August 1, 2010

Sunday, 1 August 2010 – 4:00-8:00 PM

Where: Porto Vecchio Condominium, 1250 South Washington Street, Porto Vecchio Front, Alexandria, VA 22314 (Front desk telephone is 703-684-3800)

When: Sunday, August 1, 2010, 4 to 8 pm. Our traditional “Red Hot & Blue” Memphis-style barbecue dinner (pulled pork, chicken, beef, baked beans, potato salad and cole slaw and, for dessert, some special bakery nummies) will precede our speaker. We’ll have plenty of cold drinks on hand, too.

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What: “The Grand Alliance in the Pacific: Another Coalition War” Most students of World War II are aware that it was a world-wide struggle between what Churchill called “The Grand Alliance” and the Axis powers. But after the February 1942 fall of Singapore to the Japanese, and the destruction of ABDA (the coalition of Australian, British, Dutch, and American forces), the Pacific side of that war belonged to the Americans. Despite that, it remained a kind of coalition warfare–a coalition between the U.S. Army and Navy. Our speaker will discuss the grand strategy of the Pacific War in this context showing how the big decisions of the war were often a product of political compromise.

Who: Dr. Craig L. Symonds is Professor Emeritus at the U. S. Naval Academy from which he retired in 2005. The first person ever to win both the Academy’s Excellence in Teaching award (1988) and its Excellence in Research award a decade later, he was chair of the history department (1988-92). He also served as Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI (1971-74) and again at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, England (1994-95). Symonds is the author or editor of 23 books, including prize-winning biographies of Joseph E. Johnston (1992), Patrick Cleburne (1997), and Franklin Buchanan (1999), as well as The American Heritage History of the Battle of Gettysburg (2001). Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History (2005), won the Roosevelt Prize for Naval History. His 2008 book, Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy, and the Civil War, won numerous awards and prizes. He and his wife Marylou live in Annapolis, and have one son and one grandson.

Where: Alexandria (the same location we used last summer); We are especially fortunate to once again make use of a delightful and cool room at the Porto Vecchio condominium, 1250 South Washington Street, Porto Vecchio Front, Alexandria, VA 22314 (the front desk telephone is 703-684-3800). This is at the southernmost tip of Old Town Alexandria, just off South Washington Street (which is also called the George Washington Parkway), just outside (south of) the Beltway, on the Virginia side of the Wilson Bridge. It is a large, yellow “Italianate” looking building facing the Potomac (it will be on your left if you are driving south on the Parkway). There is parking in front and in the “moat” to the right. Please leave your license plate number with the front desk when you enter (and they will direct you to the right room).

Download the complete invitation here.