Rear Adm. Darryl Walker, president of the U.S. Naval War College, represented the Navy at a series of events in Providence on Sept. 22 and 23 as part of the country’s 250th anniversary commemoration.
The Navy Office of Community Outreach is marking each of the original 13 colonies with several days of engagements. Walker visited a Providence company’s veteran workforce, spoke to a service organization and a gathering of business leaders, and met with the Rhode Island Wing of the Civil Air Patrol and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“Chartered in 1884 and building upon an already strong Navy tradition here, the war college is a proud part of Rhode Island’s maritime history and the state’s truly foundational place in the establishment and ascendance of our nation,” Walker said.
Rhode Island was the first colony to call for a Continental Congress, in 1774, and established the first colonial navy in 1775, when its armed ships captured a British tender in Narragansett Bay — described as the first naval battle of the Revolution. A Rhode Islander, Esek Hopkins, went on to command the Continental Navy, and the state briefly hosted the U.S. Naval Academy during the Civil War.
The Navy authorized an experimental torpedo station on Goat Island in 1869 and put its first recruit training station on Coasters Harbor Island in 1883. The Naval War College was established the following year and marked its 140th anniversary in 2024.
Walker also led a war college contingent at July’s International Naval Review in New York, the Navy’s central event for the anniversary year, which drew 55 nations, 30 naval ships, 45 tall ships and 20,000 military personnel.
