Michael Gannon (historian)

Michael V. Gannon
Born	April 12, 1927 Fort Sill, Oklahoma, U.S.
Died	April 10, 2017 (aged 89) Gainesville, Florida, U.S.
Nationality	United States
Fields	American History
Institutions	University of Florida
Alma mater	Catholic University of America University of Louvain University of Florida

Michael V. Gannon (April 12, 1927 – April 10, 2017) was an American military historian, academic, and former priest and war correspondent. He was born in Oklahoma into a military family. Following the death of his father in 1939, his family moved to Florida from Washington, D.C. He attended St. Joseph Academy in St. Augustine, Florida and worked at WFOY-Radio, hosting a call-in show and reading ads, among other duties. Later, he had a summer job as an announcer at Marineland when it was a SeaWorld-style attraction south of St. Augustine. He spent most of his career in Florida and died in 2017.

During World War II, Gannon was a member of the American Field Service, in the 1950s he wrote on European military topics. Gannon earned both his Bachelors and Masters degrees from Catholic University of America and later studied theology at the University of Louvain in Belgium. He became a priest in 1959, and received his PhD in history from the University of Florida in 1962.

In 1968, he was a war correspondent in Vietnam for the Catholic magazine America. He taught at the University of Florida since 1974 with a teaching career spanning 38 years. He left the priesthood in 1976 and later married Genevieve Haugen. He taught about the history of World War II, and became Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History.

One well known work by Gannon is Operation Drumbeat (1990), sub-titled The dramatic true story of Germany's first u-boat attacks along the American coast in World War II. Although written, in large parts, as a dramatic story, Gannon had researched the subject extensively, travelling to Europe to view sites and interview surviving participants. Official documents, on both sides of the Atlantic, were obtained to provide further information and the work is supported by significant notations. It chronicles the u-boat cruise of U-123 in January 1942 under Reinhard Hardegen to the American east coast and analyses the factors behind a major naval defeat for the United States which could have upset the western allies' war strategy.

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