U.S. Navy officer · Naval War College student, 1960 · commanding officer, USS Buck (DD-761)
W. B. ‘Bill’ Hayler was a United States Navy officer who, by his own account, invented the most-quoted sentence in the maritime world while sitting through lectures at the Naval War College in 1960. His history professor, he said, was “absolutely hooked on Thucydides” and quoted him constantly — so Hayler wrote a line of deadpan understatement, credited it to a ninth volume of the Peloponnesian War that does not exist, and waited. He posted it on the bridge when he took command of the destroyer USS Buck, submitted it to U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, and watched it escape: Reader’s Digest reprinted it and paid him five dollars, and Navy advertising put it in print as genuine. By 1971 he was a captain at the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo, and told columnist Herb Caen the whole thing was his.