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William D. Puleston

American Naval officer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ14592666 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Dilworth Puleston (September 1, 1881 – September 30, 1968) was an American naval officer and author. He was Director of Naval Intelligence from 1934 to 1937. He was considered "a popular, articulate and aggressive officer" and "an ideal planner, a student of world history and foreign affairs".

Early life

William Puleston was one of four sons and two daughters of Samuel Richard Puleston, M.D., (born 22 March 1845 in Carmarthen, Wales-died Monticello, Florida, 1904) and his wife Lulu Dilworth Puleston. His father came from a family that originated in Willington Worthenbury, Wales, and emigrated to Florida to be with his uncle.

Naval career

Puleston entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1898 and graduated in 1902. Promoted to ensign in 1904, he was promoted through the ranks to captain in 1926. He served in various ships until 1912, when he took command of the destroyer USS Drayton (DD-23).

In 1914–15, as a lieutenant, he attended the Naval War College and stayed on for an additional year on the staff in 1915–16.During that time, he assisted the college's president, Rear Admiral Austin M. Knight, in preparing the first history of the college.

At the beginning of World War I, he was serving on the staff of the Commander in Chief of the Asiatic Fleet and was then transferred to duty as executive officer of USS Brooklyn (CA-3).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William D. Puleston” is american Naval officer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Puleston and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1881, 1968, 1934, 1937—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1881-09-01. For this dossier, William, Puleston and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american Naval officer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14592666. VIAF identifies the subject as 98395046. The Library of Congress control number is no89013121. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1881, 1968, 1934 and 1937.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William D. Puleston” 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.