"When his son donated retired Adm. Clarence S. Williams’ naval uniforms, medals, swords and other effects to the Clark County Historical Society in 1956, he highlighted as his father’s most notable service the command of an international fleet of 48 ships assembled in 1927 to protect foreigners along China’s Yangtze River from the effects of a brewing civil war.
Half a century later, historians may beg to differ.
Since the 1991 publication of Edward S. Miller’s “War Plan Orange,” the elder Williams is best remembered for the far-sighted and brilliant work he did from 1900 to the mid-1920s creating the fundamental plan the United States would use to win a war against a nation that at the time wasn’t even considered an enemy.
By the time Williams left the Navy’s War Plans Division in 1922 for a three-year stint as president of the Naval War College, “he and his supporters had bequeathed to the nation a sound war plan for advancing at least halfway across the Pacific” in an anticipated war against Japan, Miller said."
Read more here:
Springfield native devised plan to defeat Japan in World War II
Springfield native devised plan to defeat Japan in World War II
