Philadelphia-born Astronaut Pete Conrad was a ‘Hoot,’ and a Great Pilot

 On August 29, 1965, Astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. is hoisted up to a Navy helicopter while astronaut L. Gordon Cooper Jr. waits in a life raft below after the splashdown of the Gemini-5 spacecraft. (NASA Photograph S65-51659)

By Steve Milner
Contributing Writer

I didn’t know astronaut Pete Conrad very well when I worked at Cape Canaveral and Kennedy space Center. I’d see him training for his various space missions, or relaxing somewhere in the Florida Spaceport area. Regardless of the location, he was always approachable and friendly during those times.  

I was contracted to the NASA Public Affairs Office for about eight years. And among my editorial duties was writing most of the Apollo mission photo captions in real-time–from training through splashdown and saw different aspects of Conrad and his Apollo 12 crew, Dick Gordon and Alan Bean. But Conrad and I did have some things in common: We were both from Philadelphia–he was from the up-scale Main Line and I grew up “across the tracks” in less-affluent South Philadelphia; we were both five-foot-six inches tall, bald; and looked a little alike from a distance. But that’s where the similarities ended—he flew jet planes and spacecraft, and I get dizzy on a Ferris wheel.

Astronaut Alan L. Bean, lunar module pilot, is assisted with egressing the Apollo 12 Command Module by a U.S. Navy underwater demolition team swimmer during recovery operations in the Pacific Ocean on November 24, 1969. Already in the life raft are astronauts Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr., commander; and Richard F. Gordon Jr., command module pilot. The three crewmen of the second lunar landing mission were picked up by recovery helicopter and flown to the prime recovery ship, USS Hornet (CVS 12). The Apollo 12 splashdown occurred at 2:58 p.m. (CST), November 24, 1969, near American Samoa. While astronauts Conrad and Bean descended in the Lunar Module (LM) "Intrepid" to explore the Ocean of Storms region of the moon, astronaut Gordon remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) "Yankee Clipper" in lunar orbit. (NASA Photograph S69-22265 via Naval History and Heritage Command Photo Curator Flickr)

The recovery ship USS Hornet (CVS 12) hoists the Apollo Twelve Command Module aboard. The spacecraft splashed down less than three miles from the anti-submarine support carrier in the Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island of Samoa, on November 24, 1969. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Drawing, Pencil on Paper; by Paul D. Ortlip of the Apollo 12 Command Module being hoisted aboard the anti-submarine support carrier Hornet after its successful return from the moon on November 24, 1969. (Navy Art Collection)

Rear Admiral Donald C. David, Commander, Manned Spacecraft Recovery Force, Pacific, welcomes the crew of  Apollo 12 aboard USS Hornet (CVS 12) on November 24, 1969.  Inside the Mobile Quarantine Facility are (left to right) astronauts Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr., mission commander; Richard F. Gordon, Jr., command module pilot; and Alan L. Bean, lunar module pilot. Note the "Three More, Like Before" sign where "Hornet +3" was posted after the Apollo 11 mission. After Apollo 14, the requirement for returning astronauts to be quarantined was lifted. (NASA Photo S69-22876 via Naval History and Heritage Command Photo Curator/ Flickr)

Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations, (left), accepts his personal flag from the three Apollo 12 astronauts who carried it with them during the moon mission.  Admiral Moorer also presented them with the Distinguished Service Medal.  Left to right: Captain Charles "Pete" Conrad, Captain Richard Gordon and Captain Alan Bean.  (U.S. Navy photograph 428-GX-USN 1042856, now in the collections of the National Archives via Naval History and Heritage Command Photo Curator Flickr)

Conrad was a well-known jokester when he wanted to be, but certainly was a highly skilled, cool-headed pilot, whether he was flying a fighter jet on earth or a spacecraft a quarter-of-a-million miles away in space. When I saw a huge lightning bolt strike his Apollo 12 Saturn V rocket while it was lifting off from Kennedy Space Center’s Complex 39A, on November 14, 1969, and heard his calm radio transmissions when he reported on-board situational reports to Mission Control, I knew he was the perfect guy to handle that unforeseen and potentially dangerous situation. Fortunately, Apollo 12 was a successful lunar mission.

Steve Milner and Charles "Pete" Conrad after Conrad spoke at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, Virginia, about 1994. (Photo by Pete Westerman/ Courtesy of Steve Milner)

Fast forward about 25 years from that dreary launch day. After I had relocated in our local Virginia area, I saw Conrad for the next and last time. He had given a talk at the Hampton Air & Space Center, where his Apollo 12 spacecraft is still exhibited. After this event he and I reminisced briefly about Cape days. At that time, he kindly signed a photo I had brought with me of his Skylab Workshop being transported to the Spaceport’s Complex 39A in 1973. He died at 69, following a motorcycle accident in California in 1999.

Apollo 12 Command Module Pilot Richard Gordon talks with blog post author Steve Milner's wife Enid during a Manned Flight Awareness event on January 30, 1971, the evening before Apollo 14 was launched to the moon with astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell.  The event was held to honor personnel for their contributions to the space program. (Courtesy of Steve Milner)

Years earlier I, and other honorees, socialized with his Gemini 11 and Apollo 12 crewmate, Dick Gordon, when he greeted us at NASA’s Manned Flight Awareness reception on January 30, 1971. It was held in Cocoa Beach, Florida, the night before the launch of Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell to the moon. I was pleased to be my company’s Spaceport honoree, based on my work performance. Gordon was friendly to honorees and their families and spent time individually with everyone, thanking us for our contributions to the nation’s space program. Other astronauts and celebrities attended this event. Honorees and their guests watched the launch of Apollo 14 the next day from the Spaceport’s VIP site, along with then President Richard Nixon. While my wife attended the VIP site, I had to work on launch day, documenting and writing related NASA photo captions. This task began with photos of the astronauts’ breakfast activities, their suiting up for their flight, their transfer to the launch pad, their entering their spacecraft and, finally, to their launch on a Saturn V rocket at the start of their mission to the moon.

(Courtesy of Steve Milner)

Even though these events took place 50 years ago, I still recall them vividly. And I’ve always been grateful to have had a front-row seat, and be part of an aspect of America’s important history as it unfolded.

Editor's Note: In addition to serving as public affairs officer for 17 years at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Steve Milner was also a public affairs contractor with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at Cape Canaveral during the manned Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs.

A Ringside View of the Moon Shots, Part 8: The Voice of Apollo

Jack King (left), the first chief of Public Information for NASA's Launch Operations Center, checks the settings on his console in the Launch Control Center firing room at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 14, 1969, in preparation to deliver countdown commentary for the Apollo 12 launch. King served as manager of press operations for 12 years, spanning the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. During that time, King was the "voice of launch control" for virtually every human mission from Gemini 4 to Apollo 15. (NASA photograph via Kennedy Space Center/Flickr)

"Voice of Apollo 11" always stuck to the script, and never showboated

By Steve Milner
Contributing Writer

Every good story needs a good storyteller, and Jack King was that guy. You might remember his New-England-accented voice while he was narrating Apollo 11’s final launch preparations and its fiery liftoff. He was the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) public information director and turned over commentary chores to a Houston counterpart when the space vehicle cleared its launch tower. And unlike his two predecessors, John “Shorty” Powers during the Mercury Program, and Paul Haney during the Gemini program, Jack, by NASA’s design, didn’t become a personality in his own right. Powers used to say he was the eighth Mercury astronaut, was a guest on popular television programs and developed his own persona. Haney pretty much did some of the same things, which didn’t sit well with NASA Headquarters public affairs boss, Julien Scheer, who had been a seasoned, no-nonsense newspaper journalist who saw Power’s and Haney’s “performances” as self-promoting, unnecessary distractions from space missions. He eventually fired both of them, with Haney’s unexpected termination only weeks away from voicing commentary for Houston’s portion of the Apollo 11 mission.

According to Jack’s on-line obituary in 1985, his son, “Chip” King, was a U.S. Navy pilot who flew the longest F-14 Tomcat combat mission in history, 1,800 miles at that time, for an attack in Afghanistan on October 2001, after 9/11. I didn’t know “Chip,” but I worked with his Mom at KSC.

Jack King, the first Chief of Public Information for NASA's Launch Operations Center, briefs the media on the lunar roving vehicle (LRV) prior to the launch of Apollo 15 during a press conference in the Operations and Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in March 1971. (NASA photograph via Kennedy Space Center/Flickr)

I always had good dealings with Jack and his KSC public information staff, whom I supported on a daily basis in my regular job. Jack stuck to the countdown facts, as did his Houston counterparts during missions. He also was very helpful when I was co-writing a free-lance book, published in 1966, before working at the spaceport. Its title was Cape Kennedy, America’s Spaceport. In those days the Cape had been renamed to honor the late President Kennedy. And it regained its original name from the Sixteenth Century, Cape Canaveral, after the Kennedy family approved this change in 1973.

Editor's Note: In addition to serving as public affairs officer for 17 years at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Steve Milner was also a public affairs contractor with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at Cape Canaveral during the manned Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs.

A Ringside View of the Moon Shots, Part 7: A Forgotten Press Corps Casualty

Space beat reporter John Wasik as he appeared in Steve Milner's book Cape Kennedy: America's Spaceport. (Courtesy of Steve Milner)

Unable to Stop Apollo 1, John Wasik Didn’t Live to See Apollo 11

By Steve Milner
Contributing Writer

Lost in the many celebrations surrounding the 50th anniversary of our nation’s first manned lunar landing–the Apollo 11 mission–is a tragic story about a young man, a space aficionado and skilled journalist, who didn’t live to see this unprecedented event…even though he spent his life thinking and writing about it. He was John Wasik, a self-taught reporter whose fascination with our early space program fostered professional and personal friendships with the Original 7 Mercury astronauts. His life revolved around our space program, which he regularly wrote about in his column in the Titusville, Florida, Star-Advocate newspaper.

John grew up in Norwich, Connecticut, about 14 miles north of the U.S. Navy’ Groton Submarine Base. He married his high school sweetheart and served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a court reporter, after sustaining a non-combat recurring condition that resulted in severe headaches during the rest of his life. This illness ended his military career, which also included Air Force service.

He always wanted to be a journalist, and combined with his love of the fledgling American space program, he reasoned it would be a good fit to move to the Cape area to satisfy these two dreams. But while earning his new stripes as a civilian in the fast-paced space world, his marriage fell apart, and his four children remained with their mother. And somewhere along this path he met cute, smart and outgoing Rickie Glover who, at 21, was seven years younger than he was. Initially, she typed a hand-written book manuscript for John, who brought it to her home on several occasions. She lived there with her retired military family, who quickly wondered about his intentions. Were his hand-written notes a ruse to see her? It’s possible it was. (I never asked John about the timeline of these events—his marriage, divorce and his new relationship with Rickie.)

When I relocated in the Cape Kennedy area in November 1964 as a freelance reporter, I knew very little about the space program as I was trying to break into a new journalism career. Quickly realizing my shortcomings in this area, John took me under his wing as we covered numerous unmanned rocket launches and other space-related events. In doing so, John frequently advised, explained and simplified complicated space terms for me, and also introduced me to astronauts and to other current and former Spaceport icons.

Our friendship eventually evolved from these instructional beginnings, and we later roomed together at two separate apartment complexes, located in the City of Cape Canaveral. (It would be a few more years until the Spaceport reverted to its original name, Cape Canaveral, after President John Kennedy’s family gave NASA permission to do so. The City of Cape Canaveral had kept its name after President John Kennedy’s assassination.)

During this time John spoke a lot to me about Rickie, whom I had never met, before her parents financed her relocation in England to sharpen her horseback-riding skills, first as a student, and later as an instructor. They hoped this 3,000-mile separation would end her relationship with john.

It would be more than a year that they would be apart, but John never stopped pursuing Rickie—staying in touch with her via regular mail. At some point she decided to return to the Cape area and to go back to work at the Spaceport for the same company where I eventually was a NASA public affairs contractor. John drove the 900 or so miles straight-through to Philadelphia to pick Rickie up at the airport, and I rode as a passenger with him there. He didn’t trust me to shift the gears on his Pontiac Trans Am muscle car. While en route, I clearly remember while we were driving at night after a heavy snowstorm had hit North Carolina, John spotted a large tractor-trailer, seemingly stranded on the other side of Interstate 95. Without hesitating, he told me to wait in the car, as he ran across the deserted highway, to see if the driver was okay. Fortunately he was and had stopped to rest.

John’s quick action portrayed his humanitarian side, often lost on others due to his usually perceived brashness that some thought was arrogance. That might have been the case in some circumstances, but combined with his good looks, resourcefulness and perseverance–these were assets that helped him when he was pursuing a news story.

I wanted to see my parents who lived in Philly, and this was a good opportunity for me to do it. Then, the three of us drove back to the Cape area, where she and John moved in together, to the dismay of her parents.

After a few months Rickie and her parents came to terms, and she and John were soon married. I attended their wedding and was glad to see that John had fulfilled one of his dreams. Later that year I married my Penn State sweetheart, Enid. The Wasiks and the Milners socialized occasionally—that is, until Rickie was killed during her second skydiving jump with a local group in Rockledge, just south of the City of Cocoa on the Florida mainland. Understandably, John grieved about Rickie a great deal, compounded by the fact he had encouraged her to take up skydiving.

He blamed himself for her death, exacerbated a few months later when he felt responsible for not being able to stop a launch pad test of a new Apollo 1 spacecraft. It was during this test that astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and rookie Roger Chaffee died in a fire that quickly engulfed their untried Block 1 spacecraft, which didn’t contain a quick-opening hatch.

This photograph shows Apollo 1's Command Module (known then as Apollo 204) a day after the fire that took the lives of Air Force Lieutenant Colonels Virgil "Gus" Ivan Grissom and Lt. Col. Edward Higgins White II, and Navy Lt. Cdr. Roger Bruce Chaffee. The photograph was taken in the White Room at Launch Complex 34. The exterior effects of the intense heat of the flash fire can be seen. An investigative board was promptly set up to examine the accident and identify the cause of the fire. The final report gave the results of the investigation as well as detailed suggestions for major design and engineering modifications,revisions to test planning, manufacturing procedures, and quality control. (NASA photograph via Wikipedia)

John and I were having dinner when we heard about the fire and rushed to the NASA News Center, located atop the Cocoa Beach Cape Royal office building, a 10-story structure a few hundred yards from the Atlantic Ocean. The next 24 hours would be surreal ones, as the media, NASA officials and public affairs officers dealt, with great difficulty, with the onslaught of non-stop news queries from around the world. But people had to know information about this tragedy, even preliminary facts, as we fielded repetitive telephone calls from seemingly everywhere imaginable.

This undated photograph shows the NASA News Center, from which most news of space program activities at Kennedy Space Center reached the outside world. (Courtesy of Steve Milner)

Following their autopsies, the astronauts’ caskets were loaded aboard an Air Force transport plane at the Cape’s airstrip. And those of us who had fielded many difficult news queries about their deaths somberly switched from our earlier roles, and grieved with others who had gathered for their tearful send-off. Grissom and Chaffee were buried at Arlington National Cemetery and White at his alma mater, West Point. At that time there were rumors that NASA wanted all three buried at Arlington, until White’s widow prevailed and he was taken to West Point for burial.

Earlier, on the day of the early evening Apollo 1 fire, John had pleaded with NASA officials to postpone this test, based on detailed information he had received from a former North American Aviation quality control employee, Thomas Baron, who claimed their spacecraft contained numerous, potentially life-threatening manufacturing flaws. But the test went on as planned, followed by a stunned nation that reflected on these first-related spacecraft deaths. (Several astronauts had been killed in aviation accidents.)

Before the fire, Baron had approached a few reporters with his unproven claims about the new Apollo spacecraft’s shoddy workmanship. But only John believed him, and he went on record with NASA about it.

Following the launch pad accident, Baron testified, unsuccessfully, before Congress and was considered only as a fired, disgruntled former employee. A quality control co-worker also debunked his claims before Congress, as well as the blue ribbon panel that was set up to investigate the fire. Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman played a key role in this investigation, literally moving into North American Aviation’s California facility that was building an improved spacecraft, a Block 2 version of the one in which the three astronauts perished.

After the Apollo 1 fire, NASA changed the spacecraft’s life-support environment, replacing its pure oxygen system with a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. The Space Agency also mandated the installation of a quick-opening, explosively activated hatch that opened outwardly, versus the earlier one that required about 90 seconds to manually open inwardly. Numerous other on-board changes were made, and the Block 2 spacecraft safely carried astronauts throughout the Apollo and Skylab Programs.

Ironically, Baron and his family were later killed at a local Florida railroad crossing, which some people said was a suicidal collision with an oncoming train, due to his being depressed after the poor reception he received at the Congressional hearing.

To this day I still wonder if NASA had listened to Baron, and to John’s sincere pleading to stop the fatal Apollo 1 spacecraft test, if this tragedy could have been avoided.

After the Apollo 1 fire, John purchased Grissom’s Corvette from a local dealer, legendary NASCAR driver Jim Rathmann, who had “loaned” this car, and others, to astronauts during their Florida training. Supposedly, John was arrested at the Cape while driving Grissom’s Corvette at a high rate of speed and pointing a gun at his head in a suicidal manner. But the police record made no mention of his allegedly pointing a gun at his head, noting, instead he did have a gun in his vehicle’s glove compartment—which he regularly carried. Of course, it was illegal to bring an unauthorized firearm onto a Federal installation.
 
John remained depressed over his wife’s death, and those of Grissom, Chaffee and White, while outwardly maintaining a normal composure. And during his very difficult, ongoing mourning period, he planned to commit suicide the same way Rickie accidentally died…in a parachute accident. One story circulated that he had cut his parachute’s key internal life lines prior to his jump. Another story was that he had removed his parachute while descending over the same location where Rickie was killed.
 
These tragic Romeo-and-Juliet-like lovers are buried next to one another in the Cape area, with tombstones reflecting their life-long interests: Rickie as a horseback rider, and John as a space and aviation enthusiast.

In laying out the suit in which he wanted to be buried, he put an original Apollo pin in his suit lapel—a pin that an astronaut had given to him. I was called by his family to pick up his four-drawer file cabinet containing space reference materials John wanted me to have. And that’s when I saw a copy of the book I had written a year earlier, entitled Cape Kennedy, America’s Spaceport. In it he had penned a message to his children to look at page 201 in the book’s press section. It showed John in a flight suit, leaning, almost cavalierly, on the needle-like speed Indicator nose of an Air Force fighter plane he was about to fly in as a rear-seat passenger.

The past intersects with the future on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. In the foreground is what remains of historic Launch Pad 34; in the distance behind it is Space Launch Complex 37 whence NASA's Orion spacecraft made its first flight test. In January 1967, a fire erupted on the Pad 34 during a preflight test, taking the lives of the Apollo 1 crew, NASA astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee. (NASA photo by Ben Smegelsky/ KSC-2015-1180 via Kennedy Space Center/Flickr)

I often wonder if my makeshift time capsule consisting of a small plastic medicine bottle containing John’s obituary is still buried where I had left it at the Space Center’s press site five decades ago, three-and-a-half miles from the Apollo 11 launch site. In my heart I felt John’s spiritual presence at this historic launch.

Editor's Note: In addition to serving as public affairs officer for 17 years at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Steve Milner was also a public affairs contractor with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at Cape Canaveral during the manned Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs.

One Century Ago: Bringing 'Em Back after "The Navy Put 'Em Across"

Front side of a postcard featuring an artwork by Norman Rockwell, used by returning troops to report their arrival in the United States from Europe. This example was sent on May 28, 1919, by Private Howard P. Moyer, of the 111th Engineer Regiment, 36th Division, who was embarked on USS Great Northern (ID # 4569). It was mailed to his sister, Mrs. Edith Folger of Richmond, Indiana. (Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski/ Naval History and Heritage Command image)

By M.C. Farrington
HRNM Historian

Naval historians of the First World War tend to gravitate towards great battles such as Jutland and the ferociously frustrating Dardanelles campaign, but these dramatic naval and littoral actions had nothing to do with the U.S. Navy's most decisive contribution to the war, delivering the two-million-man American Expeditionary Force (AEF) to Europe. By this time one hundred years ago, what was then known as the Great War had been over for months, but many of the American Soldiers and Marines who fought its final, bloody campaigns were still coming home.

Front side of a postcard used by returning troops to report their arrival in the United States from Europe. This example was sent on August 6, 1919, reporting the arrival of a member of the 34th Engineer Regiment at Norfolk, Virginia, on USS Texan (ID # 1354). It was mailed to his mother, Mrs. Arthur Dean of Nevada, Iowa. (Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski/ Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Although many different kinds of American surface combatants played important roles in containing the German submarine threat and saving Great Britain from potential starvation, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet's Cruiser and Transport Force, consisting of 45,000 U.S. naval personnel manning 24 cruisers and 42 transport vessels (many of which were German passenger liners confiscated after the American entry into the war) put an entire American army across the Atlantic, a feat inconceivable to European leaders on all sides of the conflict before the Navy actually accomplished it.

Postcards for virtually every troopship in the Cruiser and Transport Force were produced by enterprising entrepreneurs in 1919 for returning members of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), plus the warships that were also pressed into service to bring soldiers back to America. USS DeKalb, which brought 8,949 AEF personnel back to America after the Armistice, served as the German auxillary cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich, sinking 11 vessels before its crew sought refuge at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1915. (Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski/ Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Even after American troops irrevocably tipped the balance against Germany and the Cental Powers and the war was ostensibly over, the Navy had much more to do. Even battleships and cruisers were pressed into the effort to bring home the Soldiers and Marines as quickly as possible, which stretched into the summer of 1919.

This hastily-made postcard shows USS Virginia (BB-13), which brought back 5,784 members of the AEF to American shores before resuming its regular duties in July, 1919. (Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski/ Naval History and Heritage Command image)

"After the signing of the Armistice," wrote Vice Admiral Albert Gleaves, Cruiser and Transport Force commander, "the United States Transport Fleet expanded still more, and developed into a fleet of 149 ships manned by 4,238 officers and 59,030 men, with the gratifying result that 86.7 per cent[sic] of our overseas army was brought home under the Stars and Stripes."

Such an unprecedented feat was accomplished largely to an unprecedented recruiting effort, one which artists contrubuted to by accentuating the great fun to be had by those who volunteered.  A recruiting poster in our collection by the famous maritime artist Henry Reuterdahl shows a smiling, cheerful Sailor bearing a Soldier across the waves.

(Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

Despite the vital job Sailors performed in making sure the AEF returned home safe and sound, many of the volunteers who made it possible felt that the returning Doughboys were basking in the public's adulation at their expense.

Don't take my word for it.  Check out this editorial cartoon from a magazine published at Naval Operating Base Norfolk (now Naval Station Norfolk) during the war:

This editorial cartoon was made as part of a contest for the readers of Navy Life, but so far the issue of the magazine announcing the winner has not been found. (M.C. Farrington/ Courtesy of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum) 

The similarity between the recruiting poster and the cartoon might be coincidental, but probably not.  The cartoonist, Ensign Adolph Goodwin, had probably seen Reuterdahl's poster. The magazine he worked for, Navy Life, was a short-lived contemporary of The Stars and Stripes, published by the AEF in France by uniformed service members. Although official publications, the editorial policies of Navy Life and Stars and Stripes didn't necessarily adhere to official United States Government policy.

Adolph Goodwin made charactures of Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, among other luminiaries, in a book about his hometown, Who's Who in Raleigh (1916). (Libraty of Congress via Internet Archive/ Hathi Trust)

While famous artists like Henry Reuterdahl produced well-received work presenting the Navy to the public as its leaders wished it to be seen, some lesser-known artists in uniform have bequeathed work that shows us how members of the Navy saw themselves.