Clay Blair
American historian (1925–1998)
Clay Drewry Blair Jr. (May 1, 1925 – December 16, 1998) was an American journalist and author, best known for his books on military history. Blair wrote some two dozen history books and hundreds of magazine articles that reached a popular audience.
Early life and military service
Blair was born in Lexington, Virginia.
Blair enlisted in the United States Navy in 1943, during World War II. Around 1944, he attended Basic Enlisted Submarine School followed by Quartermaster Class A School, after which he was assigned to Sperry (AS-12), a submarine tender.
During 1945, Blair was posted to the fleet submarine Guardfish (SS-217). He was on that boat's last two war patrols off Japan.
Blair served on Guardfish into 1946, after the war was over, then was discharged from the Navy. His highest rank was Quartermaster 2nd Class.
Education and journalism career
Blair attended both Tulane University and Columbia University.
“Clay Blair” enters the record as american historian (1925–1998). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Clay, Blair and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Clay Blair” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Clay, Blair and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1099176. VIAF identifies the subject as 75021243. The Library of Congress control number is n79018893. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 1998, 1943 and 1944.
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This entry incorporates text from “Clay Blair” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.