Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: When did Yates Stirling Jr. join the Navy?
After a leisurely cruise from Montevideo, Uruguay, Charleston arrived in San Francisco on 8 July 1894 to prepare for a return to the Asiatic Station. Promoted to ensign on 1 July 1894 upon his final graduation, Stirling next reported for duty on board USS New York on 16 August 1894. In 1896 and 1897, he served on the USS<i>Thetis and the Fish Commission steamer USS<i>Albatross. In 1898 and 1899 he was assigned to the USS<i>Badger.
Stirling was commander-in-chief of the United States Asiatic Fleet from 11 July 1904 to 23 March 1905 before retiring from the Navy on 6 May 1905 at the mandatory age of 62. During the time he commanded the Asiatic Fleet, his flag was on the USS Wisconsin (BB-9) and his son, Yates, Jr. served as his flag lieutenant. When he was interviewed shortly after his retirement, Stirling recalled an incident early in his career when he was first lieutenant taking a ship into a New England harbor with some difficulty. An old lobsterman in a dory piled high with traps managed to interfere with the ship's passage. After Stirling called down to the lobsterman with some "choice deep sea language", the old man leisurely rested on his oars and replied, "And who be you?" Stirling blustered back, "Who am I? I'm the first officer of this ship." "Well, go to your skipper, then," replied the ancient mariner with dignity. "I don't argue with nobody but my equals an I'm cap'n o' this."
Yates Stirling (6 May 1843 – 5 March 1929) was a rear admiral in the United States Navy.
Commodore – no longer a rank in the United States Navy, was previously reserved for wartime use and was not in use at the time of Stirling's promotion to Flag Rank in 1926. Currently, a Captain who is promoted to pay grade O-7 becomes a Rear Admiral (Lower Half) and uses the abbreviated rank designation RDML as opposed to RADM, which designates a Rear Admiral (Upper Half), O-8. Stirling was promoted to Rear Admiral "lower half" in December 1926, with date of rank October 6, 1926. He was advanced to Rear Admiral (upper half) on 1 June 1931.
"Dale" was launched 23 January 1935 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard; sponsored by Mrs. E. C. Dale; and commissioned 17 June 1935, Commander W. A. Corn in command. Rear Admiral Yates Stirling, Jr., commandant of the Third Naval District and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, oversaw construction and presided over the commissioning. As a fourteen-year-old boy nearly 50 years earlier, Stirling had lived aboard the first USS Dale (1839) when the old, sloop-of-war, her masts removed and at the end of her long service, was the station ship at the Washington Navy Yard under his father's command. "Dale" was decommissioned 16 October 1945 and sold 20 December 1946.
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.[15][16] 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."[15]
Rear Admiral Stirling died in his sleep on January 27, 1948, after three months’ illness in Baltimore, Maryland, his home for many years, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.[75] He was survived by his wife, two sons, Captain Yates Stirling, III, USN (Ret.) of Norfolk, Virginia, and Commander Harry E. Stirling USN; and three daughters, Katharine (Mrs. William R. Ilk) of Los Angeles, California and Misses Ellen and Adelaide Stirling of Baltimore. Also surviving was his younger brother, Commander Archibald G. Stirllng, USN (Ret.) of Newport, Rhode Island.
Although Stirling's three years as Commandant of the Third Naval District and the Brooklyn Navy Yard were during the depths of the Great Depression, under his command the facility saw increased production and workforce. The heavy cruiser USS New Orleans (CA-32) was commissioned in February 1934, the destroyer USS Dale (DD-353) and gunboat USS Erie (PG-50) were both built and commissioned along with a few Coast Guard cutters. Construction began on the light cruisers USS Brooklyn (CL-40) and USS Honolulu (CL-48). While he was Commandant at New York, Stirling's official duties saw him frequently receiving foreign dignitaries, including Air Marshall Italo Balbo during the famed Italian aviator's widely-covered 1933 trans-Atlantic crossing with twenty-four Savoia-Marchetti S.55 seaplanes for the Chicago Century of Progress. When Balbo's air armada stopped at New York City on the first leg of its return flight to Rome in July 1933, Stirling's admiral's barge met Balbo's plane when it landed in Jamaica Bay off Floyd Bennett Field. Stirling and his Army counterpart, Major General Dennis E. Nolan, commanding general of Second Corps Area, in charge of army units and facilities in New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Puerto Rico, accompanied Balbo's police escort motorcade to the Mayflower Hotel. Stirling had requested an allowance from the Navy Department for the purpose of hosting a dinner for Balbo on his first night in New York. Receiving only $50 from Washington, the socially-connected and popular Stirling was undeterred. "Through the support of men of means who were Navy admirers, I gave to General Balbo and his officers a most elaborate dinner at the Columbian Yacht Club on the Hudson River, now demolished in the development of the Park project. How such a dinner could be given, with over a hundred guests and champagne flowing freely, on the small voucher that I signed, would be no mystery when the guest list is read. Among them were Vincent Astor, Grover Whalen, Ellery W. Stone, E. J. Sadler, and W. S. Farish, all public spirited citizens and some of them members of the Naval Reserve. It has always been difficult for the services to interest Congress in the advantage of appropriating sufficient funds for official entertaining. Balbo enjoyed himself at the dinner, and we were all glad to have such an intimate view of him and his daring men. I regretted that I did not speak Italian or he English, but there was a fellowship developed that evening between the Italian flyers and our other guests, in spite of the handicap of language. I was surprised months later to receive from the great Mussolini the decoration of the Crown of Italy. It was in recognition of the Navy's help to Balbo and his airplanes while in New York."
On July 20, 1924, he became Captain of the Yard, Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., with additional duty as Assistant Superintendent of the Naval Gun Factory. He was promoted to rear admiral on October 6, 1926 and in December that year Stirling was designated Chief of Staff to Admiral Charles F. Hughes, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, based at San Pedro, California.[54] At the October 27, 1927 Navy Day Ceremonies at San Pedro harbor, despite an all-day downpour, thousands of Southern Californians gathered for the festivities, including ships' tours, band performances of patriotic music and the key-note address given by Stirling, "Merchant Marine, the Navy and the Nation".[55]
After the war, Stirling served aboard the gunboat in the Pacific Squadron from 1865 to 1867 and was promoted to lieutenant on 10 November 1866. Promoted to lieutenant commander on 12 March 1868, he was aboard the newly commissioned screw frigate during her brief initial deployment as flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron in 1868. He then served aboard the next flagship of the squadron, the screw sloop-of-war , from 1868 to 1869 before a tour aboard the receiving ship at the Mare Island Navy Yard at Vallejo, California, from 1871 to 1872. While stationed at Mare Island, his son and namesake, Yates, Jr. was born on 30 April 1872.
During World War Two, Stirling penned scores of articles as a syndicated columnist expressing his opinions on war-time strategies and tactics, under the byline, "United Press Naval Critic" or "United Press Naval Analyst". In 1942, he advocated building a fleet of small, wooden, V-bottom, 30–60' long craft, capable of 30 knots, with two machine guns and six depth charge racks, manned by 3 to 7 men, to patrol the 35,000 miles of U.S. coastline and protect shipping.[70] When Stirling sought to return to active duty in 1944, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal wrote back that there was no post available "suitable to your rank and attainments".[1] Yates Stirling's last book, touting the strategic importance of his beloved Navy, "Why Sea Power Will Win the War", was published in 1944.
Rear Admiral Yates Stirling Jr. was awarded these decorations and service awards:
On 23 February 1900 he joined the USS<i>Celtic(AF-2), and on November 21 of the same year, reported for duty to his father, then a captain and the commandant of the Naval Station, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Following his father's promotion to rear admiral in June 1902, the elder Stirling was named commandant of the Puget Sound Navy Yard, where Yates Jr. joined him shortly thereafter as an officer of the yard.[34] The elder Stirling was commander-in-chief of the United States Asiatic Fleet from 11 July 1904 to 23 March 1905[35] before retiring from the Navy on 6 May 1905 at the mandatory age of 62. During the time he commanded the Asiatic Fleet, his flag was on the USS<i>Wisconsin(BB-9) and Yates Jr. served as his flag lieutenant.[36] While he was with the Asiatic Fleet, Stirling also had staff duty on the USS<i>Rainbow(AS-7). In mid-April 1905, Stirling, his father and their wives returned to the United States from Yokohama, Japan aboard the steamship S.S. Korea after the elder Stirling detached from command of the Asiatic Fleet.[37] In 1905–1906, Stirling remained at sea in the USS<i>Massachusetts(BB-2) and later, USS<i>Indiana(BB-1). In the rank of Lieutenant Commander he reported on October 1, 1906 to the Naval Academy and while on duty there made a cruise on the USS<i>Arkansas(BB-33) in the summer of 1907. Detached from the Naval Academy in June 1908 he next served on the USS<i>Connecticut(BB-18), flagship of Admiral Charles S. Sperry Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet as gunnery officer. Stirling joined Connecticut, at San Francisco, where it was then en route as flagship of the Great White Fleet on a global circumnavigation. Following refit at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, the fleet stood out on the next leg of the voyage on 7 July, reaching Hawaii on 16 July. Sailing from Hawaii, the fleet made ports of call at Auckland, New Zealand; Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; Manila, Philippines; Yokohama, Japan; Colombo, Ceylon; arriving at Suez, Egypt, on 3 January 1909.
After a lengthy period on sick leave from 1873 to 1875, Stirling returned to duty aboard the receiving ship at the Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, from 1875 to 1876. He had torpedo duty in 1877, then had ordnance duty at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., from 1877 to 1879.
Stirling's first published fiction, a short story titled, The Battle off the Hook, appeared in the August 31, 1897 edition of Harper's Roundtable.[31] A contemporary review described it as, "[a] vivid account by Ensign Yates Stirling Jr. U.S.N. of a great sea fight off Sandy Hook, in which the United States fleet engages that of a first rate power. The date is tantalizingly vague, the identity of the enemy only hinted, but the issue of the battle is what every patriotic American boy will anticipate."[32]
In 1914, Stirling assumed command of Submarine Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet, attached successively to the USS<i>Ozark(BM-7) and USS<i>Prairie(AD-5). In April 1914, he led a flotilla of torpedo boats into Mexican waters off Vera Cruz during the Tampico Affair.[40] In April 1915, Stirling along with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt and Admiral Bradley A. Fiske appeared before Congress concerning the deplorable condition of the Atlantic submarine fleet. Stirling testified that of the twelve submarines under his command outside of the Canal Zone, only one could get under way when the fleet was mobilized in November 1914 during World War I.[41][42] From June 1915 until June 1916 he commanded the USS<i>Columbia(C-12) and served additionally as Aide on the Staff of Commander Submarine Flotilla, Atlantic. Speaking before private groups, Stirling continued to raise the ire of Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels with statements criticizing the inadequate readiness of the Navy, "It is because the Navy has been the "ham bone" of politicians that the United States finds itself so unprepared on the seas. Aside from giving us ships and men we must get action from Congress that will let the Navy conduct its own affairs. We have had to take what they gave us- navy yards where we didn't want them, ships of a type we didn't need. During the last 10 years we have spent more money on our navy than Germany, yet the German navy is twice as large and twice as efficient."[43] Stirling's critical outspokenness prompted the press to speculate, not if but when Daniels would order him court-martialed.[44]
When Stirling was nearly fifteen, his father was given command of the old sloop-of-war USS<i>Dale, the receiving ship at the Washington Navy Yard.[13] 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.[14] 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?"[15]
Dressed as civilians to conceal their naval affiliation, the pair separated to reconnoiter the city. Smith was arrested and later released following intervention by the American consul. Posing as a tourist from one of the American schooners in the harbor, Stirling gained the confidence of several Brazilian soldiers who obliging showed him several "fairly large" concealed artillery emplacements. "They kept me for lunch, and we drank many toasts in some very fair brandy. They were so openly cordial and trusting that my conscience pricked me when, from memory, I sketched for Captain Picking the positions of the guns I had seen. The foreign captains then removed the ban on bombardment, notifying both sides that they considered the city was fortified and therefore not a defenseless city as the government had been claiming. The Brazilian Navy, however, never used its authority to bombard. I was glad of this, for the city was so beautiful and belonged to the navy as well as to its defenders."[29]
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.[9] 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.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12]
In 1923, he was appointed as Director of Naval Intelligence and the following year on 14 June 1924, he was promoted to Rear Admiral. He commanded the Yangtze Patrol from 1925 until 5 December 1927 when command was assumed by Rear Admiral Yates Stirling, Jr. He retired from the Navy in 1935 and died in 1943.
Stirling had duty as a lighthouse inspector from December 1892 to December 1894 and was promoted to captain on 16 September 1894. He awaited orders from December 1894 until May 1895, then was commanding officer of the protected cruiser from May 1895 to July 1896 and of the screw sloop-of-war from July 1896 to June 1897. He was commander of the South Atlantic Squadron from July to December 1897. After duty as a member of the Lighthouse Board from 31 March 1898 to 1 July 1900, he became commandant of Naval Station San Juan in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on 21 November 1900, serving in that capacity into 1902. In May 1900, while commandant at San Juan, Captain Stirling rescued the Lloyd's agent there, a man named Butler who had jumped off the municipal pier that had caught fire. Stirling was promoted to rear admiral on 8 June 1902. Following his promotion, he was named commandant of the Puget Sound Navy Yard, where his son, Yates, Jr. joined him shortly thereafter as an officer of the yard.
On June 21, 1916, the Navy Yard changed forever as Commander Yates Stirling, Jr. assumed the command of the newly designated Submarine Base, the New London Submarine Flotilla, and the Submarine School.
The original service criteria for the Spanish Campaign Medal promulgated in Navy Department Special Order No. 81 of 27 June 1908 required service on specific vessels and time periods for which Stirling's service during the Spanish–American War did not qualify. However, in the early 1920s, the award criteria was relaxed to provide for award of the medal to all those who served in the U.S. Navy or Marine Corps during the Spanish–American War. The first government contract to supply campaign medals to the expanded recipient base with the Bastian Brothers Company did not occur until 1922.
Stirling married the former Adelaide Egbert, daughter of Brigadier General Harry C. Egbert,[71] in 1903 when he was 31. They had five children, two boys and three girls. His eldest son, Yates Stirling, III became a captain in the Navy. His younger son, Harry, also served in the Navy and attained the rank of commander.[72]
In March 1919 he was ordered to duty in command of the USS<i>Connecticut and in April of the next year was detached for duty as Captain of the Yard, Navy Yard, Philadelphia. While at Philadelphia, he received his Navy Cross in October 1920 that had been awarded him the previous year.[51] In a 1921 letter to the Secretary of the Navy, during angry disagreements over technical flaws in the diesel systems supplied by Electric Boat, Stirling forcefully pointed out numerous design and reliability problems of the boats then in service, especially the new 800-ton S class. His comments sparked a tumultuous strategy, mission, and design debate that lasted for another decade, coming to a climax between 1928 and 1930 when then Commander Thomas Withers Jr., Commanding Officer of Submarine Division Four, called repeatedly for an offensive strategy and solo tactics similar to those employed by the Imperial German Navy during World War I.[52]