Army & Navy: The Admirals

In the Navy, an officer fit for top command must be 1) well weathered, 2) a graduate of Annapolis. A composite picture of the flag officers who run the Navy —from statistics on officer personnel released this week—would be a man who was graduated from the Naval Academy around the beginning of the century, sailed in 1907 on the U.S. Fleet’s chesty globe-girdling cruise, commanded a warship in World War I, is now a frosty-haired veteran of 57. More than likely, he is not an aviator.

His opposite number, a general officer in the Army, cannot be so easily typed.

Average age of Army generals is 51. Only 45% of them are West Pointers.

Neither in Army nor Navy is this the result of war. Many of the non-West Pointers now wearing Army stars are regulars who came up from the ranks or through appointments from civilian life (as the Marines get most of their officers).

In the Navy such officers have so far won no top commands afloat, only a few ashore.

The Line. The Navy now has 202 flag officers of the line: admirals, vice admirals, rear admirals, commodores.

Top, higher than an “angel’s footstool,” is frigid, closemouthed COMINCH Ernest J. King, who was eligible for retirement last year but was retained in his post by the President. Last week he celebrated his 65th birthday. The only other men in the Navy who wear an admiral’s four stars on active line duty: > White-haired, canny Chester W. Nimitz, 58, boss in the Pacific; shaggy, bull-tongued William Frederick Halsey Jr., 61, commander of the South Pacific and the only one of the full admirals besides King himself who is a naval aviator; ruddy, meticulous Harold R. Stark, 63, commander of U.S. Naval forces in European waters; spare, taciturn Royal E.

Ingersoll, 60, Nimitz’ opposite number in the Atlantic.

>Oldest admiral is bearded, erect Joseph Mason (“Bull”) Reeves, long since retired but now back at work as chairman of the Navy’s Munitions Assignment Committee. Age: 71.

> Of vice admirals (rank equals lieutenant general) the Navy has 21, including one “EDO” (Engineering Duty Only), five aviators, one aviation observer. Their average age: 58.

>Of rear admirals (major generals) the Navy has 153, not counting the rear admirals in staff corps (supply, medical, dental and engineering) who are not flag officers because they fly no flags, may tread no quarter-decks. Twenty-five of the rear admirals of the line are EDOs, 33 are aviators, two are aviation observers. Their average age: 57.

>Of commodores, the rank re-created by Congress in April 1943, the Navy has 23, including one EDO, six aviators. Commodores, who wear one star like the Army’s brigadier generals, command small task forces; one is serving on Lord Louis Mountbatten’s staff; one is commandant of the Naval Operations Base in Londonderry, Northern Ireland; one is chief of the Moroccan Sea Frontier. Youngest of the commodores—and youngest flag officer in the Navy—is Thomas Selby Combs, 45, commander of Navy Aircraft in the Southwest Pacific.*Advancement. Rules of seniority have controlled advancement in the Navy, but before the war a board of selection winnowed out those men the Navy deemed best qualified for promotion. Under pressure of war, the Navy had to give up its winnowing, promote men on their records and wartime performance. Without much regard for seniority, captains have been boosted rapidly to temporary flag rank as new flag officers were needed.

King stipulated, however, that no officer could be promoted to flag rank unless he had commanded a major fleet unit (battleship, carrier, heavy cruiser). Oddest working of this variable rule: Charles E. Rosendahl had to command a cruiser (and won the Navy Cross in battle) before he was deemed fit to be a rear admiral and commander of all the Navy’s airships.

Annapolis Trained. All of the flag officers who rule the waves—with one thin exception—are Annapolis trained, † That exception is Rear Admiral Albert B. Ran dall, ex-skipper of the Leviathan. No com bat commander, he is a member of the Merchant Marine Reserve and comman dant of the U.S. Maritime Service in the War Shipping Administration.

Only among the 36 rear admirals in the staff corps are there other non-Annapolis men. Outstanding among these is Ben Moreell, Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, who came to the Navy from a municipal job during the last war and jumped the grade of captain when he was made Bureau Chief. To Ben Moreell belongs much credit for the gigantic job of building the Navy’s worldwide bases. Other typical non-Annapolis staff corps admirals: Ross T. Mclntire, Chief of the Bu reau of Medicine and Surgery; William B.

Young, Chief of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts.

Rigid Rule. In the lower ranks of line officers (ensigns through commanders) there are plenty of civilians. A ratio of three or four reservists to one regular is the usual thing in the wardrooms of the Navy’s fast-growing fleet. Reservists with special talents — engineers, lawyers, construction men, even recreation men — have also won good shore-based jobs.

But the commands of all-important ships (destroyers, all cruisers, carriers and battleships) the Navy has reserved for its regulars. The Navy still holds hard to its old school tie. By word and deed it follows a rigid rule: regulars are not only the best naval officers; they are the only ones yet eligible for the important seagoing com mands.

*The Army’s youngest general officer: 34.

† West Pointers among Army line generals: 45%.