78 Dahlgren 



Did you have Admiral Withington as one of your students at the Naval Academy? 



Yes, Admiral Withington, Admiral Parsons, Admiral Turner Joy,* Admiral 

 Hussey, Admiral Blandy, Admiral Schoeffel, Admiral Vieweg. The Ordnance 

 Group at the Postgraduate School usually consisted of only about eight or ten 

 officers, and they had more courses with me than any other faculty member. In 

 fact, they stayed at the school longer than most of the groups. They stayed there 

 l-Vi or 2 years, so I got to know them very well. We had very pleasant relation- 

 ships, a good many of which continued through the years. 



By the way, I first came to the Naval Academy in 1917. I was in the Depart- 

 ment of Mathematics for 2 years. That was during World War I. Then the 

 Postgraduate School opened up under Captain King, later Admiral King, in 

 1919, and 1 was appointed to the faculty there at that time. 1 remained on the 

 faculty officially until I went into uniform in 1942 and still continued then. 

 After 1 was out of uniform in 1946, I remained at the Postgraduate School as a 

 civilian on the faculty until 1947. 



And that's the time you transferred to Dahlgren? 



Yes. There was a question of whether I'd stay in the regular Navy, as the 

 Proving Ground was interested in my continuing the work that I had started 

 during the war. You see, we started the Computation Laboratory. I decided to 

 come back as a civilian, and as things turned out, I'm happy that I did because in 

 1947 my family and I moved to Dahlgren and we occupied quarters 508 for 7 

 years. 



You mentioned Dr. Thompson. Could you tell us something about his work and the man 

 himself? 



He was technically classified as a physicist, but he was the Chief Scientist, or 

 the Senior Scientist, although there was no title of that sort at the time. There 

 were two or three other scientists who came later as civilians, I think about 1 934. 

 But there was just a very small handful of civilian scientific personnel. The rest 

 of the people were essentially all trained on the job at the batteries — Main 

 Battery, Machine Gun Battery, etc. — so the actual highly trained technical 

 competence was rather scant in those days. 



Dr. Thompson had a very pleasant personality and really got along very well 

 with people in general. He was very diplomatic in dealing with the naval 

 personnel in command, and he also developed quite a bit of "clout" in dealing 



*Rear Admiral C. Turner Joy was Commanding Officer at Dahlgren from June 1946 until August 

 1949 and was advanced to the rank of Vice Admiral in August 1949. 



