Scope and Content Note
The papers of Harry Ervin Yarnell (1875-1959) in the Naval Historical Foundation Collection span the years 1909-1958 and consist of correspondence, speeches, articles, reports, printed matter, and miscellaneous material arranged alphabetically by type of material, personal name, or subject. The bulk of the papers relates to the post retirement period of Yarnell’s career during World War II. During the war he was an advisor to the Chinese Military Mission to the United States and worked particularly closely with China Supplies, Inc., an arms procurement organ of the mission, on such projects as identifying alternate supply routes to China to replace those disrupted by the Japanese and obtaining lend-lease warships for the Chinese navy. Also during World War II, Yarnell served in the office of the vice chief of naval operations and as a senior advisor to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, in these capacities working on plans for the postwar demobilization of the navy and related war economy and participating in the controversy concerning the reorganization of the American military that eventually led to the establishment of the Department of Defense.
There is also material on the United States Asiatic Fleet that Yarnell commanded immediately prior to his retirement, on his Spanish-American War service aboard the Oregon (battleship), and on his service with the Navy’s War Plans Division during and immediately after World War I.
General correspondence and memoranda comprise the bulk of the papers. Correspondents include Hanson W. Baldwin, Chiang Kai-Shek, George Fielding Eliot, James Forrestal, Thomas Charles Hart, Ernest J. King, Syngman Rhee, T. V. Soong, and Alfred T. L. Yap.