Oral Histories

This is a lively, candid, informative memoir from the officer who served as Commandant of the Coast Guard from 1986 to 1990. After growing up in Indiana and Florida, he went to prep school in Washington, D.C., shortly after World War II and graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in ...

Admiral Elmo “Bud” Zumwalt was one of the best-known U.S. naval officers from the second half of the 20th century. As Chief of Naval Operations from 1970 to 1974 he made sweeping changes. In his memoir On Watch, published in 1976, the admiral discussed the CNO years in great ...

Launched in September 1982 — one month after the opening interviews conducted for the oral history of Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., Naval Institute oral historian Paul Stillwell embarked on a project to augment Zumwalt’s memoir with those of some of the officers who had served under him. The highly ...