Arthur L. Bristol - Assignments During The Interwar Years

Assignments During The Interwar Years

Detached from Overton in August 1921, Bristol again served in Washington attached to the Navy General Board and then went to Philadelphia to assist in the decommissioning of destroyers. A course of instruction at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island occupied him from July 1922 to May 1923, and he next served as an instructor on the staff of that institution from May 1923 to May 1924. Following a brief tour as aide for Commander, Scouting Fleet, he sailed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to join the American naval mission there.

Reporting to the battleship Arizona (BB-39) in February 1927, Bristol served as executive officer of that dreadnought until April of the following year, and then moved to the Naval Air Station (NAS), San Diego, California for aviation instruction. Following further flight training at NAS, Pensacola, Florida, he was designated a naval aviator and was sent to the Asiatic Fleet, where he served as commanding officer of the seaplane tender Jason (AV-2) and later, as Commander, Aircraft Squadrons, Asiatic Fleet.

Detached in the spring of 1931, he checked in briefly at the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington before proceeding on to the United Kingdom to become naval attaché in London on October 1, 1931. A brief stop in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations upon his return from England in the spring of 1934 preceded his traveling to the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Virginia, as prospective commanding officer of the new aircraft carrier Ranger (CV-4).