Overview

One of the few patrol plane aviators in the Naval Institute's oral history collection, Osborn is the first graduate of Aviation Officer Candidate School to achieve flag rank in the Navy. After completing the various stages of flight training in 1957, he held billets of increasing responsibility in several squadrons, Patrol Squadron 17, Patrol Squadron 31, Patrol Squadron 19, and Patrol Squadron 40. In VP-31 he was an instructor as the P-3 Orion entered the fleet; he served as executive officer and commanding officer of VP-40. In the mid-1960s he served on the staffs of Commander Anti-Submarine Warfare Group Five and Commander Patrol Force Seventh Fleet. After that he was a student at the Naval Postgraduate School, attended a course in POW survival, and was a student at the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. OpNav tours in the 1970s included ASW readiness and training officer and executive assistant to the Director of ASW and Ocean Surveillance, Vice Admiral Ed Waller. After duty in the early 1980s in the Naval Military Personnel Command, he was promoted to rear admiral and had several flag tours: in OP-01; as deputy director for operations in the National Military Command Center; as Commander Patrol Wings Pacific Fleet; and as Deputy Director, Defense Mapping Agency.

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9781682699188

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Paul Stillwell is an independent historian and retired naval officer. He worked for thirty years at the U.S. Naval Institute as an oral historian and editor of Naval History magazine. He is the author or editor of fourteen books, including four on battleships and an award-winning volume on the Navy’s first African American officers, The Golden Thirteen. His 2021 book Battleship Commander: The Life of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr. also received acclaim. He lives in Arnold, Maryland.

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