Thomas Balch Library to host U.S. Navy book discussion

Thomas Balch Library will host Andrew Jampoler in a discussion on, “Hard Aground: The Wreck of the USS Tennessee and the Rise of the US Navy” on Sunday, May 5, beginning at 2 p.m. 

“Hard Aground” brings together three intertwined stories documenting the US Navy’s strategic and matériel evolution from the end of the Civil War through the first World War. These incidents had lasting consequences for how the Navy modernized itself throughout the twentieth century.

The first story focuses on the reconstruction of the US Navy following the swift and near-total dismantling of the Union Navy after the Civil War. 

The second story relates the short, tragic life of the USS Tennessee (later renamed Memphis), a centerpiece of the Navy’s modernization effort. Threaded through the narrative are biographical sketches of principal players in the drama that unfolded following the ship’s demise. 

Jampoler rounds out this account with the story of how the USS Tennessee’s destruction prompted fierce deliberations about the US Navy’s operations and chains of command for the remainder of WWI and the high-level political wrangling inside the Department of the Navy immediately after the war.

Pre-registration is required for this event. Please call 703-737-7195, email balchlib@leesburgva.gov, or register online.

Andrew Jampoler is an alumnus of Columbia College, the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, and of the US State Department Foreign Service Institute’s School of Language Study.

During more than twenty years on active duty with the US Navy, Jampoler, a naval aviator who flew Lockheed P-3 airplanes in search of submarines, also commanded a land-based maritime patrol aircraft squadron and an air station. Later, he was a senior sales and marketing executive in the international aerospace industry.