“Scandalous Conduct / Special Recruiting” is a work in progress by Headmaster editors Jason Tranchida and Matthew Lawrence.

Shortly after the end of World War I, the United States Navy sparked national scandal when sailors and civilian men alike were targeted in a homophobic undercover operation to root out “immoral acts”.

The young men were recruited by a machinist’s mate and amateur detective named Ervin Arnold, who convinced the sailors to engage in sexual acts with other men and then report their findings back to him over the course of several weeks. 

Hundreds of daily reports were written by a group of young men stationed in Newport, Rhode Island in the spring of 1919. 

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