distinguished Service Medal , among others .
After his health had deteriorated increasingly since early 1957, Pratt died on November 25, 1957 in the Boston Naval Hospital . He was on 16 March 1960 by his widow Louise Johnson Pratt in honor USS William V. Pratt baptized a flotilla of Farragut class . His documents, such as a manuscript of his unpublished memoirs, are in the archives of the Naval History and Heritage Command .
His only son, William Veazey Pratt, served as a staff sergeant in the US Army during World War II and later worked as a geologist in Alaska .
Publications
- The Setting for the 1935 Naval Conference , in: Foreign Affairs , July 1934
- Pending Naval Questions , in: Foreign Affairs , April 1935
- Warfare in Atlantic , in: Foreign Affairs , July 1941
Background literature
- Gerald E. Wheeler : Admiral William Veazie Pratt. A Sailor's Life , 1969
- Jondavid DuVall, Kimberly Rhoades, John E. Jackson: Naval War College Illustrated History and Guide , ISBN 1-88473-399-9 , pp. 17, 135
- James Bradford: Admirals of the New Steel Navy: Makers of the American Naval Tradition, 1880-1930 , 2013, ISBN 1-61251-259-3
- William Trimble: Admiral William A. Moffett: Architect of Naval Aviation , 2014, ISBN 1-61251-428-6
Web links
- William V. Pratt in the database of Find a Grave (English)
- Gerald E. Wheeler: William Veazie Pratt, US Navy. A Silhouette of an Admiral in the Naval War College Review , May 1969, pp. 37-61
- Short biography on the homepage of the Naval History and Heritage Command
- Short biography in Maritime Quest
- Naval War College painting
- Archive for Admiral William V. Pratt
Individual evidence
- ^ Walter R. Borneman: The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King - The Five-Star Admirals Who Won The War At Sea , 2012, ISBN 0-31620-252-5
- ^ A b Harold Hance Sprout: The Rise of American Naval Power, 1776-1918 , 1990, ISBN 0-87021-778-X , p. XVI
- ↑ Pending Naval Questions , in: Foreign Affairs , April 1935 (freely accessible article beginning)
- ^ Sadao Asada: Culture Shock and Japanese-American Relations: Historical Essays , 2007, ISBN 0-82626-569-3 , p. 117.
- ^ Point Honda. Main Cause of the Accident: Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan on September 1, 1923, and the Unusual Currents near Point Honda on September 8, 1923
- ^ Report of the Court of Inquiry 1931
- ↑ Official list of commended soldiers
- ^ Mark J. Denger, Norman S. Marshall: Californians and the Military. Admiral Joseph Mason "Bull" Reeves, USN (1872-1948)
- ^ A b William M. McBride: Technological Change and the United States Navy, 1865-1945 , 2003, ISBN 0801872855 , p. 13.
- ↑ Donald J. Lisio: British Naval Supremacy and Anglo-American Antagonisms, 1914-1930 , 2014, ISBN 1-10705-695-0 , pp. 130, 150.
- ↑ Eric J. Shaw: Three Presidential Letters: Admiral William V. Pratt and the Birth of Carrier Aviation , Naval War College, 2013.
- ^ William M. McBride: Technological Change and the United States Navy, 1865-1945 , 2003, ISBN 0801872855 , p. 5.
- ↑ To Authorize and Permit Admiral William V. Pratt, US Navy, and Vice Admiral Arthur L. Willard, US Navy, To Accept Diplomas of the Legion of Honor with the Rank of Grand Officer and the Rank of Commander, Respectively, Tendered to Them by the French Government. Hearings before the United States House Committee on Naval Affairs, Seventy-Second Congress, first session
- ↑ Harry G. Hamlet, 1932-1936 on the US Coast Guard homepage
- ↑ The Setting for the 1935 Naval Conference , in: Foreign Affairs , July 1934 (beginning of the article)
- ↑ Felicitas Hentschke: Democratization as a goal of American occupation policy in Germany and Japan, 1943-1947 , 2001, ISBN 3-82585-293-8 , p. 60
- ↑ Warfare in Atlantic , in: Foreign Affairs , July 1941 (freely accessible article beginning)
- ↑ USS William V. Pratt (DDG 44)
- ^ USS William V. Pratt (DLG-13, later DDG-44), 1961-1995
- ↑ USS WILLIAM V. PRATT (DL-13 / DLG-13 / DDG-44)
- ↑ USS William V. Pratt (DLG-13, DDG-44) , in: Naval Warfare of November 30, 2010, title page
- ^ Papers of Admiral William V. Pratt, 1895-1962 on the homepage of the Naval History and Heritage Command
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pratt, William V. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pratt, William Veazie (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | US Navy Admiral and Chief of Naval Operations |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 28, 1869 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Belfast , Maine |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 25, 1957 |
| Place of death | Boston , Massachusetts |