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History of U.S. Navy Officer Corps Rank When the U.S. Navy’s predecessor, the Continental Navy, was established in 1775, the first set of Navy regulations stipulated the commissioned offices of captain and lieutenant. When the United States Navy was created by Congress in 1794, the legislation again provided for the ranks of captain and lieutenant “who shall be appointed and commissioned in like manner as other officers of the United States are.” In 1799, master commandant was authorized as a rank between lieutenant and captain. Although master commandant was changed to commander in 1837, this simple rank system survived intact until the Civil War. In the early republic and the antebellum period, Congress was very resistant to the creation of a large peacetime Navy. This manifested itself in several ways, one of the most notable being a marked reluctance to establish ranks above captain. The outbreak of the Civil War necessitated a massive buildup of the Navy and an expanded rank structure to effectively organize the wartime service, and in 1862 Congress authorized thirteen rear admirals. This legislation also created several new ranks and established
the following precedence, in descending order: rear admiral,
commodore, captain, commander, lieutenant commander, lieutenant,
master, and ensign. Two years later, David Glasgow Farragut was
appointed the Navy’s first vice admiral. Following the deaths of Dixon and Rowan, Congress would not
appoint another admiral or vice admiral until 1915, to the
consternation of senior Navy officers who had to interact with
higher-ranking counterparts in other nation’s navies. One
interesting exception to the Congressional aversion to senior flag
officer ranks was the promotion of Spanish-American War hero George
Dewey to the rank of admiral of the Navy in 1903. Dewey held this
rank until his death in 1917, the only officer in Navy history be so
recognized. Still, Dewey’s promotion was more in line with the
tradition of rewarding superlative rank to individual officers with
distinguished wartime service than a change in Congress’s
willingness to expand ranks above rear admiral. Ensign (junior grade) replaced a position held by Naval Academy graduates, who were required after 1873 to do two years of sea duty following their four years at Annapolis before they could receive their commissions. Ensign (junior grade) was eliminated the following year, and Naval Academy graduates would again have to wait two years before commissioning. The current system whereby midshipmen commission as ensigns upon graduation, first established during the Civil War, was finally revived in 1912. Commodore was eliminated in 1899 and replaced with a lower pay grade of rear admiral equivalent to a brigadier general, although officers of both rear admiral grades continued to wear the same insignia. In 1915, as American involvement in the First World War loomed on the horizon, admiral and vice admiral billets were created for officers assigned as the commanders and seconds-in-command of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Asiatic fleets. Another admiral billet was authorized in 1916 with the creation of the Chief of Naval Operations position. The Navy has continued the admiral and vice admiral rank since this time. With America’s entry into the Second World War, the Navy again
had a need to expand and alter the rank system at the higher
echelons of the service. Congress reauthorized the rank of commodore
in April 1943, and in December 1944, Congress approved the five-star
fleet admiral rank. William D. Leahy, Ernest J. King, and Chester W.
Nimitz were promoted to the grade at that time, and the fourth fleet
admiral, William H. Halsey, was promoted in December 1945. The Navy
has not had a five-star fleet admiral since Leahy left active duty
in 1949. Promotions to commodore were phased out by legislation in
1947, and by 1950 no commodores remained on active duty.
Nonetheless, commodores would reappear in Navy history. The absence
of commodore after the Second World War left the Navy with rear
admirals of upper- and lower-half grades. Confusingly, rear admirals
of both grades wore two-star flag officer insignia. The first is the authorization of more ranks during major wars, when the Navy’s rapid expansion necessitated additional grades to command a myriad of new vessels and organizations of various sizes. The second trend is the evolution of the Navy into a large peacetime institution with a professional officer corps and an officer personnel management system. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Congress preferred an extremely small navy that was to be expanded only in time of war, and commissions were initially authorized to fill specific shipboard positions with little thought to the possibility of a career-length progression through the officer ranks. As the Navy slowly grew and professionalized over the course of the nineteenth century, additional ranks were created to enable more echelons of command, and a formal pathway (albeit usually an incredibly slow one) was established for a commissioned career in the Navy. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the greatest change in Navy officer ranks. With minor exceptions, the basic framework of the officer rank structure that we know today has remained stable for the past century. |
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