Documents classified “secret and confidential” usually makes us want to learn more. This is especially so with military records. Fold3 has confidential correspondence of the Navy from 1919-1927. That’s an interesting time-frame. Now you can review these formerly classified communications of the U.S. Navy during World War I, the immediate postwar years, and the first years after the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922.
There’s an amazing collection of records which show the U.S. involvement with foreign countries, the application of technology to naval matters, establishment of overseas bases, appropriations, tactical doctrine, strategy, peacetime maneuvers, and wartime naval operations.
If you click on Confidential Correspondence of the Navy, 1919-1927 you’ll see that the files are organized by master numbers assigned to a variety of subjects and locations. There are other major sets of files, for example, Hawaiian Islands, German Peace Treaty, Radio, War Plans, and others are explained in the Fold3 description. Explore these historically enlightening, formerly classified documents within the Confidential Correspondence of the Navy, 1919-1927 on Fold3.
As described by Fold3’s “Laura”, there are some interesting highlights:
- “A 1920 report on the development of a U.S. Naval Station at Pearl Harbor accompanied by secret sketches relating to the estimated maximum number of ships’ moorings off Oahu.
- A 1919 memo divvies up Germany’s surrendered enemy warships among the victors of The Great War.
- America’s dependence on foreign oil may have been initiated by a 1919 recommendation that “American petroleum companies be encouraged by the Government to acquire foreign sources of oil supply” to insure adequate reserves as the demand for petroleum products increase.”
These records are fantastic and well worth further exploration.
Tags: classified, confiedential, documents, Fold3, history, online, secret
