Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Morison, already convinced of the value of personal involvement as a result of sailing experience while writing his biography of Christopher Columbus, wrote to President Roosevelt suggesting the preparation of an official history of the Navy in the war, and volunteering for the task.

Both President Roosevelt and the Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox agreed, and in May 1942 Morison was commissioned as a lieutenant commander in the United States Naval Reserve, and assigned a staff of assistants, with permission to go anywhere and to see all official records.

Despite these challenges, Morison argued that writing close to the events, while participants are still alive, offers greater insights than waiting until later, when the physical artifacts are gone and firsthand accounts are lost.

In his words: "Historians in years to come may shoot this book full of holes; but they can never recapture the feeling of desperate urgency in our planning and preparations, of the excitement of battle, of exultation over a difficult operation successfully concluded, of sorrow for shipmates who did not live to enjoy the victory.

One of Morison's research assistants in the project, Henry Salomon, knew NBC's Robert Sarnoff and, in 1949, first proposed an ambitious documentary TV series on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps warfare in World War II.