Background
Dudley Wright Knox was born on June 21, 1877 in Walla Walla, Washington, United States, the son of Thomas Taylor Knox, an army officer, and Cornelia Manigault Grayson.
historian naval officer publicist
Dudley Wright Knox was born on June 21, 1877 in Walla Walla, Washington, United States, the son of Thomas Taylor Knox, an army officer, and Cornelia Manigault Grayson.
Knox attended high school in Washington, D. C. , graduated from the United States Naval Academy in June 1896. In 1912 he was assigned to the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island. At the war college, which was then in one of its most important and creative periods, he became closely acquainted with such future leaders of the navy as Royal E. Ingersol, William V. Pratt, and William S. Sims.
During the Spanish-American War Knox served on the U. S. S. Maple on blockade duty in Cuban waters. He subsequently served in the Philippines during the insurrection and, while still an ensign, commanded two small gunboats, the U. S. S. Albay and the U. S. S. Iris. After commanding three destroyers he served as ordnance officer on the battleship Nebraska during the round-the-world voyage of the battle fleet from 1907 to 1909.
In 1912 Knox attained the rank of lieutenant commander. In 1913, when William S. Sims was appointed to command the Atlantic Torpedo Flotilla, Knox went along as his staff aide. Applying the concepts and methods of the Naval War College, Sims, Knox, and Pratt (who served as Sim's chief of staff) transformed the destroyers of the Atlantic Fleet from a sort of low-grade scouting force into a formidable offensive weapon. With his extensive destroyer experience and war college background, Knox played a leading role in developing a "doctrine, " or set of standard operating procedures agreed upon and understood by all, for the flotilla.
When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Knox was serving as commandant of Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba. In November he was ordered to London to join the staff of Admiral Sims, commander of all American naval forces in European waters. Although temperamentally very different from Sims, he worked closely and loyally with his chief. In March 1919 Knox was assigned to the staff of the Naval War College. One year later he returned to sea as commander of the cruiser Brooklyn and subsequently of the cruiser Charleston, flagship of the destroyer force, Pacific Fleet.
But by this time his health, never very robust, had badly deteriorated, and he suffered from poor hearing. In October 1921 he was transferred to the retired list. Although he was ostensibly "retired" the most important phase of Knox's career was only beginning. In 1921 he was appointed officer in charge of the Office of Naval Records and Library. When Knox assumed command of the office, its vast collections of records, including large numbers of those from the recent war, were in an unorganized, almost chaotic state. With a tiny staff, he established a modern archival system and managed to collect and classify most of the important records relating to the navy's activities in World War I. At the suggestion, and with the support, of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the office undertook the collection, editing, and publication of records relating to the activities of the navy in the early days of the Republic.
Between 1934 and 1941 seven volumes of documents relating to the quasi-war with France were published, followed by seven more relating to the Barbary wars. Knox also took a lively interest in the naval questions of his day. From his vantage point in the Office of Naval Records he watched the events of the 1920's and 1930's with grave uneasiness. He perceived his beloved service assailed, on the one hand, by the advocates of disarmament and, on the other, by the enthusiasts of air power. As naval editor of the Army-Navy Journal, naval correspondent for the Baltimore Sun and the New York Herald, and frequent contributor to other periodicals, he tirelessly inveighed against the perils of disarmament and the extravagant claims of the air power advocates. Addressing the Foreign Policy Association of New York in 1927, Knox said that arms limitation was desirable as "the best middle ground between no armaments and armaments so swollen as to be provocative of aggression. " But he adamantly opposed the arms limitation agreements reached by the great powers at Washington in 1922. His book, The Eclipse of American Seapower (1922), has been described as "the classic statement" of the navy's arguments against the Washington treaties. Knox believed that the navy must "learn to use the press in its own interests and in the broader interests of the country to present the American side of important issues".
Like all of his work, Knox's History of the United States Navy (1936) was designed to show the importance of the navy and was therefore, at least in part, a public relations project. The book was nevertheless a milestone. Knox was the first naval historian to go beyond heroic deeds and battles and to demonstrate, in the words of one reviewer, "the interdependence of the navy with every national activity. " Although in some respects out of date, it remains a standard work.
Knox remained on active duty at the Office of Naval Records through the end of World War II, finally retiring in June 1946.
Dudley Wright Knox was distinguished for his service in the United States Navy during the Spanish–American War and World War I. He was among the first American officers to command destroyers, a type of warship developed around the turn of the century. In 1917 for his services in the war, he was awarded the Navy Cross and decorated by the Allied governments. He was also a prominent naval historian. His book "A History of the United States Navy" (1936) was recognized as "the best one-volume history of the United States Navy in existence. " He also transformed Office of Naval Records into one of the most important agencies in the United States for the study and preservation of naval history.
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Knox was president of the Naval Historical Foundation.
Knox was a friendly man who tried never to allow the controversies in which he was involved to degenerate into personal feuds. His papers bear witness to his many acts of personal kindness. Whether it was a seaman AWOL, a widow applying for workmen's compensation, a third-class civil service printer laid off for lack of work, or a former shipmate, Knox was never too busy to take up their causes, sometimes at considerable personal expense.
On May 18, 1908, Knox married Lily Hazard McCalla, the daughter of Rear Admiral Bowman H. McCalla. They had one child.
