Historical Perspective

Navy Day: A Movable Celebration?

By DAVID F. WINKLER

Dr. David F. Winkler is a historian with the Naval Historical Foundation.

In 1919, the Navy League of the United States, then less than 20 years young, could nonetheless take considerable pride in what it had already accomplished. Starting with virtually nothing--but with the strong encouragement of President Theodore Roosevelt and a few other visionaries who realized the importance of seapower, both naval and commercial, to the U.S. economy and to the nation's future as a world power, the Navy League's leadership had built a strong national organization dedicated to educating the American people, the press, and the nation's political leaders about the need for a strong U.S. Navy and American merchant fleet.

Congress proved particularly receptive to the NLUS message. In the wake of America's entry into World War I and the subsequent U.S. victories at sea and on the battlefields of France that brought that bloody conflict to a merciful end, the United States possessed one of the world's largest and most capable combat fleets.

However, the "Great War" was erroneously and almost universally believed to be "the war to end all wars." Future conflicts would be resolved peacefully through the newly formed League of Nations. Believing that it was the so-called "arms races" between the great powers that had paved the way for and precipitated the outbreak of war that exploded with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, leaders of the victorious powers agreed to establish naval arms limitations to prevent a repetition. With the size of the U.S. Navy of the future being negotiated at the Washington Naval Arms Conference rather than in the halls of Congress, the leadership of the Navy League pondered the future of the organization, which already was experiencing a decline in membership.

In 1921, because dues income had continued to drop, the Navy League ceased publication of Sea Power Magazine, even though that action was expected to cause additional losses of both membership and income. Those expectations were met, and exceeded. The organization's debts mounted, and a number of Navy League councils were talking about the possibility of disbanding.

Demonstrating exceptional leadership when it was most needed, as well as a continuing firm belief in the Navy League's cause, Col. Robert Thompson, then serving as NLUS national president, picked up on a proposal originally put forward by the New York Council--namely, to support the designation of a national "day" to honor the U.S. Navy, its numerous achievements from the Revolutionary War to the present, and its people. Thompson contributed $10,000 of his own funds to support the idea, and also agreed with the plan of celebrating "Navy Day" on 27 October, Theodore Roosevelt's birthday.

President Warren Harding endorsed the Navy League's proposal, and NLUS councils throughout the country quickly mobilized to stage community events honoring Navymen past and present. Numerous radio stations as well as newspapers and magazines devoted air time and editorial space publicizing Navy Day. A number of other news organizations did not, though, and expressed skepticism about the Navy League's ulterior motives.

The success of the 1922 Navy Day celebration--originally planned as a one-time event to "rally the troops"--led the NLUS board of directors to institutionalize it as an annual national day on which to garner public support for the Navy throughout the nation. The hard work started by Navy Leaguers to promote the 1923 Navy Day celebration quickly gained recognition at the highest levels of government. Harding's successor, President Calvin Coolidge, in a 29 August letter describing the Navy as the nation's "first line of defense," expressed his support for the Navy League's decision to continue the 27 October event. Navy League councils arranged for similar endorsements and proclamations from 35 governors and numerous other public figures. The leaders of many veterans' groups also urged their members to join in the local Navy Day events honoring the Navy and recognizing the services and sacrifices of America's Navymen, past, present, and future.

Fifty of the nation's largest cities staged Navy Day observances that year, and the Navy helped out by deploying at least one or two ships to several port cities throughout the country. Hundreds of newspapers and at least 30 radio stations publicized the 1923 Navy Day events, with a number of the papers that a year earlier had been so skeptical also joining in.

The Navy League itself was revitalized, and Navy Day became a hardy perennial on the nation's calendars as an annual day of recognition for the naval service. The 1945 Navy Day celebration was a particularly memorable one, coinciding as it did with the return to CONUS (the continental United States) of literally hundreds of ships bedecked with campaign ribbons for their WWII service overseas. President Harry S. Truman reviewed the fleet in New York Harbor, joined in a ticker-tape parade, and addressed the nation as part of that year's Navy Day celebration.

Less than four years later, though, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson directed that Navy Day be folded into a larger "Armed Forces Day" celebration to be held in May. His edict had virtually no effect on the Navy League, then as now an all-civilian organization. The celebration of Navy Day continued and prospered during the 1960s and 1970s.

In the early 1970s, though, historical research revealed that the Continental Congress had first authorized funds on 13 October 1775 for the construction of Navy ships. With a real rather than symbolic Navy "birth date" thus established, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt arranged with the Navy League in 1972 to celebrate Navy Day two weeks earlier than in the past.

It retrospect, because the new date for Navy Day has had to compete with the long-established Columbus Day celebrations, it has seemed to many Navy supporters that Zumwalt should have ignored the historians. The Navy and Navy League now celebrate Navy Day on (or close to) 13 October, but for various reasons the grandeur of the Navy Days of yesteryear is often lacking. However, the establishment of a national Navy Day remains a lasting tribute to Thompson's perseverance--and to the hard work of several generations of Navy League members. *

Source: Navy League Archives