"Your research on the flag is accurate..." -- Director, Navy History Center

"As I have always said, your research on the flag is accurate..."
-- Rear Admiral Paul Tobin
Director, Navy History Center




In an email of October 11, 2006, the Director of the Navy History Museum, RADM Paul Tobin, USN (retired), comments on an item sent to him about a Congressional Medal of Honor to RADM Paul Tobin, USN, in a.d. 1871, not a.d. 1971, but 100 years before!

That is a fun issue, and about the same time a former Director of Naval History, RADM Preble was making an error about the "Fake Snake" Navy Jack flag in his definitive book on American Flags.

By his a.d. 1880 revision of that book on American flags, RADM Preble insisted that the publisher REMOVE all his writings about the Snake Navy Jack Flag, which was done, BUT... the publisher left the color plate of the American flags that contained an image of the "Fake Snake" Navy Jack... effectively negating the effort of Admiral Preble to correct the record, correct his book and banish the evil snake from the legend and lore of the American Navy.

Let us pray, or "Appeal To Heaven" as is the motto on the true First Navy Flag, that it does not take the current Director of Naval History Admiral Tobin 8 or 9 years to correct the record and remove the "Fake Snake" Navy Jack Flag from the lore and legend of Naval History as it took his predescessor Admiral Preble to try to set the record straight.