A Tribute to Flip Carroll, Founder of the Great War Society
By Mike Hanlon, Membership Chairman
 Flip Carroll 1923-2003 |
But Flip will be mentoring no more. Francis R. "Flip" Carroll, retired businessman, scholar and founder of the Great War Society died peacefully Monday morning, January 6, 2003 of pneumonia following a series of illnesses.
He had brought his conviction that the First World War was the fountainhead of modern history to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in 1986. Agnes Peterson heard his plan and after one meeting had Flip designated an independent scholar with full access to the Hoover Library and Archives and the full Stanford University System. His early advisors included Agnes, Irv Roth and the late Charles Burdick. They led him through all the classics and many of the lesser-known treasures of the Hoover Institution. In a year's study, he mastered the details of the Great War. He could recite the schedule for the Schlieffen plan and he knew the starting lineups, position changes and final [few] survivors of every faction in the Russian Civil War.
Not satisfied with keeping all this wisdom and information to himself, Flip -- with the encouragement of his advisors -- decided to form an organization to spread the word about the relevance of the Great War to our current lives, to encourage other researchers and to honor the contribution of those who served in the war. After a stupendous amount of detailed work, The Great War Society came into existence in 1987 with three local chapters in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is now a world-wide organization of almost 700 members.
Under Flip's guiding hand the Great War Society sent expeditions to the Western Front in 1991 and to Russia in 1994. November 11th was designated to be a special day for the organization and we have held events every Armistice Day of our organization's existence. We have published a Quarterly Journal for over a decade and maintained web sites since 1997. For Flip, the crown jewel of all our programs has always been our annual seminar. He personally coordinated these extravaganzas, insisted on "His Way or the Highway" regarding every detail and was determined that only substantive topics be included on the agenda. In honor of Flip, Seminar 2003 on the French Army will proceed exactly as he planned in San Francisco, April 11-13.
How does one become the founder of such an association as the Great War Society? Maybe there are some clues in his personal history. Flip was born on January 23, 1923 in Greenwich, Connecticut and grew up in nearby Port Chester, New York. He served in the Second World War in the Air Corps as a cryptographer; attended Bucknell University where he majored in English and Political Science and stood out on the football squad; had a full business career as an insurance man and entrepreneur in New York and Fort Wayne, Indiana; and with Dolly - his wife of 52 years - raised of family of six: Christina, Cynthia, Claudia, Will, Bryan and Russell. A meritorious life for sure, but little sign of the drive and visionary power to bring in to being, hold together and leave for posterity a major historical organization. As William Blake asked about the creator of his Tiger: "On what wings dare he aspire?"
For what it's worth, my take on this mystery is that in his heart of hearts, Flip Carroll was really a warrior. It took a long time for me to sort this out because he was always such a gentleman. But, at times he would battle fiercely and relentlessly for certain standards the rest of us neglected. Piecing it together, I would say he combined an Aristotelian vision of a vigorous pursuit of historical understanding with an aesthetic sensibility in which the work of the Society [whether a lecture or a wine tasting] was always to be done properly, with the highest level of quality evident. But undeniably, as a result of waging and winning that struggle over our central values, Flip created something remarkable, a human institution that is creative, vital, and for now, seems to be transcending time. To carry on, we had better continue the pursuit of our Founder's ideal's. The old warrior is going to be watching us.
Flip's friends and family said their final farewells to him at a Memorial Mass and reception, January 11, 2003 at St. Joseph Shrine, Guardian of the Redeemer, in Santa Cruz, California.
Preferred memorials are the Marello Youth Center, P.O. Box 547 Loomis, CA 95650; "The Great War Society Seminar Fund", P.O. Box 18585 Stanford, CA 94309, and Masses.