Again: Commodores

To most readers of U.S. history, such salty captains as John Paul Jones, Edward Preble, Oliver Hazard Perry and his brother Matthew Calbraith Perry are "commodores," though the term in their times was a courtesy title bestowed on commanders of squadrons. (Americans once thought "admiral" smacked of aristocracy.) Though George Dewey later became an admiral, at Manila Bay he was a commodore. Last fortnight, seafaring Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill restoring the rank of commodore to official status, which it occupied only between 1862 and 1899.*

To the rank of commodore the Navy last week raised four captains commanding forces whose size warrants a flag officer but no admiral: Oscar Smith of Special Task Force No. 1; Lee Payne Johnson of the Atlantic Fleet's rear echelon; South Pacific Amphibious Force's transport commander, Lawrence F. Reifsnider; Robert Grimes Coman of the Southwest Pacific's Service Force. Like their Army counterparts, brigadier generals, commodores will wear one star. Like all task-force men, their chances of seeing action are never dim.

* Four commodores, aged 82 to 88, survive on the Navy's retired list. Among them: Albert L. Key of Chattanooga, onetime naval aide to Theodore Roosevelt; George R. Salisbury of Canandaigua, N.Y., onetime Governor of Guam.

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