8 THE NAVY OCEAN SCIENCE PROGRAM 



Diego area, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the 

 Navy Electronics Laboratory work closely together and have 

 some facilities collocated, while on the Gulf Coast the Mine 

 Defense Laboratory and Texas A&M University interact. In 

 the northeast, the Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory has a 

 long history of cooperation with the Woods Hole Oceanographic 

 Institution, with the University of Rhode Island, and with the 

 Lamont Greological Observatory and Hudson Laboratories of 

 Columbia University. Therefore, when treated as a whole, 

 the Navy Ocean Science Program represents a balance of 

 research and development activities to meet the many Navy 

 needs for understanding of the ocean environment which are 

 essential "to explore and to lay the basis for exploitation of 

 the ocean and its boundaries for Naval applications to enhance 

 security and support other national objectives."* 



THE HISTORY OF OCEAN SCIENCE IN THE NAVY 



Growth of the Navy's Program 



The Navy's interest and leadership in developing systematic 

 knowledge of the oceans and applying this knowledge dates 

 back to the period of Lieutenants Matthew Fontaine Maury 

 and Charles Wilkes, more than a century and a quarter ago. 

 The vigorous quest for knowledge of the oceans undertaken 

 by these pioneers in the field of modern oceanography unfor- 

 tunately was not continued by the Navy or the nation as a whole 

 through the intervening years. It was not until World War II 

 that the Navy again undertook an aggressive scientific assault 

 on the oceans. With the immediate needs for knowledge about 

 the ocean environment that developed during World War II, 

 particularly to support allied undersea warfare operations and 

 amphibious assaults, the Navy at that time turned to the scien- 

 tific community for assistance. The small cadre of scientists at 

 the then existing oceanographic institutions constituted most 



"OpNav Instruction 5450.165. 



