Yates Stirling, Jr.

Rear Admiral Yates Stirling, Jr.
RADM Yates Stirling, Jr. from a portrait by Mabel Buell
Nickname(s)	"the Stormy Petrel of the Navy"
Born	(1872-03-30)March 30, 1872 Vallejo, California
Died	January 27, 1948(1948-01-27) (aged 75) Baltimore, Maryland
Place of burial	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1892–1936
Rank	Rear Admiral
Commands held	USS Paragua USS Paulding USS Salem USS Ozark Submarine Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet USS Tonopah USS Columbia USS President Lincoln USS Von Steuben USS Connecticut USS New Mexico Yangtze Patrol 14th Naval District (Hawaii) 3rd Naval District (New York)
Battles/wars	Spanish–American War Philippines- Moro Rebellion Veracruz Expedition World War I
Awards	Navy Cross French Legion of Honor Order of the Crown of Italy
Relations	RADM Yates Stirling, Sr. (father) CDR Archibald G. Stirling (brother) CAPT Yates Stirling, III (son) CDR Harry E. Stirling (son)

Yates Stirling, Jr. (March 30, 1872 – January 27, 1948) was a decorated and controversial Rear Admiral in the United States Navy whose 44-year career spanned from several years before the Spanish American War to the mid-1930s. He was awarded the Navy Cross and French Legion of Honor for distinguished service during World War One. The elder son of Rear Admiral Yates Stirling, he was an outspoken advocate of sea power as a strong deterrent to war. During Stirling's naval career and following retirement, he was a frequent lecturer, newspaper columnist and author of numerous books and articles, including his memoirs, Sea Duty: The Memoirs of a Fighting Admiral. published in 1939.

Early life and education

Naval Cadet Yates Stirling, Jr.

Yates Stirling, Jr. was born in Vallejo, California in 1872 to Lieutenant Commander Yates Stirling, Sr. (1843-1929) (United States Naval Academy Class of 1863)^[1] and his wife, Ellen Salisbury (née Hale) Stirling (1843-1929).^[2] At the time of Yates Jr.'s birth, his father was assigned to the USS Independence, receiving ship at Mare Island Naval Shipyard.^[3] From an established Maryland family, Stirling was a great-grandson of Thomas Yates (1740-1815), Captain, Fourth Battalion, Maryland Regulars during the American Revolutionary War.^[4] When he was about four, Stirling's family moved to Baltimore, Maryland the home of his father and grandfather.^[5] He was one of five children that survived to adulthood and the oldest of two boys, both of whom followed their father's footsteps to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. His younger brother, Commander Archibald G. Stirling (1884-1963) (United States Naval Academy Class of 1906) retired in 1933 but returned to active duty from 1942-45 during World War II.^[6] The Yates Stirling family was the second in U.S. Naval history to have father and son Rear Admirals living at the same time.^[7]

As a boy living in Baltimore's upper west side, Stirling attended public schools where despite a professed dislike of physical combat, he had a reputation of being a fighter.^[8] While his father was at sea for as long as three years at a time, Stirling had a happy home life with a mother that instilled a love for reading and provided private teachers that enabled him to skip grades at school, though Stirling admitted he was not a good student.^[9] During his father's cruise absences, the family's only knowledge of his well-being came in bulky packets of letters arriving in bunches over long intervals that Stirling's mother, Ellen, would read aloud to her children. The exciting details of life on a warship- "gales, tropical coral reefs, savage people, hunting, and yellow fever"- influenced Stirling's desire for the naval life.^[10] But he saw that it was not without sacrifice. A younger brother was about three when Stirling's father left Baltimore for a long cruise. A few months later, the boy contracted diphtheria and died. Stirling's younger brother, Archie, was born shortly after that. Yates Stirling, Jr. wondered how his father must have felt when he returned home and saw a new son that was nearly the same age as the one he had lost.^[11]

Naval Cadet Yates Stirling, Jr. with USNA Class of 1892

When Stirling was nearly fifteen, his father was given command of the old sloop-of-war USS Dale, the receiving ship at the Washington Navy Yard.^[12] CDR Stirling moved his family from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., where the family set up comfortable, but cramped living quarters on the Dale. Stirling was delighted with the change, and when he wasn't at school, enjoyed sailing on the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers in a boat that the Dale's sailors had rigged for him. Thrown in with the sons of naval officers at the Yard, he soon realized that like himself, most aspired to naval careers.^[13] When Yates, Jr. was fifteen, his father had taken him to the White House to meet President Grover Cleveland to request an appointment for his son. Dressed in shorts, that he later regretted wearing since they accentuated his youthful looks, Stirling recalled Cleveland telling his father, "Why, Commander, your son looks too young to go to Annapolis this year. Maybe next, it will be possible. Shall I have his name put down for an appointment then?" ^[14]

Although a Marylander, Stirling secured his appointment to the Naval Academy the following year from William Whiting, congressman from Massachusetts's 11th congressional district. Whiting was a family friend and Stirling's frequent ice-skating companion on the Potomac. Since no one from Whiting's district had sought an appointment that year, it could be filled by the Secretary of the Navy at the Congressman's request. Whiting wrote the Secretary and it was done. Stirling reported for examinations that he passed and entered Annapolis on September 6, 1888.^[14][15] Naval Cadet Stirling continued his less than stellar academic endeavors at Annapolis. "I lacked fundamental grounding in the various basic subjects, but, even worse, I had not formed the habit of close application and was much keener for games and pranks than for my studies. At times, however, things seemed easy enough, showing that after all my brain was sound but that it needed much disciplining."^[14]

During the three-month, first-class training cruise on the pre-Civil War sloop-of-war USS Constellation, before beginning his final academic year, Stirling and another cadet were ordered aloft during a severe squall to shorten sail and send down the topgallant and royal sail yards. "[s]queezing out tar on every handhold to prevent being blown out into space by the great force of the wind and the pressure of the solid sheets of rain", Stirling climbed up two vertical shrouds and Jacob's ladders to the top gallant yard, one-hundred and twenty feet above the deck. Succeeding in furling the sails and lowering the yards by "exerting every ounce of strength we could muster and while the gale was at its height", Stirling wrote in his memoirs forty years later, "The physical condition and the confidence acquired that enable you to hang, without batting an eye, by one hand in space with a yawning drop below you are things the modern sailor never attains. That sense of exaltation was well worth the price paid."^[16] Having been in the bottom third of his class during the first three years at Annapolis, in his final year of studies, Stirling found the courses more practical to the knowledge and skill he would need as a naval officer. Applying himself to ensure his standing would be high enough to be offered a commission, he improved his academic ranking that year and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1892, twenty-second in a class of forty.^{[17][18][19][20]}

Naval career

Early years

During the two years at sea then required of a navel cadet that had passed his academic studies at Annapolis prior to commissioning as an ensign, Stirling was first assigned to the protected cruiser USS San Francisco that he and four other cadets joined in the Sandwich Islands, as the Territory of Hawaii was then known. Seeing these exotic islands that he had heard about in his father's stories, despite the tropical setting Stirling was somewhat disappointed to find no "truly Hawaiian villages" and that "Hawaiian life even then had merged into Western civilization or Oriental." ^[21] Observing the miscegenation of whites with the indigenous Hawaiians during the few months his ship was at Hawaii, he later wrote in his memoirs, "I found them most wholesome companions, although I had the feeling that I must be careful not to fall in love. It seemed strange to see a dignified white official surrounded by children with skins as dark as a mulatto."^[21] Stirling's nineteenth century ethnic and cultural beliefs aside, he noted the geopolitical undercurrents of the importance of Hawaii to the United States, Great Britain and Japan as each maintained a naval presence. "All three nations were watching each other to be sure no one would obtain advantage over another and become too powerful in Court circles. Hawaii was known to be an important strategical location with great commercial prospects. The United States would not have permitted any other nation to seize the Islands, yet at that time, the Administration in Washington, under President Cleveland, did not feel itself strong enough to take them for this country. Our method, therefore, was one of watchful waiting and maintaining friendly relations with the Hawaiian Queen (Liliuokalani) and her government."^[22] Japan's long-standing ambitions in the Pacific were driving a naval buildup, as it turned out for First Sino-Japanese War two years later and eventually for war with the U.S., as Stirling would predict in articles and lectures in the 1930s and as others such as Homer Lea, had foretold as early as the first decade of the twentieth century. ^[22]

San Francisco was relieved of duty in Hawaii that fall and set out for repairs at Mare Island. Following repairs, Stirling's ship joined a squadron of two other cruisers, USS Baltimore, USS Charleston and a gunboat, USS Bennington bound for a large naval review at New York as part of the following year's Chicago World's Fair.^[23] At Acapulco Bay, Mexico, "celebrated for its man‑eating sharks", Stirling was visiting Charleston and accepted the challenge of the Catholic chaplain to swim off the anchored ship. "We donned our bathing trunks. The chaplain dove first off the gangway, and I followed him. When I struck the water, all the ghastly stories I had ever heard of sharks came into my mind. I swam swiftly back to the gangway, getting there just as Rainnie reached it. He said, breathlessly: 'I don't think we should put too much confidence in the Lord's being able to protect us from our own stupidity.'" Back aboard, the officer of the deck pointed out several black fins where Stirling had been swimming moments earlier.^[24] During the voyage around South America and through the Straits of Magellan, the ship made ports of call at Callao, Peru, Valparaiso, Chile and Montevideo, Uruguay to show the flag and cement generally good relations "where considerable American gold was spent" and where the local officials lavishly entertained the Admiral and officers.^[25]

San Francisco arrived at Hampton Roads, Virginia in February 1893 and with other U.S. and foreign ships, assembled for the naval review. "I was much impressed by the smartness and cleanliness of the British warships. No others seemed as well kept, with the exception of our own. The peculiarities of the French construction and arrangement came in for considerable attention. The appearance of their ships seemed almost grotesque. The Italian ships seemed to be modeled after the British. The discipline of the German tars caused much comment. It seemed so unnecessarily strict." ^[26] Stirling transferred to the Charleston in October 1893, when the cruiser steamed south from Hampton Roads towards the Strait of Magellan and return to the Pacific Coast. Charleston anchored at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where it was ordered to protect American interests and shipping from disturbance during the Brazilian Naval Revolution that had erupted in September with Brazilian Admirals Custódio José de Melo and Saldanha Da Gama commanding a force that included the formidable battleship Aquidaban, several cruisers, Republica, Tamandaré, Trajano, Guanbara and a few smaller frigates and gunboats blockading the port of Rio de Janeiro in a mutiny against the government of General Floriano Peixoto whose regime was recognized by the United States.^[27] When Charleston arrived, there was a British gunboat and two Portuguese cruisers in the harbor. Charleston's captain, Henry F. Picking, due to his rank, became senior of the foreign navies in port and by international custom was regarded as the leader in concerted actions. To determine whether the city could be bombarded by the rebel navy under the rules of war, it was necessary to determine whether the city was fortified. Picking ordered Stirling and Ensign H. E. Smith ashore to find out.

Dressed as civilians to conceal their naval affiliation, the pair separated to reconnoiter the city. Smith was arrested and later released following intervention by the American consul. Posing as a tourist from one of the American schooners in the harbor, Stirling gained the confidence of several Brazilian soldiers who obliging showed him several "fairly large" concealed artillery emplacements. "They kept me for lunch, and we drank many toasts in some very fair brandy. They were so openly cordial and trusting that my conscience pricked me when, from memory, I sketched for Captain Picking the positions of the guns I had seen. The foreign captains then removed the ban on bombardment, notifying both sides that they considered the city was fortified and therefore not a defenseless city as the government had been claiming. The Brazilian Navy, however, never used its authority to bombard. I was glad of this, for the city was so beautiful and belonged to the navy as well as to its defenders." ^[28] Stirling later recounted, that while on Charleston, where he made numerous forays on the ship's steam launch into the harbor, "I was under more dangerous gunfire in Rio Harbor during that revolution than during the whole of the Spanish War" ^[29] The stalemate dragged on for a couple of months and Charleston was joined by other U.S. Navy warships. In January 1894, the revolution ceased in what has become known as the Rio de Janeiro Affair. After a leisurely cruise from Montevideo, Uruguay, she arrived in San Francisco on 8 July 1894 to prepare for a return to the Asiatic Station.. after his final graduation, and on August 16, 1894, reported for duty on board the USS NEW YORK. In 1896 and 1897 he served in the USS THETIS and the Fish Commission steamer ALBATROSS. In 1898 and 1899 he was assigned to the USS BADGER.

Spanish-American War

During the Spanish-American War in 1898, Stirling was attached to the converted gunboat USS DOLPHIN. He participated in a boat expedition to clear Spanish mines from Guantanamo Harbor.

Philippine insurrection

During the native insurrection in the Philippines he commanded the USS PARAGUA, a gunboat.

Inter-war years

On February 23, 1900 he joined the USS CELTIC, and on November 21 of the game year, reported to the Commandant Naval Station, San Juan, Puerto Rico, for duty. In 1903-1904 he had staff duty on board the USS Wisconsin (BB-9) and the USS Rainbow (AS-7), and in 1905-1906 remained at sea in the USS MASSACHUSETTS. In the rank of Lieutenant Commander he reported on October 1, 1906 to the Naval Academy and while on duty there made a cruise in the USS ARKANSAS in the summer of 1907. Detached from the Naval Academy in June 1908 he next served In the USS CONNECTICUT, flagship of Commander in Chief, U. S. Atlantic Fleet.

In 1911, he commanded the Eighth Torpedo Division, Atlantic Torpedo Fleet, his pennant in the USS Paulding (DD-22) which he also commanded as the plank owner captain. In 1912-1913, after completing the course at the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island, had duty on the staff. Later in 1912 he joined the USS RHODE ISLAND as Executive Officer, and in 1914 assumed command of Submarine Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet, attached successively to the USS OZARK and USS PRAIRIE. From June 1915 until June 1916 he commanded the USS COLUMBIA, and served additionally as Aide on the Staff of Commander Submarine Flotilla, Atlantic.

Next assigned as Commander of the newly established Submarine Flotilla, New London, Connecticut, he also commanded the Submarine Base New London and the Submarine School during the period June 1916 until July 1917, having additional duty from April 1917, at the outbreak of World War I, in command of the USS CHICAGO. In 1917, after the American entry into World War I, he advocated for and eventually chaired a board on submarine design.^[30]

World War I

He then fitted out and assumed command of the USS PRESIDENT LINCOLN at her commissioning later that year. He was transferred in December 1917 to command of the USS VON STEUBEN, the ex-German CROWN PRICE WILHELM.

He was awarded the Navy Cross for World War I service and cited as follows: “For distinguished service In the line of his profession as Commanding Officer of the USS PRESIDENT LINCOLN and the USS VON STEUBEN, engaged in the important, exacting and hazardous duty of transporting and escorting troops and supplies to European ports through waters infested with enemy submarines and mines.”

Post- war

In March 1919 he was ordered to duty in command of the USS CONNECTICUT and in April of the next year was detached for duty as Captain of the Yard, Navy Yard, Philadelphia. He remained there for two years, then served from June 1922 until June 1924 as Commanding Officer the USS NEW MEXICO. On July 20, 1924, he became Captain of the Yard, Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., with additional duty as Assistant Superintendent of the Naval Gun Factory. In December 1926 he was designated Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, Navy Department, Washington, D.C.

Yangtze Patrol

He had command of the Yangtze Patrol of the Asiatic Fleet from October 1927 until May 1929 and upon his return to the United States, was appointed President of the Naval Examining Board, Navy Department.

Fourteenth Naval District, Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii

In September 1931 he was designated Commandant, Fourteenth Naval District, with additional duty as Commandant Naval Operating Base, Pearl Harbor, T.H. In 1932, the Massie Trial took place in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Hawaiian Islands were at the time part of the 14th Naval District, commanded by Stirling. Stirling's strong belief of the guilt of the five men charged with rape and assault was well-known, as was his displeasure at the result of a mistrial. Later, he defended the actions of those involved in the events that led to the homicide of Joseph Kahahawai. In the 1986 made-for-television movie about the trial, Blood & Orchids, the name of the character representing Stirling was changed to Glenn Langdon.

Third Naval District, New York, NY

On June 30, 1933, he became Commandant, Third Naval District, Headquarters at New York, New York and of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He served in the latter capacity until May 1, 1936, when he was transferred to the Retired List of the U, S. Navy, having reached the statutory retirement age of sixty-four years.

Post Naval career

Admiral Stirling, self-styled "stormy petrol" of the Naval Service, devoted his energies after retirement to writing books and newspaper stories and lecturing. Outspoken and critical of naval policies and procedures as well as U. S. international policies, he had long urged a two- ocean Navy second to none. He published a controversial anti-Soviet article in 1935 while still on active duty that evoked a proclamation from the Secretary of the Navy that active duty naval officers were not to speak out on international policy.^[31] He urged U.S. intervention against Germany in 1939 and failing to interest the country, pleaded that the American people at least pray for a British-French victory. He later wrote, "Why Sea Power Will Win the War, published in 1944.

Personal life

He married his wife, the former Adelaide Egbert, daughter of Harry C. Egbert, in 1903. They had five children. One son became a Captain in the Navy.^[32]

He was a hereditary companion of the California Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States by right of his father's service in the American Civil War^[33] having been elected to membership while an ensign in 1899.^[34]

Death

Rear Admiral Stirling died on January 27, 1948, after three months’ illness in Baltimore, Maryland, his home for many years, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He was survived by his wife, two sons, Captain Yates Stirling, III, USN (Ret.) of Norfolk, Virginia, and Commander Harry E. Stirling USN; and three daughters, Katharine (Mrs. William R. Ilk) of Los Angeles, California and Misses Ellen and Adelaide Stirling of Baltimore. Also surviving was his, Captain Archibald Stirllng, USN (Ret.) of Newport, Rhode Island.

Dates of rank

United States Naval Academy Passed Midshipman –June 3, 1892

Ensign	Lieutenant Junior Grade	Lieutenant	Lieutenant Commander
O-1	O-2	O-3	O-4
July 1, 1894	March 3, 1899	October 24, 1900	July 1, 1906

Commander	Captain	Commodore	Rear Admiral
O-5	O-6	O-7	O-8
June 7, 1912	August 10, 1917	Never Held	October 6, 1926

• Commodore – no longer a rank in the United States Navy, was previously reserved for wartime use and was not in use at the time of Stirling's promotion to Flag Rank in 1927. Currently, a Captain who is promoted to pay grade O-7 becomes a Rear Admiral (Lower Half) and uses the abbreviated rank designation RDML as opposed to RADM, which designates a Rear Admiral (Upper Half), O-8.
• Stirling was promoted to Rear Admiral in December 1927, with date of rank October 6, 1926.

Decorations

Rear Admiral Yates Stirling, Jr. was awarded these decorations and service awards:

References

Bibliography