Long-Time UA History Professor Dies

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Long-time University of Alabama history professor Dr. Robert Erwin Johnson died Monday, Jan 28, after battling a short-term illness. He was 84.

Johnson was born in Marshfield, Ore. in 1923. He served in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II (1941 -1946) both in the Pacific and Atlantic theaters.

He received his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Oregon in 1951 and then served in the U.S. Naval Reserve from June 1951 to March 1952. In 1953 he received his master’s in history from the University of Oregon and then earned his doctorate in history from Claremont Graduate School in 1956.

Johnson taught in UA’s department of history in the College of Arts and Sciences from 1956 to 1993, specializing in U.S. naval history and serving a term as chair of the department in the early 1990s.

He received numerous awards for his publications on naval history, including his book, “Guardians of the Sea,” which won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize from the New York Council of the Navy League of the United States, the North American Society for Oceanic History’s John Lyman Award for the best book in U.S. naval history, and the U.S. Naval Institute’s Special Award of Merit.

Johnson also was the faculty sponsor of the College’s publication Southern Historian, which is one of the top student history journals in the nation having frequently published articles from academics at universities throughout the world.

“At a highly critical time in this department, he served as chair, doing much to bring together a department in transition. In that respect, his legacy lives on to this day,” said Dr. Michael Mendle, professor and interim chair of the department of history.

“Though an Oregonian by birth, he and his wife, Vivian, provided many of us a model of traditional Southern hospitality. As such things disappear, they are the more precious.”

Johnson is survived by two sisters, Nancy Peterson of North Bend, Ore. and Frances Menegat of Myrtle Point, Ore.; and one brother, David Johnson of North Bend, Ore. Johnson is preceded in death by his wife, Vivian Ellis Johnson of Tuscaloosa; and a brother, Clifford Johnson of North Bend, Ore.