Former Professors Serve as Army and Navy Historians

This is the fourth in a series of articles describing the work that Harvard Faculty members are doing in connection with the war effort. Already discussed: Colonel Francis Trow Spaulding and the United States Armed Forces Institute, President James B. Conant and the National Defense Research Committee.

To record the official histories of the part the U. S. Army and Navy are playing in this war, two of Harvard's history professors, Samuel Eliot Morison '08 and Charles H. Taylor, are now working alternately in Washington and at points overseas.

Now a Commander in the U. S. Navy, Samuel Eliot Morison '08, on leave from his post as Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard, is doing for World War II what was done for World War I by Sir Julian Cobbett, whose work is a classic on the subject of sea warfare.

The job of naval historian is particularly fitting for Morison in view of his experience both as an historian and as a navigator. Besides his two double-volume histories of the United States, one done with Henry Steele Commager and his five-volume "Tercentennial History of Harvard University," the sometime professor of American history at Oxford has written "The Maritime History of Massachusetts" and his Pulitzer-prize winning "Admiral of the Ocean Sea, A Life of Christopher Columbus" is the most popular book on the subject.

Morison Rediscovers America

Like Columbus himself, Morison has made four voyages of discovery. In his relentless search for new material on the Admiral's voyages, Morison cruised the Caribbean by yawl (1936-1937): traced Columbus travels along the coast of Santo Domingo (1939); crossed the Atlantic from Palos, Portugal (1939) in an expedition consisting of a 147-foot schooner and a 47-foot ketch; and combed the coast of Cuba and the Bahamas (1940) in the ketch. The actual writing of "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" began at sea, off the Azores in 1939, and was published in 1941. Called "Columbus Junior" by his friend, Franklin Roosevelt, Morison is the leading authority on the discoverer of America.

An active superter of F.D.R.'s foreign policy before the war, the man whom

Time once called "a Boston Brahmin with a bite" urged the President to take a stronger position and to use convoys when he signed an American Defense Harvard Group resolution in April, 1941.

Twelve days before Pearl Harbor, the radio commentator Boake Carter called Morison a "fool" after Morison had laughed at him for approving Finland's stand in aiding the Nazis against Russia.

Then a lieutenant commander, Morison arrived in England in July, 1941, to gather material for historical record of the naval operations of this war. Since then he reportedly witnessed the action at Caeablanca and visited Tarawa; Morison dirides his time between active duty and desk work in Washington.

Taylor Writes Army History

On leave of absence from his chair as Henry Charles Lea Professor of Medieval History at Harvard, Lieutenant Colonel Charles H. Taylor heads the group that is writing the official Army history of the war. Up to now Taylor has held down a desk job in the Pentagon Building at Washington, but it was reported this week that he has gone overseas or is about to leave.

A 15 year old Virginian, Taylor began as an instructor of History at Harvard in 1925, after getting his A.M. degree here in 1922. He was made an associate professor in 1935, and was given the Henry Charles Lea chair in 1941. Chairman of the Division of History, Government, and Economics, Taylor specialized in the intellectual history of the Middle Ages, and in French Medieval History