King's Lieutenants: The Commanders
Fleet-Admirals to Commodores





 
    In the history of the U.S. Navy, many a brave soldier is to be found. Be it John Paul Jones, who, from the cluttered deck of his severely damaged frigate Bonhomme Richard, shouted back at the British aboard the frigate Serapis who asked him if he had surrendered, “I have not yet begun to fight” and eventually captured that British vessel, a deed which made his name and that of his gallant ship an integral part of the Navy’s history. 

    Or be it Stephen Decatur, who intrepidly steered a small open boat into Tripolis harbor under the guns of the forts to burn the grounded American frigate Philadelphia before she could fall into enemy hands. 

    Or be it Admiral George Dewey, America’s only Admiral of the Navy, who won America’s first victory in a fleet battle and earned highest praise for it. 

    WWII would bring another generation or two of flag officers to the command of smaller and larger forces, operating as part of major events or just making the occasional small sortie. It was men like King, Nimitz, and Hart, responsible for the vast areas covered by each pre-war fleet command, or the entire Navy, that made the strategic decisions and that shared the ultimate responsibility for each operation. It was men like Raymond Spruance, like Bill Halsey or Thomas Kinkaid, commanding the numbered fleets of later war years, who saw to the implementation of the grand strategic plans and sometimes shaped and created them themselves. 

    And it was men like Norman Scott, Walden Ainsworth, Marc Mitscher, Frank Fletcher, Willis Lee, and Arleigh Burke, who then took their assigned ships and slugged it out with their Imperial Japanese counterparts on the high seas, with carriers or surface ships, until the last resistance had been overcome. 
There were able leaders, and such men who lacked the drive, the talent, the character, or simply the luck to prove themselves. 

    This section is devoted to winners and losers alike, to admirals on the edges of the war and admirals in the middle of the fighting. Their careers are traced here, their actions evaluated, their importance examined. 

Badger, Oscar C., RADM 
Ballentine, John J., RADM 
Beary, Donald B., RADM 
Bellinger, Patrick N.L., VADM 
Bernhard, Alva D., RADM 
Bogan, Gerald F., RADM 
Buckmaster, Elliot, RADM 
Burke, Arleigh A., Commodore 
Calhoun, William L., VADM 
Callaghan, Daniel J., RADM 
by Richard Connors
Carney, Robert B., RADM 
Carpenter, Arthur S., VADM 
Cassady, John H., RADM 
Christie, Ralph W., RADM 
Clark, Joseph J., RADM 
Conolly, Richard L., RADM 
Cooke, Charles M., VADM 
Cronin, Joseph C., Commodore 
Davis, Arthur C., RADM 
Davis, Glenn D., RADM 
Davison, Ralph E., RADM 
Denfield, Louis E., RADM 
DuBose, Laurence T., RADM 
Duncan, Donald B., RADM 
Durgin, Calvin T., RADM 
Edwards, Richard S., VADM 
English, Robert H., RADM 
Fechteler, William M., RADM 
Fitch, Aubrey W., VADM 
Fletcher, Frank J., VADM 
Gardner, Matthias B., RADM 
Ghormley, Robert L., VADM 
Ginder, Samuel P., RADM 
Glover, Cato D., RADM 
Hall, John L., RADM 
Halsey, William F., ADM 
Hardison, Osborne B., RADM 
Harrill, William K., RADM 
Hart, Thomas C., ADM 
Henderson, George R., RADM 
Hill, Harry W., VADM 
Hoover, John H., VADM 
Horne, Frederick J., VADM 
Hustvedt, O.M., VADM 
Jacobs, Randall, VADM 
Jennings, Ralph E., RADM 
Jeter, Thomas P., Commodore 
Kimmel, Husband E., ADM 
King, Ernest J., FADM 
Kinkaid, Thomas C., ADM 
Leahy, William D., FADM 
Lee, Willis A., VADM 
Lockwood, Charles A. 
McCain, John S., VADM 
McCann, Allan R., RADM 
McCormick, Lynde D., RADM 
McFall, Andrew C., RADM 
McMahon, Frederick W., RADM 
McMorris, Charles H., VADM 
Martin, Harold M., RADM 
Mason, Charles P., RADM 
Mitscher, Marc A., VADM 
Montgomery, Alfred E., RADM 
Moreell, Ben, VADM 
Mullinix, Henry M, RADM 
Murray, George D., VADM 
Newton, John H., VADM 
Nimitz, Chester W., FADM 
Noyes, Leigh, RADM 
Ofstie, Ralph A., RADM 
Oldendorf, Jesse B., RADM 
Pownall, Charles A., RADM 
Price, John D., RADM 
Pye, William S., VADM 
Radford, Arthur W., RADM 
Ragsdale, Van Hubert, RADM 
Ramsey, DeWitt C., RADM 
Reeves, Joseph W., RADM 
Robbins, Thomas H., RADM 
Sallada, Harold B., RADM 
Sample, William D., RADM 
Schaeffer, Valentine H., Commodore 
Schoeffel, Malcolm F., RADM 
Shafroth. John F., RADM 
Sherman, Forrest P., RADM  
Sherman, Frederick C., VADM 
Smith, William W., VADM 
Sprague, Clifton A.F., RADM 
Sprague, Thomas L., RADM 
Spruance, Raymond A., ADM 
Stump, Felix B., RADM 
Theobald, Robert A., RADM 
Towers, John H., VADM 
Turner, R. Kelly, ADM 
Wagner, Frank D., RADM