Yates Stirling Jr. (April 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 I. The elder son of Rear Admiral Yates Stirling, he was an outspoken advocate of American sea power as a strong deterrent to war and to protect and promote international commerce. 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. Describing himself, Stirling wrote, "All my life I have been called a stormy petrel. I have never hesitated to use the pen to reveal what I considered should be brought to public attention, usually within the Navy, but often to a wider public. I seem to see some benefits that have come through those efforts. I have always believed that a naval man is disloyal to his country if he does not reveal acts that are doing harm to his service and show, if he can, how to remedy the fault. An efficient Navy cannot be run with 'yes men' only."The New York Times, Yates Stirling Jr., Navy Veteran, Dies January 28, 1948. p. 23
Early life and education
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)Meekins, Lynn R. (1910). Men of Mark in Maryland. Biographies of Leading Men of the State, v. 2. Baltimore, Washington & Richmond: B. F. Johnson, p. 145 and his wife, Ellen Salisbury (née Hale) Stirling. At the time of Yates Jr.'s birth, his father was assigned to the , receiving ship at Mare Island Naval Shipyard.The Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), December 4, 1872 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.A National Register of the Society, Sons of the American Revolution, Volume 1, Louis H. Cornish, New York, 1902 When he was about four, Stirling's family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, the home of his father and grandfather.Stirling Jr., Yates (1939). Sea Duty: The Memoirs of a Fighting Admiral. New York, NY: G. P. Putnam's Sons, p. 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 to 1945 during World War II.Register of Alumni, United States Naval Academy Assoc. 1845–1985, p. 169 The Yates Stirling family was the second in U.S. Naval history to have father and son flag officers (rear admirals) living at the same time. The first were Rear Admirals Thomas O. Selfridge Sr. and Jr.
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.Stirling, pp. 3–4 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.Stirling, p. 5 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.Stirling, p. 6 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. Another 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.Stirling, pp 6–7
When Stirling was nearly fifteen, his father was given command of the old sloop-of-war , the receiving ship at the Washington Navy Yard.Hamersly, Lewis Randolph. (1902). The Records of Living Officers of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, Seventh Edition, New York: L. R. Hamersly Company, p. 86 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 Navy Yard, he soon realized that like himself, most aspired to naval careers.Stirling, p. 7 When Yates Jr. was fifteen, his father had taken him to the White House for the purpose of meeting President Grover Cleveland and requesting an appointment to Annapolis for his son. Dressed in shorts, that Stirling later regretted wearing since they accentuated his youthful looks, he 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?"Stirling, p. 8
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."Annual register of the United States Naval Academy. Annapolis, Md 1891–92", p. 24 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."
During the three-month, first-class training cruise on the pre-Civil War sloop-of-war , 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, 120 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."Stirling, p. 12 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 on June 3, 1892, twenty-second in a class of forty.Register of Alumni, United States Naval Academy Assoc. 1845-1985, p. 160"Annual register of the United States Naval Academy. Annapolis, Md 1892-93", pp. 32-33Stirling, p. 13–14
Naval career
Early years
During the two years at sea then required of a naval cadet that had passed his academic studies before commissioning as an ensign, Stirling was first assigned to the protected cruiser that he and four other cadets joined in the Sandwich Islands, (as the Territory of Hawaii was also known) in July 1892. 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."Stirling, p. 17 Observing the miscegenation of whites with the indigenous Hawaiians during the few weeks 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." 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."Stirling, p. 18 Japan's long-standing ambitions in the Pacific were driving a naval buildup for the 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.
San Francisco was relieved of duty in Hawaii in mid-August 1892 and set out for repairs at Mare Island. Following repairs, Stirling's ship joined a squadron of two other cruisers, , and a gunboat, bound for a large naval review at New York as part of the following year's (1893) Chicago World's Fair.Stirling, p. 19 At Acapulco Bay, Mexico, "celebrated for its man‑eating sharks", Stirling was visiting Charleston and accepted the challenge of the Catholic chaplain, Father William H. Reaney, 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 (chaplain) Rainnie (sic) 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.Stirling, pp. 19–20 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.Stirling, p. 20
Brazilian Naval Revolution