From the Executive Director’s Desk By Rear Adm. Edward S. “Sonny” Masso, USN (Ret.)
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t the beginning of the pandemic, your Foundation staff took a hard look at how to best deliver relevant, quality content to our members that was easily accessed and that offered a way to directly interface with our team and get direct answers from our subject matter experts on any given topic. We began our quest by turning to our mission and vision statements for our 96-year-old Foundation: Preserve and Honor: Remembering the legacy of those who came before us. Educate and Inspire: Passing the legacy on to the generations who will follow.
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and Naval History The Loss of the USS Thresher (over 25,000 views) Lord Horatio Nelson at 250. His semiquincentennial of going to sea with the Royal Navy The NHF 2021 Annual Meeting featuring the origins of Top Gun The Navy in Operation Desert Storm The Navy Reserve/Mustin Family connection over a century of service Batter Up: Major League Baseball and the U.S. Navy in World War II Art of the Sea: The artistic works of commissioned Navy artist Arthur Beaumont • The 20th commemoration of 9/11 and the Navy’s role
All together, these Second In October 2019 we hosted Saturday webinars have been an exceptional and well-attended viewed live and from YouTube by event commemorating the Battle of over 30,000 viewers with many Leyte Gulf at the historic Decatur substantial and positive comments House, just across the street from from the viewers. Future topics the White House. Our Foundainclude the following: tion historian, Dr. Dave Winkler, • The Battle of Surigao Straits as reached out to C-SPAN, and they told from Adm. James Holloway’s graciously recorded our conference, personal experience, with a distinwhich served as one of our motivaguished panel tors for creating our Second Saturday • USS Olympia’s 100th anniversary webinar. of delivering the hallowed remains As the pandemic emerged, the of the first Unknown Soldier to the Foundation was again challenged to Washington Navy Yard for delivery The Art of the Sea Second Saturday webinar in host an annual meeting, this time to Arlington National Cemetery August featured the works of commissioned Navy via an online platform with a guest artist Arthur Beaumont. • 80th commemoration of Pearl speaker (Dr. Craig Symonds) being Harbor featured from a remote location. What we found by doing this was very impressive. We In addition, we continue to bring you our weekly had record numbers of viewers, and bringing Tom Hanks Thursday Tidings e-letters. We are proud of the content we in to introduce Dr. Symonds (a technical consultant for deliver to you each week and month. Our plans for the the movie Greyhound) seemed to be the “hook” to attract a future include both podcasts and more artist chats between large audience. We were sold on the prospect of delivering book authors and our staff historian, Dr. Winkler. solid content with historically relevant warfighters, histoThere has never been a better time to join our Foundarians, and academicians to develop and deliver what today tion or donate to our advancement of the promotion of is known as Second Saturday. The results of our webinars naval history. We look forward to you joining us to enjoy are impressive. Our topics have included the following: all our historical content! • The NHF Annual Meeting featuring Dr. Craig Symonds • Leadership Lessons of Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower • Herman Wouk and The Caine Mutiny: The Book, Movie,
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Naval Historical Foundation
Edward S. “Sonny” Masso Rear Adm., USN (Ret.)
