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Commodore (USN)
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- Please see "Commodore" for other uses of this rank
Commodore is a former rank and a current honorary title in the United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard with an intricate history. Because the U.S. Congress was originally unwilling to authorize any admirals in its service until 1862, considerable importance was attached to the office of commodore. Like its Royal Navy counterpart at the time, the U.S.
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- Please see "Commodore" for other uses of this rank
Commodore is a former rank and a current honorary title in the United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard with an intricate history. Because the U.S. Congress was originally unwilling to authorize any admirals in its service until 1862, considerable importance was attached to the office of commodore. Like its Royal Navy counterpart at the time, the U.S. Navy commodore was not a higher rank, but a temporary assignment for captains, as Herman Melville wrote in White Jacket, 1849,
- An American commodore, like an English commodore or a French chef d'escadre, is but a senior captain, temporarily commanding a small number of ships, detached for any special purpose. He has no permanent rank, recognized by government, above his captaincy; though once employed as a commodore, usage and courtesy unite in continuing the title.
Commodore would later be added as an official rank in 1981 with a paygrade of O-7. Since 1985, the rank of commodore is now inactive and has subsequently been abolished. The rank has since been replaced and the O-7 paygrade is now designated to the rank of rear admiral (lower half).
History
The practice was not reserved to captains in the earlier days. Captain Isaac Hull, chafing at not being able to progress further in rank, wrote in 1814 that, if no admirals were to be authorized, something should be done to prevent "every midshipman that has command of a gunboat on a separate station taking upon himself the name of Commodore."
Eventually the title of commodore was defined more strictly, and was reserved for captains so designated by the Navy Department, although the practice of retaining the title for life added some confusion. In 1857, Congress established the grade of Flag Officer. This generic title was intended "to promote the efficiency of the Navy," but differed little from the previous practice. Like the courtesy-title commodores, "flag officers" reverted to captain once their squadron command assignment was completed.
Civil War
Because of the acute need for officers at the beginning of the American Civil War, naval tradition was ignored and commodore became for the first time a permanent commissioned rank. Eighteen commodores were authorized on July 16, 1862. The rank title also lost its "line command" status when, in 1863, the chiefs of the Bureaus of Medicine and Surgery, Provisions and Clothing, Steam Engineering, and Construction and Repair were given the rank of commodore.
Flag officer
The rank of commodore continued in the Navy until 1899, when the Naval Personnel Act made all commodores into rear admirals. The reason, according to Laws Relating to the Navy, 1919, was "... on account of international relationships, the consideration of which caused the Navy Department to regard the complications confronting it as inimical to the honor and dignity of this nation, because of the adverse effect upon its high ranking representatives in their association with foreign officers." US commodores were not being treated as flag-level officers by other navies, or given the respect the Navy Department thought was their due.
As it would have been expensive to increase the pay of all the former commodores to the level of Rear Admirals, Congress specified that the lower half of the Rear Admiral list have pay equal to Brigadier Generals of the Army. If there were an odd number of Rear Admirals, the lower half of the list was to be the larger. All Rear Admirals, upper or lower half, were equal to major generals, flew a flag instead of a broad pennant, and were entitled to a thirteen gun salute. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the rank of Commodore had been removed from the U.S. Navy, leaving it without a rank equivalent to Brigadier General. This act disgruntled Brigadier Generals, who could now be outranked by officers who were their juniors in terms of service. This was a point of inter-service controversy, and in 1916 the U.S. Army made its Brigadier Generals equivalent to Rear Admirals (lower half). Thus, Rear Admirals (upper half) were equal to Major Generals.
World War II
During the naval expansion during World War II, the Navy Department was concerned that the appointment of more flag officers would create a glut of admirals after the war. However, some captains were holding commands of higher responsibility, and needed to be recognized. Admiral Ernest King proposed bringing back the old rank of commodore for these officers. President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed, though he specified that this rank be restricted to line officers. The Navy's one-star officer rank subsequently reappeared in April 1943 with the title of Commodore. In practice, staff corps officers could also become commodores. By the end of the war, there were over one hundred commodores in service.
Following the war, very few of the wartime commodores were promoted to rear admiral. Promotions to commodore ended in 1947, and nearly all who had held the one-star rank had either been promoted to rear admiral or retired by 1950. In early 1953, a commodore (a captain who had the title commodore) went aboard the fleet oiler USS Nantahala (AO 60) to evaluate the captain of the ship for promotion to rank of Captain. How many were still in the service as commodore at that point is not known.
1982 Commodore Admiral / 1983 Rear Admiral (Lower Half)
Following continued U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force dissatisfaction with the U.S. Navy's and U.S. Coast Guard's policy of providing Rear Admirals (Lower half) in pay grade O-7 with two star (O-8) rank insignia, the one star rank appeared again in 1982 with the title of Commodore Admiral.
In 1983, after numerous protests to the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Coast Guard, Commodore Admiral was changed to simply Commodore. However, the title of Commodore had also been in use in the U.S. Navy since the 1950s as a position title for senior Captains who commanded Destroyer Squadrons, Submarine Squadrons, Amphibious Squadrons, Patrol Boat Flotillas, Special Warfare Groups, Air Groups and Air Wings (other than Carrier Air Groups/Carrier Air Wings), Construction Regiments and other large sea-going commands. In contrast, the U.S. Coast Guard had never previously used the title.
Later in 1983, to prevent further confusion between the title of Commodore and the actual rank, the one star Navy admiral rank was changed back to its original O-7 pay grade title of Rear Admiral (Lower Half). From that point on, Commodore has remained a title for Captains in command of more than a single unit (other than Captains commanding Carrier Air Wings, who retained their traditional title of "CAG") and all Navy and Coast Guard one star admirals were referred to as Rear Admiral (Lower Half).
Present day title usage
The U.S. Navy no longer maintains a rank of Commodore but the term has survived as a title. Modern-day commodores are senior captains in command of Destroyer/Cruiser/Amphibious/Riverine Squadrons, Coastal Warfare Groups, Special Warfare (SEAL) Groups, Submarine Squadrons, Air Wings or Air Groups exclusive of Carrier Air Wings, and Naval Construction Regiments. Such officers are referred to, both orally and in correspondence, as "Commodore," but wear the rank insignia of a captain.
As members of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary are civilian volunteers, they do not have rank, per se, but officers that have reached flag positions equivelant to Admirals in the U.S. Coast Guard use the term Commodore: District Commodore (DCO); National Directorate Commodore (NADCO); National Vice Commodore (NAVCO) and National Commodore (NACO). They, including the National Chief of Staff (NACOS) may permanently append the word Commodore, sometimes abbreviated COMO, to their names. (i.e. Commodore James A. Smith, National Commodore; or COMO Jim Smith, NACO).
See also
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