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HOME SQUADRON

THE U.S. NAVY ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC STATION

By

JAMES C. RENTFROW
Advance Praise
Sailor-scholar James Rentfrow has done us all a
great service by chronicling and analyzing the
historical roots of the current U.S. Navys intensely
operational nature. Multiship warship exercises,
operations, and tactics at sea may be the hallmarks
of our modern naval force, but their origins in the
late nineteenth century have, strangely never been
comprehensively examined until now. Anyone
involved in contemporary strike group operations
of any navywill gain from learning how it all
began, and why.
CAPT. PETER M. SWARTZ, USN (RET.), principal
research scientist, CNA

CDR. JAMES C. RENTFROW, USN,

is a graduate of the U.S. Naval
Academy and former EA-6B Naval
Flight Officer. He has a PhD from
the University of Maryland, College
Park, and currently teaches U.S. and
naval history at the Naval Academy.

Cdr. James Rentfrow's Home Squadron fills a

critical gap in our understanding of the evolution of
the modern Navy. A superb analytical effort, it
conveys within a flowing literary style the story of
the critical years of the Navy's other inter-war
period, when it finally transitioned from wood and
sail to steel and steam, developing all new tactics
and maneuvers along the way. Rentfrow also
examines the critical personalities who weighed in
to pull the Navy out of the doldrums to set the stage
for the United States' emergence as a great power in
the twentieth century. This is a strong effort that I
am sure will become a trusted reference for scholars
of the period.
CAPT. HENRY J. HENDRIX, USN, director of the
Naval History and Heritage Command
New Perspectives on Maritime History
and Nautical Archaeology

A BOOK FOR REVIEW

ames Rentfrow examines the transformation of the U.S. Navy as a fighting organization that took
place on the North Atlantic Station between 1874 and 1897. At the beginning of this period, the
warships assigned to the station were collectively administered by a rear admiral, but they were
operationally deployed as individual units, each of whose actions were directed by their captains. By
1897 the North Atlantic, or Home Squadron, as it was known, consisted of a group of warships
constituting a protean battle fleetthat is, an organized body moving and fighting in close order, which
meant that the actions of the captains were directed by a commanding admiral.
The development of an American battle fleet resulted in the construction of a new organizational
identity for the North Atlantic Squadron. The path toward this transformation was as critical as the
eventual outcome. It was not linear, but one in which progress in critical areas was modulated by
conflicting demands that caused distraction. From 1874 to 1888 exercises in fleet tactics under steam
were carried out sporadically utilizing existing wooden cruising vessels. From 1889 to 1894, as the last
wooden cruisers were decommissioned the squadron became comprised entirely of new steel warships,
but ad-hoc concentrations of vessels for purposes besides exercise and training continued to stunt the
development of the doctrine and tactics necessary for a multiship fighting capability. Much work was
done, however, to develop a concept of multiship operations. From 1895 to 1897 the identity of the
North Atlantic Squadron as a combat unit solidified. Tactical exercises were held that had specific
offensive and defensive wartime applications. These exercises were necessary to develop a combat
capability.
Here, Rentfrow demonstrates that the U.S. government had an interest in developing an
offensive naval combat capability as early as the 1870s. Based on the record of the North Atlantic
Squadron, imperial aspirations, in the sense of possessing a capability to restrict the actions of other
great powers in the Caribbean region, existed prior to the War of 1898. The process of change,
however, often resulted in the appearance of capability without the rigorous exercise necessary to
possess it.
New Perspectives on Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology
James C. Bradford and Gene A. Smith, Editors
This series is devoted to exploring the significance of the earths waterways while providing lively and important books
that cover the spectrum of maritime history and nautical archaeology. Limited by neither geography nor time, volumes
in the series contribute to the overall understanding of maritime history and can be read with profit by both general
readers and specialist alike.

HOME SQUADRON: The U.S. Navy on the North Atlantic Station

By James C. Rentfrow
Publication date: 15 April 2014
240 pp., 16 photos, notes, bibliography, index. Hardcover list price: $54.95 41.50
ISBN: 978-1-61251-447-5 History Naval eBook edition also available.
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