Talk:Admiral of the Navy (United States)

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[edit] Title

Discussion about the title of this article and its recent change can be found at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (acronyms)#Changing article titles from XXXXX (US) to XXXXX (United States). Feel free to contribute. -- hike395 16:26, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nimitz as 6 Star

I deleted the information that Admiral Nimitz was considered for 6-star rank because I find that to be an extraordinary enough claim to warrant a reference citation. It is not mentioned in Potter's biography of Nimitz, Morison or any history of the USN in WWII that I have come across. It also doesn't seem likely that Nimitz would be given a rank higher than his boss, COMINCH-CNO. Nor does it seem necessary to have a 6-star officer in the Pacific since the fleet commanders were 4-star and the major task force and area commanders were 3-star. -- J.T. Broderick, 29 August, 2005

The reference to Chester Nimitz's proposed 6 star promotion is based on documents from his U.S. Navy service record on file at the National Personnel Records Center. There are several letters talking about promoting him beyond 5 star rank but the name of the rank is not actual mentioned. The Institute of Heraldry are the ones who actually propose that Nimitz's new rank would be known as Flag Admiral, equivalent to the old Admiral of the Navy. How to cite all that? I don't know. As it was a rather small article, that has actually never come up. -Husnock 01:24, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Well thank you, that is very interesting. Do you know where the proposal originated? And how far along it got? If TIOH did work on it I assume it was at least past the speculative stage. I still don't really see a need for it, though.
As for the cite, I would suggest something like "Letters in the service file of Adm. Nimitz indicate..." in the body, and "(Full Name) to (Full Name), letter, (date)" for the cite. Thanks again for the info. J.T. Broderick 02:19, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] No Such Rank or Grade

There is no "Rank" or "Grade" of six star Admiral of the Navy or General of the Armies. Try a hitch in the service: There is nothing outside of the minds of Wikepedians that holds that there is such a rank or grade.

This is absurd. I've seen these discussions morph from some pleasant speculation to something akin to a papal bull. Outside of the Wikipedia dogma, there is no such thing. These were honorary titles. It makes Wikipedia look, frankly, ridiculous. -unsigned anon user

Already addressed over on Talk:General of the Armies. The two ranks are very well established. -Husnock 01:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] January 1944 proposal

There's an article[1] on the Eisenhower Memorial Commission website with the following story:

In early January 1944 President Roosevelt startled Admiral Leahy by telling him he was going to be promoted to five stars with the title Admiral of the Fleet. Stunned, Leahy replied that if such a promotion was under consideration the rank ought to be given to each member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A few days later a Navy Captain informed the Army Chief of Personnel that the chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee would be introducing a bill in Congress, prepared by the Navy Department, to provide two new ranks; Admiral of the Navy (six-star rank) and Admiral of the Fleet (five stars). According to the Navy messenger, President Roosevelt had approved the plan and expected similar action to provide higher ranks for the Army with a six star General of the Armies and a five star General of the Army.

The article goes on to say that Stimson shot down the six-star ranks as silly one-up-manship on the British, but the five-star ranks got approved after Montgomery got promoted to field marshal. Seems like this account might be detailed enough that someone could identify its sources?

Also, I remember reading (an old biography of King in a used bookstore) that early in the war, Knox tried to entice King to move his CINCUSFLEET headquarters to Hawaii to take personal command as Admiral of the Navy. King declined the promotion, since it was a transparent ploy by a political rival to shift him out of the power center of Washington D.C. Anyone else ever hear this? Morinao 23:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The number of stars

The article says "six star", then the insignia shown has four stars. Is there anything that we should know? --Dmitry (talk •contibs ) 22:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal

Ok, let's look at the information on this page.

1) There the rank given to Dewey in 1899. Which is specified as being senior to Admiral and equal to the UK Admiral of the Fleet. In other words, it's identical in all but name to FADM.

2) There's the proposal to maybe promote Nimitz to a rank senior to FADM, that might have been called Admiral of the Navy. Interesting factoid, but doesn't seem worthly of anything more than a section in the larger article. --RaiderAspect 06:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Very much against this. Admiral of the Navy is its own rank which holds a special status in the United States Navy. it is not the same as a Fleet Admiral and should not be merged into that article. -38.119.112.187 17:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong against They are not the same rank. Definitely appropriate for {{Seealso}}, but not a merge. — MrDolomite • Talk 18:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Undo 1976 vs 1776 for George Washington

Regarding this reversion, please see General of the Armies for the effective date of George Washington's promotion. Thanks. — MrDolomite • Talk 13:02, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] John Paul Jones

When was the edit saying that he was a Six-star Admiral verified? There is no citation, and I have found no notations or anything along those lines that suggest that this was true. In fact, this article stated for years that he was NOT considered Admiral of the Navy, despite his role in the country's founding. Has some new Act of Congressional Authority changed this? 74.69.21.12 (talk) 19:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

He never held the rank and I reverted the edit. -OberRanks (talk) 10:02, 29 December 2007 (UTC)