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I was a Navy officer writing about Navy problems and I simply stole this lovely Army nurse and popped her into a Navy uniform, where she has done very well for herself.
--
On a heroine in Tales of the South Pacific (1947) in Commercial Appeal (31 December 1951)

 

James A. Michener

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My wife Ticky is an anarchist-individualist ... When she was in the Navy during the early 'forties she showed up one morning in proper uniform but with her red hair held down by a simple navy-blue band — a hair ribbon. It was neat (Ticky is always neat) and it suited the rest of her outfit esthetically, but it was undeniably a hair ribbon and her division officer had fits.
"If you can show me," Ticky answered with simple dignity, "where it says one word in the Navy Uniform Regulations on the subject of hair ribbons, I'll take it off. Otherwise not."
See what I mean? She doesn't have the right attitude.

 

Robert A. Heinlein

 

It is the love of the [British] people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you both your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.

 

Edmund Burke

 

The man in the admiral's uniform spoke only occasionally, and then in a quiet voice, but the words were to the point, and the mind behind them forceful. Fellow members of the Joint Chiefs had learned to listen carefully to the Navy's Forrest Percival Sherman. The U.S., as the Joint Chiefs already knew, had found a fighting man of rare qualities: the man of action who is also reflective, studious, habitually unruffled.
The freshman member of the Joint Chiefs, he had stepped into his job four months ago when he became Chief of Naval Operations, in an atmosphere acrid with controversy and resentment. He had brought to the nation's highest military council something that had been too much forgotten in the jealous and unseemly interservice fights over unification — a grasp of international strategy, military history and geopolitics. ... The Navy, which in the heat of change of command had whispered that Sherman was ambitious, cold and ruthless, was amazed and delighted. One officer, who had greeted Sherman's advent with "This is a dark day for the Navy," admitted later: "The Navy hasn't seen anything like him in a long time."

 

Forrest Sherman

 

I am not one to advocate the reducing of our navy in any degree below that proportion to the French navy which the exigencies of our service require; and, mind what I say, here is just what the French Government would admit as freely as you would. England has four times, at least, the amount of mercantile tonnage to protect at sea that France has, and that surely gives us a legitimate pretension to have a larger navy than France. Besides, this country is an island; we cannot communicate with any part of the world except by sea. France, on the other hand, has a frontier upon land, by which she can communicate with the whole world. We have, I think, unfortunately for ourselves, about a hundred times the amount of territory beyond the seas to protect, as colonies and dependencies, that France has. France has also twice or three times as large an army as England had. All these things give us a right to have a navy somewhat in the proportion to the French navy which we find to have existed if we look back over the past century. Nobody has disputed it. I would be the last person who would ever advocate any undue change in this proportion. On the contrary—I have said it in the House of Commons, and I repeat it to you—if the French Government showed a sinister design to increase their navy to an equality with ours; then, after every explanation to prevent such an absurd waste, I should vote 100 millions sterling rather than allow that navy to be increased to a level with ours—because I should say that any attempt of that sort without any legitimate grounds, would argue some sinister design upon this country.

 

Richard Cobden

 

Navy Commander Erich Raeder was more concerned with enhancing the navy's position in the new Reich than with contributing to a rational grand strategy. His limited vision fitted nicely into Hitler's dreams of world empire.

 

Erich Raeder