Rear Admiral George Ballard was a widely read and published naval intellectual as well as a serving officer. His works covered Japanese sea power, America and the Atlantic, rulers of the Indian Ocean, and the Victorian battle fleet later collected as The Black Battlefleet. Ballard's surviving correspondence, papers, memoirs, and Mariners' Mirror articles provide substantial primary material for studying his thinking. He had extensive sea service and was repeatedly considered for senior naval-intelligence work. His controversial December 1914 judgment therefore came from an experienced officer making his own assessment, rather than from ignorance of intelligence practice.
Notable Point · 34:52-36:35
George Ballard as officer, analyst, and historian
Ballard's papers and publications complicate the image of an East Coast commander who simply failed to understand naval intelligence.