David F. Winkler is a retired Navy commander having received his commission through Penn State NROTC. Having earned his Ph.D. at American University, he served as staff historian at the Naval Historical Foundation for 25 years, has taught at the U.S. Naval Academy and Naval War College, and held the Charles Lindbergh Chair of Aerospace History at the Smithsonian. He has published five books with the Naval Institute Press and writes a monthly historical perspective column for Sea Power Magazine. He is the author of Witness to Neptune's Inferno, based on the diary of Atlanta's Assistant Gunnery Officer Lloyd M. Mustin.