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A Navy pioneer, Vice Adm. Samuel Gravely was the first African American to be commissioned an officer in the U.S. Navy, the first to command a Navy ship, the first to command a fleet, and the first to become an admiral. In this memoir, co-written by the noted naval historian Paul Stillwell, he describes his life from boyhood in Richmond, Virginia, through his enlisted service on a World War II submarine chaser, to later tours of duty at sea and ashore. Denied housing and even jailed for impersonating an officer, he recounts efforts to overcome both cultural and institutional obstacles of racism. In 2009, the Navy named a guided missile destroyer in his honor.

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9781591143383

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Vice Adm. Samuel L. Gravely, Jr., was commissioned in 1944, promoted to admiral in 1971, and retired from the Navy in 1980. He died in 2004. 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 thirteen books, including four on battleships and an award-winning volume on the Navy's first African American officers,The Golden Thirteen.

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