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William Veazie Pratt papers

 Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: MSC-024

Content Description

The William Veazie Pratt papers document Admiral Pratt’s active naval career from 1910 to 1933, and through his retirement until his death in 1957. They consist of official and personal materials that are especially important for an insight into the problems facing the U.S. Navy during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Included are materials on the Washington Naval Conference, 1921–1922; naval disarmament; U.S. naval policy in the 1920s and 1930s; and the Naval War College in the 1920s.

The bulk of the papers were acquired by the Naval War College Foundation from William Veazie Pratt, Jr., of Belfast, Maine, in four separate accessions made between 1968 and 1971. Photocopies of Pratt materials located in the Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, D.C., and in the Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa, are also included.

The papers are divided into five series: Correspondence; Writings and Speeches; Miscellany; Copies of Pratt Papers in Other Repositories; and Conference and Committee Records and Reports.

Series I, Correspondence, 1901–1963 Series I is divided into three subseries: official, personal, and letters of Mrs. Pratt. Official correspondence consists of memoranda, telegrams, letters received, and copies of letters sent to naval officers, government officials, and civilian associates, 1910–1957. Prominent correspondents include Herbert Hoover, Henry Stimson, Charles Adams, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Josephus Daniels, Admiral Kishisaburo Nomura, and Admiral Henry A. Wiley. Topics of importance include Pratt’s naval career, retirement, naval parity, naval aviation, and American naval power.

Series II, Writings and Speeches, 1921–1956 Series II contains published and unpublished writings and speeches of Admiral Pratt. Unpublished writings consist of drafts of articles and book reviews on topics of national defense, naval ratios, naval command and administration, disarmament, and national and foreign policy problems. Another segment is poetry. Published writings consist of essays for Newsweek magazine written by Admiral Pratt during World War II, and articles on the Naval War College, disarmament, U.S. naval policy, and world peace published during the course of his naval career. Pratt’s speeches deal mainly with naval and international relations topics.

Series III, Miscellany, 1895–1963 Materials in this series include biographical data; newspaper clippings; newsletters; a draft biography of Admiral Pratt prepared by Felicia Hyde; invitations; Admiral and Mrs. Pratt’s will; photographs of family and career situations; and autographed books and pamphlets.

Dates

  • Creation: 1874-1963, undated

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Access is open to all researchers, unless otherwise specified.

Conditions Governing Use

Material in this collection is in the public domain, unless otherwise noted.

Biographical Note

William Veazie Pratt was born in Belfast, Maine, on 28 February 1869. His father, Nicholas Pratt, was chief officer and pilot for the Shanghai Steam Navigation Line, and William spent the first eight years of his life in China before returning to Maine to begin his schooling. He graduated from Belfast High School in 1885 and entered the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall of the same year. He graduated from the Academy in 1889 and was commissioned ensign two years later.

Pratt’s first duty assignment was on board the USS Petrel (PG 2) as watch and division officer. In 1895, he joined the faculty of the Naval Academy as instructor in mathematics and navigation. The advent of the Spanish-American War found him in the Mayflower (PY 1) on blockade off Havana. In 1899, he was navigator in the Newark (C 1), which supported army operations in the Philippines.

During the next ten years, Pratt served at the Naval Academy and in a number of ships. He was promoted to commander in 1910 and the next year joined the staff of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. The assignment represented a turning point in his career, and henceforth, he became an outspoken supporter of the College. During World War I, Pratt served in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington.

The tremendous workload and conflicts over the conduct of the war proved exhausting and he “resolved never to enter that cursed hole again.” The main conflict was between Admiral William S. Benson, CNO, and Rear Admiral William S. Sims, Commander of U.S. Naval Forces in European Waters. Pratt played the role of mediator between these two strong-willed men, and it is to his credit that a working relationship between them was achieved for the duration of the war.

After the war, Pratt moved quickly up the fleet ladder. In 1920, he became Commander, Destroyer Force, Pacific. In June of the following year, he was assigned to the Navy’s General Board to develop naval disarmament proposals for the forthcoming Washington Conference. When the Board failed to satisfy Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, Pratt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and CNO Admiral Robert Coontz formed an ad hoc Naval Advisory Committee to draft the U.S. position for presentation at the Conference.

As technical advisor to the Washington Conference, Pratt attended working committee meetings and assisted in formulating American policy. His personal views on disarmament reflected those of the administration and placed him outside the mainstream of Navy thinking. He incurred the wrath of “big navy men” when he defended the work of the Conference in published articles and speeches. His stance was a courageous one and clearly demonstrated a capacity to place national policy objectives above all else.

In 1925, Pratt became president of the Naval War College, where he instituted notable changes in administration and in the curriculum. He introduced the study of logistics, stressed the committee approach to strategic problem solving, and encouraged joint operations with the Army. Administratively, he created functional division, as in fleet staffs, instead of the traditional teaching departments.

In 1929, Pratt became Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet, and in August of that year President Hoover appointed him head of the U.S. Technical Advisory Committee to the London Conference, slated to convene in January 1930. At the Conference, the main issue of contention between the British and the Americans was 10,000-ton cruisers. The General Board felt that the United States needed twenty-one of these ships for defense purposes in the Pacific. The British advocated a 5,000-ton version. Pratt’s proposal of eighteen large cruisers and five small ones broke the deadlock between the two delegations. Once again he incurred the displeasure of his fellow officers for opposing the Board’s wishes. On his return from London, he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations and the Naval Affairs Committees, where he advocated passage of the Conference treaties.

On 17 September 1930, Pratt was advanced to Chief of Naval Operations. Although he was welcomed by the Bureau Chiefs, to whom he granted a high degree of independence, the General Board greeted his appointment with dismay because of his stand on disarmament.

Shortly after assuming office, Pratt resigned from the General Board, thus providing the Secretary of the Navy with another independent source of advice. Friction quickly developed over the interpretation of maximum and minimum requirements for treaty fleets. The Board advocated a fleet building-up to maximum treaty limits, but the administration was reluctant to do so. Consequently, Pratt formulated policies that aimed at ensuring fleet readiness within the context of reduced funding.

As CNO, Pratt was caught between the strident navalism of his peers and the pacifism of the Hoover administration. Always the pragmatist, he endeavored to strike a balance between the conflicting viewpoints by urging a program of gradual naval construction. By 1933, as the Depression deepened and naval appropriations decreased markedly, Pratt felt that the fleet was substantially weakened and that national security was endangered.

Pratt continued as CNO for four months after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933. His hopes for increased naval appropriations were not realized, due to the national economic situation. He retired on 30 June 1933 and returned to Belfast, Maine, where he spent the remaining years of his life.

Retirement years were spent reading and writing on naval and international relations topics; this included a stint for Newsweek magazine on the war at sea from 1940 to 1946. His only active service was six months in 1941 when President Roosevelt asked him to develop a program to strengthen convoy defense in the Atlantic. In this capacity, he helped devise the escort carrier program and encouraged the use of lighter-than-air transport. Pratt became blind in 1949, and he died at the Chelsea Naval Hospital on 25 November 1957.

Extent

23 boxes (23 boxes and 36 oversized items)

Language of Materials

English