Army & Navy – COMMAND: CinCLcmt Goes West

The four-starred blue flag of Admiral Royal Eason Ingersoll fluttered down from the aftermast of the historic frigate Constellation at Newport, and the flag of a new Admiral went up. After almost three years as Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet (CinCLant), efficient, Gothic-faced Admiral Ingersoll had moved on to a new job. By this week he was busy, as commander of the Western Sea Frontier, speeding the flow of ships, men and supplies across the Pacific to Annapolis Classmate Chester W. Nimitz.

Flying the new CinCLant’s flag was a brand-new four-star Admiral: barrel-chested Jonas Howard Ingram, Medal-of-Honorman and onetime Navy fullback, who had served a long tour fighting submarines and running diplomatic errands among the Latin Americas as Commander of the Fourth (South Atlantic) Fleet. He had done so well at both jobs that no Navyman begrudged hurricane-voiced, gregarious Jonas Ingram his new star and his job in the Navy’s most important sea command outside of the Pacific.