Commodore was an early title and later a rank in the United States Navy, United States Coast Guard and also has been a rank in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps (NOAA Corps) and its ancestor organizations. For over two centuries, the designation has been given varying levels of authority and formality.
Since 1985, it is no longer a specific rank within active-duty or reserve forces or in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps or NOAA Corps, but it remains in use as an honorary title within the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard for those senior captains (pay grade O-6) in command of operational organizations composed of multiple independent subordinate naval units, e.g., multiple independent ships, submarines, or aviation squadrons.
However, "commodore" is a rank that is actively used in the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, the civilian volunteer branch of the Coast Guard, for the ranks of District Commodore, Vice National Commodore, and National Commodore.
History Early days
Use of the term "commodore" dates from 1775 in the then–Continental Navy, the predecessor of the modern U.S. Navy, when it was established (but not used) as a courtesy title reserved for captains in command of a fleet or squadron.Naval Ceremonies, Customs and Traditions, 6th ed., CDR Royal W. Connell, USN (Ret) and VADM William P. Mack, USN (Ret); US Naval Institute, Annapolis, MD; 2004; , pp. 261, 266–267, 289–290
The first U.S. naval officer to become a commodore was John Barry, a senior officer of the Navy, appointed in 1794 after the former Continental Navy was reorganized into what would become the current U.S. Navy.
Because the U.S. Congress was originally unwilling to authorize more than four officer ranks in the navy (captain, master commandant, lieutenant, and midshipman) until 1862, considerable importance was attached to the title of commodore. 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".
Like its Royal Navy counterpart at the time, the U.S. Navy commodore was not a higher rank, but a temporary assignment for navy officers, as Herman Melville wrote in his 1850 novel, White-Jacket.
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.
Rank of flag officer
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. The first flag officer appointed was Charles Stewart, who was appointed as "Senior Flag Officer" in 1857. The Act to Further Promote the Efficiency of the Navy, passed on December 21, 1861, gave the president the authority to appoint squadron commanders with the "rank and title" of flag officer. On January 3, 1862 Charles H. Bell, William W. McKean, Louis Goldsborough and Samuel Dupont were promoted to Flag Officer, followed by David Farragut on January 17, 1862.
The rank of flag officer was short lived because it was replaced by commodore in July 1862.
American 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 in the U.S. Navy. 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 all given the rank of commodore.
Disestablishment
The rank of commodore continued in the Navy until March 3, 1899, when "An Act To reorganize and increase the efficiency and the personnel of the Navy and Marine Corps" redefined the list of officers on the active list and did not include the rank of commodore, effectively disestablishing the rank for active line officer, but not on the retirement list.
According to Laws Relating to the Navy, 1919, the step was taken, "…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". In short, U.S. Navy commodores were not being treated as flag officers by other navies, or given the respect that 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, the U.S. Congress at the time specified that the junior rear admirals which were referred to as rear admirals in the "lower half" of seniority, would have pay equal to brigadier generals of the U.S. Army. If there were an odd number of total rear admirals, the lower half of rear admirals was to be the larger. All rear admirals, regardless whether they are in the lower half or the upper half of seniority, were considered equal to major generals, and flew a blue flag with two-stars, and were entitled to a 13-gun salute. The U.S. Supreme Court later held that the rank of commodore had been removed from the U.S. Navy, leaving it without an actual rank equivalent to brigadier general. This act disgruntled all the 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 for many years, especially after 1916, when the U.S. Army made its brigadier generals equivalent to the rear admirals in the lower half of seniority. This made the rear admirals in the upper half of seniority, the only ones to be equal to that of a major general.Supreme Court of the United States, October Term, 1902; No. 562; William C. Gibson vs. U.S.; Judd & Detweiler, Printers, Washington, D.C.; Jan. 23, 1903,
World War II and the Cold War
During the huge expansion of the U.S. Navy during World War II, the Department of the Navy was concerned that the appointment of more flag officers would create a glut of admirals whenever peacetime was achieved. However, some Navy and Coast Guard captains, although not yet selected for rear admiral, were holding commands of significantly higher responsibility than they had earlier and this needed to be recognized. The COMINCH of the U.S. Navy and Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral (later Fleet Admiral) Ernest J. King, proposed bringing back the older rank of "commodore" for these officers. President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed, making the suggestion that the title be revived.
As a result, the one-star officer rank for the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard was re-established in April 1943 with the title of "commodore". In actual practice, some officers on admiral's staffs were also promoted to the rank of commodore. By the end of the War in the Pacific in August 1945, there were over 100 commodores in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard. With respect to the U.S. Coast Guard, it should be understood that during World War II, the much-expanded Coast Guard was transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of the Navy and was involved in combat operations in both anti-submarine warfare and amphibious warfare, thousands of miles away from home, and not just in its usual role of defending the coasts of the United States, detaining smugglers, lifesaving, and search and rescue operations.
After World War II, and with the rapid drawdown in size of both the Navy and the Coast Guard, very few of the wartime commodores were ever promoted to rear admiral. All promotions to commodore ceased in 1947, and nearly all of the commodores who had held the one-star rank had either been promoted to rear admiral or had retired from the Navy by 1950. According to the 1949 edition of the Official Register of Commissioned Officers of the United States Navy, updated to January 1, 1949, the last two commodores on active duty were Tully Shelley (b. 1892) and Antoine O. Rabideau (b. 1884).Official Register of Commissioned Officers of the United States Navy. 1949. p. 12. Shelley retired in July 1949 and was promoted on retirement to rear admiral retroactive to April 3, 1945.Official Register of Commissioned Officers of the United States Navy. 1950. p. 403. Rabideau apparently died July 19, 1970, and his headstone shows him to have held the rank of rear admiral. However, as the Cold War evolved, the Navy began to rebound from its immediate post–World War II reductions. This expanding Navy saw growth in several mission areas, and the reintroduction and designation of senior captains in command of units comprising multiple ships (e.g., "flotillas"), multiple aviation squadrons (e.g., "air groups") or other similar organizations became increasingly commonplace, leading to increased use of the title of commodore for those senior captains occupying these highly responsible positions.
1982 commodore admiral/1983 rear admiral (lower half)
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, following years of objections and complaints by the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Marine Corps, efforts were begun to reinstate commodore as an official rank in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard with a pay grade of O-7, replacing "rear admiral (lower half)", which were Navy and Coast Guard flag officers who were paid at the one-star rank of an O-7 and carried the relative seniority of a one-star officer, but who, due to the elimination of the rank of commodore at the end of World War II, wore the same two-star rank insignia as a full, or "upper half," rear admiral, an O-8.
In 1982, the rank of commodore was finally and officially reintroduced in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard as the O-7 rank. The one-star officer's rank and insignia for Navy and Coast Guard officers was thence re-established with the initial title of commodore admiral.
Later in 1982, following numerous objections by USN officers to the Chief of Naval Operations and USCG officers to the Commandant of the Coast Guard that this new title was unwieldy and confusing, the rank of "commodore admiral" was simplified to "commodore".
However, this action still failed to stem the confusion and the objections of senior officers in the naval services. This was because the U.S. Navy had long assigned the title (although not the rank) of commodore to selected captains holding major operational sea-going commands. Since at least the late 1940s, "commodore" had been used as a "position title" for senior navy captains who commanded air groups and air wings (other than those officers commanding carrier air groups/carrier air wings, who were historically known and referred to as "CAGs"), destroyer squadrons, submarine squadrons, amphibious squadrons, patrol boat flotillas, patrol hydrofoil missile ship squadrons, special warfare groups, construction regiments, and other large seagoing commands. The U.S. Coast Guard had never previously used the title.
In 1983, the one-star U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard admiral rank was changed back to its original O-7 pay grade title of "rear admiral" with the discriminator in seniority and protocol purposes of "Rear Admiral (lower half)," and a rank title abbreviation of RDML versus the O-8 rank title abbreviation of RADM. The rank of commodore / commodore admiral was officially abolished in 1985.