Captain John F. O'Connell

John F. (Jack) O'Connell was born in Plattsburg, NY, grew up in The Bronx, and attended the Naval Academy He was introduced to his future wife in London by Lady Astor at a dance for visiting midshipmen, and later hitchhiked across country to San Francisco to see her. He served in an aircraft carrier and a heavy cruiser during the Korean War, then entered submarine duty. Served in five submarines based in San Diego and Hawaii, commanded USS Spinax (SS-489), attended Naval Postgraduate School and earned a Masters Degree in Management. After duty in the Pentagon he commanded Submarine Division 41 in Charleston, SC. Submarine staff duty in Japan and Hawaii was followed by attache training before reporting as Defense and Naval Attache Tokyo where he worked for Ambassador Mike Mansfield for three years. After retirement from the Navy as a Captain, he worked for Senator Robert Dole as a Legislative Assistant, then represented Raytheon in Tokyo as Patriot Missile Marketing Manager. He worked for Kapos Associates, involved in war gaming and operations analysis for ten years, before retiring for the second time in 1998. Since then he has divided his spare time between various Smithsonian museums, serving as a docent in American History and Air and Space, and handling Information Desk duties at American Indian. An interest in history led to research about WW II bombing theory and practice and to his first three books about air power in the 20th century. Challenged by a classmate to write about submarines, he turned out two books dealing with submarine operations in the 20th century. He has published articles in The Submarine Review and Air Power History magazine.