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Samuel Eliot
Morison, son of John H. and Emily Marshall (Eliot) Morison, was born in Boston,
Massachusetts, on 9 July 1887. He attended Noble’s School at Boston, and St.
Paul’s at Concord, New Hampshire, before entering Harvard University, from
which he was graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1908. He studied at
the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques, Paris, France, in 1908-1909, and
returned to Harvard for postgraduate work, receiving the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy in 1912. Thereafter he became Instructor, first at the University
of California in Berkeley, and in 1915 at Harvard. Except for three years
(1922-1925) when he was Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford,
England, and his periods of active duty during both World Wars, he remained
continuously at Harvard University as lecturer and professor until his retirement
in 1955.
He had World War I service as a private in the US Army, but not overseas. As
he had done some preliminary studies on Finland for Colonel House’s Inquiry,
he was detailed from the Army in January 1919 and attached to the Russian
Division of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, at Paris, his
specialty being Finland and the Baltic States. He served as the American
Delegate on the Baltic Commission of the Peace Conference until 17 June 1919,
and shortly after returned to the United States. He became a full Professor
at Harvard in 1925, and was appointed to the Jonathan Trumbull Chair in 1940.
He also taught American History at Johns Hopkins University in 1941-1942.
Living up to his sea-going background - he has sailed in small boats and coastal
craft all his life. In 1939-1940, he organized and commanded the Harvard
Columbus Expedition which retraced the voyages of Columbus in sailing ships,
barkentine Capitana and ketch Mary Otis. After crossing the Atlantic under
sail to Spain and back, and examining all the shores visited by Columbus in
the Caribbean, he wrote Admiral of the Ocean Sea, an outstanding biography of
Columbus, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1942. He also wrote a shorter
biography, Christopher Columbus, Mariner. With Maurico Obregon of Bogota, he
surveyed and photographed the shores of the Caribbean by air and published an
illustrated book The Caribbean as Columbus Saw It (1964).
Shortly after the United States entered World War II, Dr. Morison proposed to
his friend President Roosevelt, to write the operational history of the US
Navy from the inside, by taking part in operations and writing them up
afterwards. The idea appealed to the President and Secretary of the Navy
Frank Knox, and on 5 May 1942, Dr. Morison was commissioned Lieutenant
Commander, US Naval Reserve, and was called at once to active duty. He
subsequently advanced to the rank of Captain on 15 December 1945. His
transfer to the Honorary Retired List of the Naval Reserve became effective
on 1 August 1951, when he was promoted to Rear Admiral on the basis of combat
awards.
In July-August 1942 he sailed with Commander Destroyer Squadron Thirteen
(Captain John B. Heffernan, USN), on USS Buck, flagship, on convoy duty in
the Atlantic. In October of that year, on USS Brooklyn with Captain Francis
D. Denebrink, he participated in Operation TORCH (Allied landings in North
and Northwestern Africa - 8 November 1942). In March 1943, while attached to
Pacific Fleet Forces, he visited Noumea, Guadalcanal, Australia, and on Washington
made a cruise with Vice Admiral W. A. Lee, Jr., USN. He also patrolled around
Papua in motor torpedo boats, made three trips up “the Slot” on Honolulu,
flagship of Commander Cruisers, Pacific Fleet (Rear Admiral W.W. Ainsworth,
USN), and took part in the Battle of Kolombangara before returning to the
mainland. Again in the Pacific War Area in September 1943, he participated in
the Gilbert Islands operation on board USS Baltimore, under command of
Captain Walter C. Calhoun, USN. For the remainder of the Winter he worked at
Pearl Harbor, and in the Spring of 1944, again on board Honolulu, he
participated in the Marianas operation before returning to the United States
to write.
In November 1944 he sailed for Europe in the cutter Campbell with Captain W.A.P.
Martin, USN, Commander of a convoy escort group. He left Campbell at
Gibraltar to visit scenes of recent action in Italy and France, and flew back
to the United States in January 1945. In February he joined USS Tennessee,
commanded by Captain Heffernan, and flagship of Commander, Gunfire and
Covering Force (Rear Admiral Morton L. Deyo, USN). During the amphibious
assault upon and subsequent conquest of Okinawa he witnessed many actions
under enemy air attack. He later visited Iwo Jima and the Philippines and
spent some time working on files in Guam.
In July 1945 he returned again to the United States to work. Released to
inactive duty in September 1946, he returned to duty at Harvard, maintaining
an office in the Navy Department under the Director of Naval Records and
History, to continue his work on the History of United States Naval
Operations in World War II. The introduction to the history was written by
Commodore Dudley W. Knox, USN, Retired, and in a preface to the first volume,
the Secretary of the Navy had made it clear that the author, not the Navy, is
responsible for the work. He was assisted from time to time by various Naval
Reserve officers and others who had active war service. On 1 March 1963, the
International Balzan Foundation announced that Admiral Morison was winner of
its cultural prize ($51,750) for his 15-volume history and other maritime
research. The 15 historical volumes, published by Little, Brown & Company
of Boston, are as follows:
I. The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939 – May 1943, (1947)
II. Operations in North African Waters, October 1942 – June 1943, (1946)
III. The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931 – April 1942, (Bancroft Prize),
(1948)
IV. Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, May 1942 – Aug 1942, (1949)
V. The Struggle for Guadalcanal, August 1942 – February 1943, (1949)
VI. Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, 22 July 1942 – 1 May 1944, (1950)
VII. Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, June 1942 – April 1944, (1951)
VIII. New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944 – August 1944, (1953)
IX. Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, January 1943 – June 1944, (1954)
X. The Atlantic Battle Won, May 1943 – May 1945, (1954)
XI. The Invasion of France and Germany, 1944 - 1945, (1955)
XII. Leyte, June 1944 – January 1945, (1956)
XIII. The Liberation of the Philippines, 1944 - 1945, (1959)
XIV. Victory in the Pacific, 1945, (1960)
XV. Supplement and General Index, (1962)
Little, Brown & Company, also published Morison’s Strategy and Compromise
in 1958, and The Two Ocean War in 1963, a one-volume history of the US Navy
in World War II.
Rear Admiral Morison was awarded the Legion of Merit, with Combat
Distinguishing Device “V“, for “exceptionally meritorious conduct in the
performance of outstanding services to the Government of the United States as
Historian of United States Naval Operations, World War II…” In addition, he
received the Victory Medal (World War I); American Campaign Medal;
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal; Asiatic-Pacific Campaign
Medal; World War II Victory Medal; and the Philippine Liberation Ribbon; and
seven engagement stars on his campaign ribbons. He also was Commander of the
Order of the White Rose of Finland. He had the Vuelvo Panamericano Medal,
awarded by the Republic of Cuba in 1943; in 1961 he was created Cavaliero
Ufficiale of the Italian Order, “Al Merito della Republica;” and in 1963 he
was made Commander of the Spanish Order of Isabella the Catholic.
In 1910 he married Miss Elizabeth S. Greene of Boston, Massachusetts, who
died on 10 August 1945. Their children were: Elizabeth (wife of Edward D.W.
Spingarn, retired Colonel, US Army); Emily (wife of Brooks Beck, former
Lieutenant Commander, USNR); Peter Greene Morison (former Lieutenant
Commander Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, later Captain, US Army Air Force); and
Catherine. On 29 December 1949 he married Mrs. Priscilla B. Shakelford of
Baltimore, Maryland. A grandson, Samuel Loring Morison, served as a US Navy
officer off South Vietnam from 1967 to 1968 and in the Naval History Division
from 1968-1972.
Dr. Morison was author of a number of other works and textbooks, including:
Life of Harrison Gray Otis (1913); Maritime History of Massachusetts (1921);
Oxford History of the United States (1927); Builders of the Bay Colony
(1930); Tercentennial History of Harvard University (awarded Jusserand Medal
and Loubat prize, 1930-36); Growth of the American Republic (with Henry
Steele Commager) (1937- in its 5th edition, 1962); Portuguese Voyages to
America (1940); Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1942) (awarded Pulitzer Prize for
biography); Oxford History of the American People (1965); By Land and By Sea
(1953); Spring Tides (1965); and “Old Bruin”, A Biography of Commodore
Matthew C. Perry (1967). In 1960 he was awarded his second Pulitzer Prize for
his biography of John Paul Jones (1959).
He was editor of The American Neptune and The New England Quarterly and
brought out a new edition of William Bradford’s History of Plymouth
Plantation (1952). He was awarded the Emerson-Thoreau Medal of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Gold Medal for history and biography of
the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1963 he won the Balzan Award
for excellence in history, in competition with the historians of the entire
world. The ceremony he described in his Vistas of History (1964). He was
cited as the foremost authority on US Naval history and a major contributor
to American history. Other honors: Past President of the American Historical
Association (1950), of the American Antiquarian Society (1938-1950); Vice
President of the Naval Historical Foundation, and of the Colonial Society of
Massachusetts; Fellow of American Philosophical Society, American Academy of
Arts and Sciences, and British Academy; member of the Royal Academy of
History, Madrid. He was an honorary member of the Massachusetts Historical
Society and the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati, and a member of the
Charitable Irish Society.
He received honorary degrees from Trinity College, Hartford (1935); Amherst
College (1936); Union College (1939); Harvard University (1936); Columbia
University (1942); Yale University (1949); Williams College (1950);
University of Oxford (1951); Bucknell University (1960); Boston College
(1961); and College of the Holy Cross (1962). He was a member of the
Army-Navy Club, Washington; Harvard Club, New York; St Botolph Club and
Somerset Club, Boston; and Athenaeum, London.
He died on 15 May 1976 of a stroke at Boston, Massachusetts, and his ashes
are buried at Northeast Harbor, Maine.
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