WWII Admirals On Stamps?

When I was growing up, the one star rank of Commodore was only used selectively, like in Burke's case during WWII. The difference between Rear Admiral "Lower Half" and "Upper Half" was one of pay grade, but both wore two stars. So there wasn't a "one star" rank that was a part of the normal progression from Captain to Flag rank. This practice of having O-7's in the Navy wearing two stars rankled the other services where O-7 was the one star rank of Brig. General. It wasn't until the 1980's that it became standard to refer to Navy O-7's as Rear Admiral's (Lower Half) with a one star insignia, making it equivalent to Brig. General.

Back on point, it would seem that Nimitz is the only WWII Admiral to have featured on a stamp.

That is quite a contrast to the WWII Generals that have been featured on stamps:

Marshall
Arnold
Chennault
Stilwell
Bradley
Eisenhower
Macarthur
Davis

Of the four who made up the JCS during most of WWII, the two Generals -- Marshall and Arnold -- are on stamps. The two Admirals -- Leahy and King, are not.

Go figure.

For a long time after World War II, the Navy flag rank structure did not include a one-star rank. Navy Captains, upon promotion to flag rank, would get two stars, becoming Rear Admirals (however, their pay grade was the equivalent of a one-star, designated as Rear Admiral lower half). This was a point of contention with the other services. Colonels in the Marine Corps, Army and Air Force would be promoted to Brigadier General (one-star). Naval officers with the same education, experience, length of service, etc., as their contemporaries in the other services, suddenly outranked the others.

In the 1980s, this anomaly was fixed with the introduction of the permanent Navy one-star flag rank: Commodore. A Rear Admiral retained the two-stars. A few years later, Commodore was replaced with Rear Admiral (Lower Half), and Rear Admiral became Rear Admiral (Upper Half).

Since the 1980s, the Navy has had the same flag rank structure as the other services.

One star: Rear Admiral (Lower Half); Brigadier General
Two stars: Rear Admiral (Upper Half); Major General
Three stars: Vice Admiral; Lieutenant General
Four stars: Admiral; General

The choice of words differentiating the two Rear Admiral ranks has always befuddled me.

Robert

My understanding of it was that when a list of Captains was published for promotion, it was ranked by seniority, and the lower half got O-7 and the upper half got O-8 (and if it was an uneven number, the extra went to the lower half). But both (at the time) got two stars. That is what always befuddled me. I never understood it, other than one star was historically reserved for Captains commanding multiple ships, i.e. Commodores. When they tried to clean all this up in the 1980's, apparently they first called the new one stars "Commodore Admiral" but that proved unpopular, so they just went with the lower/upper half distinction, with the lower half now getting one star, rather than two as they would have in the past.

Moving further OT (if anyone cares, and knows): why did they call the lowest admirals "rear" admirals? In other services, serving in "the rear" at Flag Rank often means you've screwed up somewhere, and are probably not going to get another promotion.

Here's another point of confusion regarding Navy ranks.

The commanding officer of a ship is called Captain regardless of his actual rank. The commanding officer of a squadron of ships is called Commodore, again, regardless of his actual rank.

Robert

I believe Rear Admiral goes back to the days of sail, when the Rear Admiral commanded the rear squadron. Another admiral commanded the van, while another admiral commanded the main body.

Robert

Has anyone mentioned David G. Farragut? He obtained flag rank and is on Sc. 311, the $1.00 stamp of the 1902-1917 definitive issue. A very handsome stamp!

You might also consider Oliver H. Perry. He was promoted to Commodore before the U.S. Navy had admiral ranks. Perry is on a few of the Bureau issues.

Don

Well, they may not have been mentioned because the thread title is World War II admirals. Last time I checked Perry and Farragut did not serve in World War II. Then again, perhaps I'm confused.

Nope! It was me that was confused.

Don

Exactly. OTOH, I suspect that if we were to consider the entire history of U.S. stamps, Generals would still outnumber Admirals by an impressive margin, if for no other reason than the fact that until WWII, most U.S. wars were predominately land wars. But that just adds to the puzzlement about WWII, in that arguably it was won primarily by sea and air forces* with land battles playing only a secondary role. But land Generals still got most of the glory.

*Without air superiority, D-Day would never have happened. In the the Pacific, it was the effective blockade of Japan by the Navy and the bombing by the USAAF, that forced the surrender, with Macarthur's return to the Philippines just a side-show to prevent him from retiring and running on the Republican ticket against FDR. The effective use of land forces in the Pacific came from the marines clearing islands until we were close enough to launch air strikes against Japan. Not to slight the Army in Europe, but the attention given to Army Generals from WWII on U.S. stamps, compared to the Navy (or Marines) is really remarkable.

Well, in fairness, you should compare total number who were in uniform in the Army compared to the Navy. Much larger numbers of personnel require larger number of officers, including general officers, n'est-ce-pas? Then check out the total number of admirals/generals at each star level. I'm guessing that there were a lot more generals than admirals.

Now the Marines are sui generis. Smaller in number but . . . .

Edited to add that in WWII the Air Force was still part of the Army (Army Air Corps)? Which would make the disproportion in personnel between Army and Navy even greater. Unless you lump the Marines in with the Navy. But I don't think you want to do that unless you are sure no Marine is reading this.

Reasonable point about the difference in the sizes of the Army and Navy, and of the Air Corps as part of the Army in WWII (though only two of the 8 Army WWII Generals were on U.S. stamps -- Arnold and Chennault -- so that still makes it 6 to 1). But even so, some notable Admirals who were overlooked seem obvious, like Leahy and King. Halsey would be another well known example. Less known, perhaps, but as important as some of the Generals who did get stamps, would be Admiral Spruance. As much as I admire Gen. Stilwell, he certainly had less to do with victory in WWII than Admiral Spruance.

Note that despite any imbalance in size of the two services, there have been four 5-Star Generals and four 5-Star Admirals. All four of the Generals are on stamps, but only one of the Admirals.

I think we should be realistic about who has appeared on U.S. stamps. Davis, I think it can be said, appears because he was African-American. Arnold appears because he was the first Air Force General. Marshall appears because he was a statesman. Chennault for what he accomplished as a Captain, though he did advance as we know. Eisenhower was president, so we know he was certainly going to be on a stamp. That leaves us with Patton--not mentioned above--who died in theater and who had tremendous PR. Macarthur had even better PR. Bradley was enshrined as the soldier's soldier. And Stilwell... I can't figure that one out.