History Happenings
What’s going on in the Naval Order…..
USS Constitution - Flagship of the Naval Order
BACKUP: History Happenings Around the Order
Monthly History Presentation
e-mail nouscongress@outlook.com for more information.
NAVAL ORDER OF THE UNITED STATES
presents
Naval Order of the United States History Night – aired May 11, 2022
THE ABALONE UKULELEA Tale of Far Eastern Intrigue
By Roger L. Crossland
ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKER:
With the benefit of thirty-five years’ service, active and reserve, as a U.S. Navy SEAL officer (two hot wars. one cold), Crossland has found projecting his grasp of naval intrigue one hundred years into the past an interesting challenge. Captain Crossland has written internationally on the subject of maritime unconventional warfare and includes U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings and the New York Times among his credits. His historical crime novel, Jade Rooster, received the Admiral David Glasgow Farragut Award for naval literature in 2008.
The Abalone Ukulele: A Tale of Far Eastern Intrigue is an historical novel set in 1913 Shanghai, where four cultures are about to collide: China, Korea, Japan, and the US. The point of collision is three tons of Japanese gold ingots meant to undermine an already collapsing China.
Three ordinary men, a disgraced Korean tribute courier, a bookish naval officer, and a polyglot third-class quartermaster realize they must foil Japanese subversion and — with sub rosa Asiatic Station support — highjack that gold to finance a Korean insurrection. Three ordinary women complicate, and complement, their efforts: an enigmatic Changsan courtesan, a feisty Down East consular clerk, and a clever Chinese farm-girl.
It is a tale that wends through the outskirts of Peking to the Yukon River; from the San Francisco waterfront to a naval landing party isolated on a Woosung battlefield; from ships of the US Asiatic Fleet moored on Battleship Row to a junk on the Yangtze; and from the Korean gold mines of Unsan to a coaling quay in Shanghai. Soon a foreign intelligence service, a revolutionary army, and two Chinese triads converge on a nation's ransom in gold.
Praise for THE ABALONE UKULELE
“Crossland’s tale of shenanigans, greed, nobility, slivers of grace, propels across a geography spanning Shanghai, the Klondike gold fields, and San Francisco’s wharves. His characters are elemental, with a commedia dell’arte quality. Occasionally details intrude on flow, but clues to a mystery are sprinkled skillfully throughout, keeping the reader turning the page.”
— Loretta Goldberg, Author of the award-winning novel, The Reversible
Mask
“In the first reading, Crossland’s book is a swashbuckling adventure yarn about sailors fighting their way through a port city in China, and miners along the West Coast of North America from Alaska to San Francisco, seeking fortune by hook or crook. But at a higher level, the book
illustrates a much broader theme in modern history; that of competing nations jockeying for position to dominate the global economy through finance, access to resources and industrial growth and power.”
— Byron W. King, Editor, Agora Financial; CAPT, USN (Ret.)
“The author does an excellent job of weaving realistic background history into a very complex story taking place on multiple continents at the intersection of 4 competing states.”
— Kenneth M. Swope, Dr. Leo A. Shifrin Chair of Military & Naval History, United States Naval Academy (2019-20); Professor of History, University of Southern Mississippi; Book Review Editor, The Journal of Chinese Military History
Visit Publisher Website: http://www.newacademia.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/NewAcademia
Watch Presentation HERE!!!!
Join us each week for Sea Stories and other tales with the
Naval Order of the United States
Each week we will be on-line for Sea Story Night on Zoom. Each Thursday Night during, on a not to interfere basis with other Naval Order Activities at the National and Local Level, we will be holding Sea Story Night. A completely and totally informal gathering of Comrades and Shipmates to Talk about and share whatever is on their minds. This is a result of some suggestions from the our Congress inputs, so Join us for an hour or two by Linking below at 2000 EST / 1900 CST / 1800 MST/ and 1700 PST (and whatever time that translates to for Hawaii!!) each Thursday! Join us and listen share yours! This is an unmoderated site!.
Click HERE for Sea Story Night!!!
The site will always be available for those who would like to get together on their own!!
Past History Night Presentations
A compilation of the presentations from Past Naval History Nights
13 April 2022
Guest Speaker/Presenter Dr. Marc Wortman.
with a presentation on his book,
Admiral Hyman Rickover: Engineer of Power
Hyman George Rickover (1899–1986), born in a Polish shtetl, was the longest-serving U.S. military officer in history and an almost mythical figure in the United States Navy. Possessing engineering brilliance, a ferocious will, a combative personality, and an indefatigable work ethic, he oversaw the development of nuclear marine propulsion and the first civilian nuclear utility. Marc Wortman will describe the constant conflict Rickover faced and provoked, tracing how he revolutionized the Navy and Cold War strategy.
Dr. Marc Wortman is the author of Admiral Hyman Rickover: Engineer of Power; 1941: Fighting the Shadow War: A Divided America in a World at War; The Millionaires' Unit: The Aristocratic Flyboys Who Fought the Great War and Invented American Air Power; and The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta. His next book, The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived: Thomas Watson Jr. and the Epic Story of the Creation of America's Most Successful Industry, will come out in 2023.
An award-winning journalist, Marc has written articles on a wide range of subjects for Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, Time, Air & Space and many other popular and specialized publications. He was the recipient of a coveted New York Public Library Research Fellowship and was named the University of Texas-Dallas Jalonick Distinguished Lecturer in Aviation History in 2014.
He has taught at Princeton University, Quinnipiac University and other colleges and at a college-level program for inmates at a maximum-security prison in New Jersey. He is a fellow at Yale University's Davenport College and an affiliate of Yale's International Security Studies Program. He has spoken to audiences around the country and appeared on CNN, NPR, C-SPAN BookTV, History Channel, and numerous other broadcast outlets.
Marc was born in St. Louis, Missouri and grew up in the Washington, DC, area. Following college at Brown University, he received a doctorate in Comparative Literature from Princeton University. He lives with his family in New Haven, Connecticut.
Watch Marc Wortman’s Presentation Here!
Those NOUS members wishing to purchase a copy at a 40% discount on the $26 cover price plus free shipping, less than Amazon(!), enter the code RICKOVER at https://www.jewishlives.org/books/rickover checkout. The first printing has sold out and copies ordered now will take a bit to arrive.
Naval History Night with CAPT Stan Carpenter, Ph.D.
The Rise and Fall of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, 1900-1918
9 March 2022
Most Americans are unaware that the Austro-Hungarian Empire developed and built a significant naval force from the late 19th century until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Two dynamics drove the naval expansion that included large, powerful dreadnought-type battleships as well as cruisers, destroyers, small craft and submarines. First, the threat of an aggressive Italy in the Adriatic region as Italy expanded its battleship fleet in the same period. Secondly, the power of the maritime theories of Rear Alfred Thayer Mahan, USN, who argued in his several books that the way for great nations to arise and maintain their status and power was through maritime strength. That meant taking command of the sea through decisive battle between great powerful battle fleets. Many nations that had not previously been maritime states such as Japan, Imperial Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire began building fleets. From the time of the naval victory over the Italians at the Battle of Lissa in 1859, the Austro-Hungarians rapidly built a robust force. The presentation addresses the growth of the fleet and the establishment of a naval tradition in the two decades prior to World war I and then its relatively small actual role in the war leading to its demise with the collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of the war in 1918.
Watch the Presentation Here!
Briefing Slides from the A-H Presentation
Briefing Paper for the A-H Presentation
9 February 2022
NAVAL HISTORY NIGHT with Paul Stillwell
“VADM Willis A. Lee Jr. - Battleship Commander”
Watch Paul Stillwell’s Presentation Here!
12 January 2022
Naval History Night with Award winning author Bob Stockton!
“A Walk with Life”
Watch Bob’s Presentation Here!!
* (see https://bobsbooksite.com/press.html)
8 December 2021
NAVAL HISTORY NIGHT with Dr. Alan Bliss
Florida First Coast Companion and CEO of the Jacksonville Historical Society
Oral History: Importance and the ‘How to’
View Presentation Here!
10 November 2021
NAVAL HISTORY NIGHT with Dale Jenkins
New York Companion and author of the upcoming book
Diplomats and Admirals
PEARL HARBOR
Watch the Presentation Here!
https://dale-jenkins.com/diplomats-and-admirals/
No Presentation was conducted in October due to Annual CONGRESS
21 Sep 2021
“From Belleau Wood to Guadalcanal: Thomas Holcomb and the Making of the Modern Marine Corps”
Listen to the Presentation Here!
David J. Ulbrich, Ph.D.
14 July 2021
CAPT John Rodgaard, USN (Ret) co-author of ‘From Across the Sea: North Americans in Nelson’s Navy (From Reason to Revolution)’
Watch CAPT Rodgaard’s Presentation Here!
9 June 2021
Brent E. Jones, author of ‘Days of Steel Rain’ and winner of the 2017 Mayborn Literary Conference Personal Essay prize
Watch the Brent Jones Presentation Here!
12 May
John Wukovits
Author of Dogfight Over Tokyo
and winner of the 2018 Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Award for
Naval Literature for Tin Can Titans.
Watch the John Wukovits Presentation here!
14 April
Marc Liebman
Watch the Marc Liebman Presentation Here!
Northwest Commandery Presents
Admiral Thomas Hayward and Dr. John Lehman Vietnam Veterans Day Discussion
Presentation Link TBD
10 March 2021
The Naval Order of the United States presented its Monthly Naval Order History Night Presentation with Rachel Lance, author of
“IN THE WAVES: My Quest to Solve the Mystery of a Civil War Submarine"
Watch the Rachel Lance Presentation Here!!!
10 February
Noted Naval Historian, Author and Literary Agent James Hornfischer with James Sullivan, author of Unsinkable
Access the Video of James Sullivan session HERE!!!
13 January
‘A Slide show on the Vietnam War ‘
Graphic and moving!
9 December
Dr John Lehman
Access his Presentation from 9 Dec Here!
11 November
James Hornfischer
James Hornfischer’s Discussion is posted here!!!
Watch a Video of the Surrender Ceremony that Ended World War II
Click here for the YouTube Video
National History Day 2021 Winner Jack Brown’s presentation: “Operation Ivy Bells”
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