Richard S. Edwards Junior
Richard Stanislaus Edwards, Jr. (born February 18, 1885 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † June 2, 1956 in Oakland , California ) was an American admiral in the US Navy , who was Vice Chief of Naval Operations between 1945 and 1946 .
Life
Military training and time until World War II
After attending school in 1903, Edwards began his military training at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis , which he graduated in 1907. After his promotion to Lieutenant at Sea on September 13, 1908, he found various uses on board ships of the US Navy. After the United States entered the First World War in November 1917, he served as an engineer officer on the battleship USS Kentucky and then as a gun officer on the battleship USS Kansas , before he finally became a gun officer on the battleship USS Arkansas .
After the war, Edwards was in August 1924 Commander successor Lieutenant Commander Webb Cook Hayes as commander ( Commanding Officer ) of the Clemson-class destroyer belonging destroyer USS Wood and remained in that post until his replacement by Commander Samuel Averett Clement on June 10, 1926. Later he was the commander of the 6th Submarine Squadron 6 and the submarine base in New London , before he succeeded Rear Admiral Wilhelm Lee Friedell as the commander of the battleship USS Colorado in 1938 as sea captain . He held this command until 1939.
Following Edwards commander of the submarine associations was the then US patrol forces (US Patrol Force) , which later in the newly created US Atlantic Fleet on 1 February 1941 ( US Atlantic Fleet ) was incorporated. For his services as adjutant to the commander of the rescue and recovery operations for the submarine USS Sailfish on May 23, 1939, he was awarded the Navy Cross on May 10, 1940 .
After the USA entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Forces, Rear Admiral Edwards became the first commander of the submarine units COMSUBLANT (Commander, Submarine Force Atlantic) of the US Atlantic Fleet with headquarters in Naval Submarine Base New London and exercised this command until his replacement by Rear Admiral Freeland A. Daubin a month later in January 1942.
Edwards then became Deputy Chief of Staff at the Commander-in-Chief of the US Fleet , Admiral Ernest J. King , in January 1942 , before he was then Chief of Staff at the Commander-in-Chief of the US Fleet from September 1942 to October 1944 and thus his closest collaborator by Admiral King. In September 1944, King appointed Vice Admiral Edwards to the newly created post of Deputy Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet and Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Deputy COMINCH-Deputy CNO) , leaving Edwards as King's immediate deputy in the chain of command above Vice Chief of Naval Operations , Vice Admiral Frederick J. Horne stood.
Hornes dissatisfaction with this actual demotion led to a spate of reviews in daily newspapers and radio broadcasts, which King tried to suppress by issuing a press release dated October 4, 1944, in which it was stated that the duties now assigned to Vice Admiral Edwards were not demoting Vice Admiral Horne or another would mean.
On April 13, 1945 he was promoted to admiral, so that he was one of the few four-star admirals in the US Navy.
post war period
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He held the position of Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (DCNO) until October 1945. After the end of World War II, King carried out a reorganization of the US Navy on September 29, 1945, abolishing the position of Commander in Chief of the US Navy (COMINCH) and the function of Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) as the undisputed military direction of the US Navy provided. The reorganization, which came into effect on October 10, 1945, resulted in Admiral King staying at CNO, while Admiral Edwards succeeded Hornes as second Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
Horne instead acted temporarily as King's special assistant to deal with demobilization and return of logistics. He was honored with the Navy Distinguished Service Medal in December 1945 for his services during World War II .
A few months after the reorganization of the naval command, Edwards ended his duties as Vice Chief of Naval Operations and instead became Commander of the US Reserve Fleet and Commander of the Western Sea Frontier , while Admiral DeWitt C. Ramsey succeeded him as Vice Chief of Naval Operations on January 15, 1946. On July 1, 1947, he was placed on the US Navy Retired List and retired from active military service.
Edwards died on June 2, 1956 in the Naval Hospital and was subsequently buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The USS Richard S. Edwards , a Forrest-Sherman-class destroyer, commissioned on February 5, 1959, was named in his honor .
Awards
Web links
- Entry in the Hall of Valor of the Military Times
- Richard S. Edwards Jr. in the database of Find a Grave (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Vice Chief of Naval Operations on the homepage of the Naval History and Heritage Command
- ↑ USS RICHARD S. EDWARDS (DD-950) (NavSource Online)
Horns | Edwards | Ramsey | Radford | Price | McCormick | Duncan | Felt | Russell | Ricketts | Rivero | Clarey | Cousins | Weisner | Holloway | Bagley | Shear | Long | Watkins | Small | Hays | Busey | Hardisty | Edney | Johnson | Arthur | Prueher | Johnson | Gehman | Pilling | Fallon | Mullen | Nathman | Willard | Walsh | Greenert | Ferguson | Howard | Moran | Burke
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Edwards, Richard S. Junior |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Edwards, Richard Stanislaus Jr. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American admiral in the US Navy |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 18, 1885 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Philadelphia , Pennsylvania |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 2, 1956 |
| Place of death | Oakland , California |