VOICE OF EXPERIENCE
HILIP K. B. LUNDEBERG was a 22-year-old ensign when a U-boat torpedoed his ship, destroyer escort USS . It was the last U.S. Navy warship lost in the Battle of the Atlantic. Only three officers and 74 sailors from a crew of 192 survived. The experience proved seminal for the budding historian. Studying at Harvard after the war, Lundeberg collaborated with historian (and rear admiral) Samuel Eliot Morison on a book in Morison’s classic 15-volume . Lundeberg went on to teach at Minnesota’s St. Olaf College and at Annapolis before joining the Smithsonian as its curator of armed forces history. A curator emeritus at age 96, Lundeberg reflects here on cheating death to launch a career “teaching millions about American naval history.” He died on October 3, 2019, as
