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. 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. 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.
World War II and the Cold War being promoted to the rank of commodore in 1983 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). Shelley retired in July 1949 and was promoted on retirement to rear admiral retroactive to April 3, 1945. 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. From then on, commodore has remained a title for U.S. Navy 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 U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard one-star admirals were subsequently referred to as rear admiral. U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard
rear admirals (lower half) continued to wear the single star for collar insignia and applicable shoulder insignia (i.e., flight suits, jackets, etc.), a single silver star on top of solid gold background shoulder board insignia, and a single broad gold sleeve stripe insignia for dress blue uniforms (service dress blue, full dress blue and dinner dress blue) of all USN and USCG flag officers in pay grade O-7, and for the service dress white and full dress white uniforms of female USN flag officers in pay grade O-7. The term "commodore" again reverted, and continues to this day, to that of an honorary title versus an actual rank for the limited number of captains in command of multiple units. ==Present-day title usage==