Expanding Naval History VII
The WNHA's 2025 Symposium will be held live on board USS Midway.
Dates: Saturday & Sunday 1-2 February 8:30 am to pm each day
Recorded presentations from past symposiums are on our YouTube channel. For more details about 2025 click the button below
A non-profit association for the study and promulgation of naval history
The Western Naval History Association (WNHA) is a nonprofit membership organization open to all individuals with an interest in naval history through academic or professional affiliation, publications, interests in ship modeling, naval war gaming, or association with family or veterans, or through personal interest.
OUR MISSION
A Bit of Background
The Western Naval History Association’s mission is to advance the practice of, and interest in, naval history by creating a congenial community of like-minded scholars and enthusiasts and providing its members with a forum to share resources and knowledge.
OUR GOALS
The WNHA's activities, current and planned, include:
Sponsor or cosponsor an annual meeting and conference on selected topics in naval history
Sponsor regional chapters in western localities such as San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Monterey, and Seattle
Publish a periodical or newsletter
Seek to affiliate with existing organizations, such as the Naval War College and the
Naval Institute, as well as west coast maritime museums and veterans associations to advance the WNHA's mission and goals, and to assist such organizations in meeting their goals
Provide speaker services to organizations, schools or professional groups
Provide resources to members. These may include but are not limited to:
Participation in conferences
Peer review services
Library/research cooperation
Networking
Provide mentoring for emerging historians and students academic credentials.
WHY WNHA?
The WNHA believes that naval historians and enthusiasts on the west coast are an “under-served community” in contrast to those in the Newport-Annapolis-Norfolk-Washington DC corridor. There are no associations or groups devoted exclusively to naval history in the western United States. No symposia or conferences devoted exclusively to naval history are conducted on the West Coast and East Coast conferences are out of reach of many people interested in naval history. Moreover, most of the conferences that already exist are aimed at a professional/academic audience, whereas naval history is a discipline that has always welcomed and encouraged amateur historians—and indeed, many outstanding works of naval history have been written by authors who had no academic or professional standing.
