U.S. Navy Commander Robert L. Ghormley, Jr., discusses the life and career of his father, Vice Admiral Robert Lee Ghormley (1883-1958), as well as his own childhood, family life, education at the U.S. Naval Academy, and career in the U.S. Navy. Vice Admiral Ghormley was a member of the United States Naval Academy Class of 1906 and his son was a member of the Class of 1948.
Papers (ca. 1890-2008, undated) of Vice Admiral Robert Lee Ghormley, a member of the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1906, including correspondence, orders, diaries, memoirs, photographic prints and negatives, certificates and commissions, legal papers, printed forms, ephemera, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, maps, museum objects, broadsides and posters and publications related to his education, family and personal life, in Tacoma, Washington, Moscow, Idaho, and Washington, D.C.; his naval career; his life in retirement, 1946-1958; and also including genealogical and historical essays compiled by his son, Commander Robert Lee Ghormley, Jr. (U.S. Navy ret.). Vice Admiral Ghormley served in China, Nicaragua, World War I, and in Haiti. Between the world wars he had several appointments and also served as commander of the destroyer USS Sands and the battleship USS Nevada. During World War II, he saw service as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Special Naval Observer in Europe, August 1940-April 1942; as Commander, South Pacific Area and South Pacific Force, and the battle for Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands, April-October 1942; as Commander of the Fourteenth Naval District and the Hawaiian Sea Frontier, 1943-1944; and as Commander of United States Naval Forces in Europe, 1944-1945.