The career of Washington Irving Chambers, from 1872 to 1919, spans a unique and formative period in the development of the U.S. Navy. He entered the Naval Academy during the doldrums, the years of obsolete, often rotting ships; he left the service after it had developed a large, world-class fleet of modern battleships, supplemented by increasing numbers of aircraft. Chambers was one of the navy's "young Turks"—a group of late nineteenth-century officers united by a common affinity for technology and progress who fought for administrative reforms and new technologies despite the many technical, bureaucratic, and personal obstacles placed in their paths. They recognized that changing technology required a complete transformation of the fleet and a simultaneous reform of the navy's administration and educational institutions. They fought for higher education for officers, the adoption of modern managerial and administrative practices, strategic planning, improvements in armor, ordnance, and ship design, and the adoption of new weapons and weapons systems that ranged from torpedoes to submarines and aircraft.