Dudley Wright Knox  Commodore Dudley Wright Knox (21 June 1877 – 11 June 1960) was an officer in the United States Navy during the Spanish–American War and World War I. He was also a prominent naval historian, who for many years oversaw the Navy Department's historical office, now named the Naval History and Heritage Command. Born in Fort Walla Walla, Washington, Knox attended school in Washington, D.C., and graduated from the United States Naval Academy on 5 June 1896. During the Spanish–American War he served aboard the screw steamer , a tender, in Cuban waters. He commanded the gunboats and "Iris" during the Philippine–American War of 1899-1902 and the latter during the Chinese Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901. He then commanded three of the Navy's first destroyers: "Shubrick", "Wilkes" and "Decatur", before commanding the First Torpedo Flotilla. During the 1907-1909 cruise of the "Great White Fleet", sent around the world by President Theodore Roosevelt, he served as ordnance officer of the battleship "Nebraska" (BB-14). On May 18, 1908, while the Great White Fleet rested in San Francisco, California, he married Lily Hazard McCalla (1878–1965), the daughter of Rear Admiral Bowman H. McCalla. Lily's brother-in-law, Arthur MacArthur III, was Dudley's classmate at the Naval Academy. They had one son, Dudley Sargent Knox, (1909-1968). He attended the Naval War College's two-year course in 1912–13, and after graduation became the aide to Captain William Sims, commanding the Atlantic Torpedo Flotilla. In 1915 Knox became a leading figure in developing naval operational doctrine by publishing an influential article in the U.S. Naval Institute "Proceedings". He served as Fleet Ordnance Officer in both Atlantic and Pacific, served in the Office of Naval Intelligence, and commanded the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station. In November 1917 he joined the staff of Admiral William Sims, Commander of U.S. Naval Forces in European Waters, and earned the Navy Cross for "distinguished service" serving as Aide in the Planning Section, and later in the Historical Section. He was promoted to Captain on 1 February 1918. After returning to the United States in March 1919, he served for a year on the faculty of the Naval War College, when he became a key figure on the Knox-King-Pye Board that examined professional military education.