Cutler

Thomas J. Cutler is a former petty officer second class and retired lieutenant commander who has been serving the U.S. Navy in various capacities for more than fifty years, including a combat tour in Vietnam and service in aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and patrol craft. The author of many articles and books, he is the Gordon England Chair of Professional Naval Literature at the U.S. Naval Institute and Distinguished Fleet Professor of Strategy and Policy with the Naval War College. He has received the William P. Clements Award for Excellence in Education as military teacher of the year at the U.S. Naval Academy, the Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Naval Literature, the U.S. Maritime Literature Award, the Naval Institute Press Author of the Year Award, and the Commodore Dudley Knox Lifetime Achievement Award in Naval History.

Articles by Thomas Cutler

Wouk's Gift to the Navy

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
July 2017
Leadership is a difficult subject to teach. Textbooks can go only so far, often merely providing laundry lists of admirable attributes that are worthy of emulation but quickly lose their ...

Why “Lest We Forget”

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
February 2017
U.S. Navy (Jeffry A. Willadsen) There are two kinds of sailors in today’s Navy. One is the individual who sees the Navy as a job. He or she might be ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Surprise Attack!

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
December 2015
Lieutenant Commander James J. Hughes, skipper of an anchored American gunboat, had just finished lunch when he was informed that a lookout on the bridge had sighted an approaching formation ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Presence

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
November 2014
The following is an entry in a personal journal—called “The Log” by its author—kept by a young ensign serving as Assistant G-Division Officer in the carrier USS Independence (CVA-62), deployed ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

‘First Blood’

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
January 2014
In his two-masted schooner Gaspee, Royal Navy Lieutenant William Dudingston had enjoyed much success by capturing a large number of American vessels, from small fishing craft to large merchant ...
Library of Congress

Courage and Innovation Combined

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
November 2013
In fact, a desperate measure was under way. At a little past midnight, two American whaleboats had departed the southern tip of Manhattan with a secret weapon in tow. Considering ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

‘Exceptionally Heroic Service’

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
October 2013
James Jonas Madison had been a merchant mariner for most of his life, having first gone to sea in his mid-teens. Soon after the United States entered World War I ...
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Lewis Warrington

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
August 2013
Joining the Navy as a midshipman at the age of 18 in January 1800, Lewis Warrington’s subsequent career was in many ways typical of the time
Two R5Ds of Naval Air Transport Squadron 8 (VR-8) sandwich an Air Force C-54 as they await their turn for takeoff from Rhein-Main Air Base in January 1949

Operation Vittles

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
February 2013
On 24 June 1948 the Navy and the Air Force initiated one of the earliest joint operations in the Cold War—the Berlin Airlift.