 | This article possibly contains original research .(December 2020) |
In the United States Armed Forces, a six-star rank is a proposed rank immediately superior to a five-star rank, possibly to be worn by the General of the Armies.
| This article possibly contains original research .(December 2020) |
In the United States Armed Forces, a six-star rank is a proposed rank immediately superior to a five-star rank, possibly to be worn by the General of the Armies.
As Congress was trying to create the rank of Fleet Admiral in 1944, [1] [ non-primary source needed ] the Navy wanted to re-establish and elevate Admiral of the Navy to be equivalent to General of the Armies, [2] [ non-primary source needed ] but they could not legally do so without an Act of Congress. Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Admiral Randall Jacobs testified before the Committee on Naval Affairs of the House of Representatives, recommending that the rank of Admiral of the Navy should be made equivalent to General of the Armies, [2] but a previous bill submitted for its re-establishment on 25 February 1944, failed to be passed. [2] Congress passed Pub.L. 78-482 on 14 December 1944, creating the rank of fleet admiral, without re-establishing the rank of Admiral of the Navy. [3] [ non-primary source needed ]
As such, the rank of Admiral of the Navy continued to be inactive. By 1955, the Navy concluded that the rank was honorary. [4] And while they held to the belief that it was equivalent to General of the Armies, [4] the Navy amended its regulations to establish fleet admiral as its highest achievable rank, adhering to the standard set by the law. [4]
On 21 January 1955, a draft resolution was proposed to the U.S. Senate to authorize President Dwight D. Eisenhower to appoint Douglas MacArthur, then a five-star General of the Army, to be elevated to the "six-star rank" of General of the Armies of the United States "in recognition of the great services to his country", with "such appointment to take effect as of the seventy-fifth anniversary of his birth, 26 January 1955." [5] [6] [7] [8] The proposal had little chance of passing and was never voted on. [6] [ check quotation syntax ] The rank of General of the Armies had previously been granted in 1919 to active-duty four-star General John J. Pershing. The markings used to identify Pershing's new ranking as higher than general was a bank of four gold (rather than silver) stars.[ citation needed ]
In 1976, as part of commemorations for the U.S. Bicentennial, George Washington was posthumously promoted to the rank of General of the Armies of the United States. [9] Although the law did not actually specify the number of stars, [10] some U.S. newspapers [11] [12] [13] and members of Congress [14] described this as a "six-star rank". His appointment had been to serve as "General and Commander in Chief of the Army of the United Colonies". [15] [16]
Chester William Nimitz was a fleet admiral in the United States Navy. He played a major role in the naval history of World War II as Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet, and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, commanding Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II.
Field marshal is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army, and as such, few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as a five-star rank (OF-10) in modern-day armed forces in many countries. Promotion to the rank of field marshal in many countries historically required extraordinary military achievement by a general. However, the rank has also been used as a divisional command rank and also as a brigade command rank. Examples of the different uses of the rank include Afghanistan, Austria-Hungary, Pakistan, Prussia/Germany, India and Sri Lanka for an extraordinary achievement; Spain and Mexico for a divisional command ; and France, Portugal and Brazil for a brigade command.
Arthur William Radford was an admiral and naval aviator of the United States Navy. In over 40 years of military service, Radford held a variety of positions including the vice chief of Naval Operations, commander of the United States Pacific Fleet and later the second chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
General of the Armies of the United States, more commonly referred to as General of the Armies, is the highest military rank in the United States Army. The rank has been conferred three times: to John J. Pershing in 1919, as a personal accolade for his command of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I; to George Washington in 1976, as a posthumous honor during the United States Bicentennial celebrations; and to Ulysses S. Grant in December 2022, when Congress authorized the president to posthumously appoint him to the rank.
Admiral of the Navy was the highest-possible rank in the United States Navy, prior to the creation of fleet admiral in 1944. The rank is considered to be at least equivalent to that of a five-star admiral, with Admiral George Dewey being the only officer to be appointed to the rank.
Fleet admiral is a five-star flag officer rank in the United States Navy whose rewards uniquely include active duty pay for life. Fleet admiral ranks immediately above admiral and is equivalent to General of the Army and General of the Air Force.
Vice Admiral Daniel Edward Barbey was an officer in the United States Navy who served in World War I and World War II. A graduate of the Naval Academy, he participated in the 1912 United States occupation of Nicaragua and the 1915 United States occupation of Veracruz. While serving with the War Plans Section of the Bureau of Navigation in Washington, D.C. between the World Wars, developed an interest in amphibious warfare. In 1940 he produced Fleet Training Publication 167 – Landing Operations Doctrine, United States Navy, which would become the Navy's "bible" of amphibious operations, and would remain in use throughout World War II.
General of the Army is a five-star general officer rank in the United States Army. It is generally equivalent to the rank of Field Marshal in other countries. In the United States, a General of the Army ranks above generals and is equivalent to a fleet admiral and a general of the Air Force. The General of the Army insignia consisted of five 3⁄8-inch (9.5 mm) stars in a pentagonal pattern, with touching points. The insignia was paired with the gold and enameled United States coat of arms on service coat shoulder loops. The silver colored five-star metal insignia alone would be worn for use as a collar insignia of grade and on the garrison cap. Soft shoulder epaulets with five 7⁄16-inch (11 mm) stars in silver thread and gold-threaded United States coat of arms on green cloth were worn with shirts and sweaters.
Admiral is a four-star commissioned officer rank in the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, and the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps with the pay grade of O-10. Admiral ranks above vice admiral and below fleet admiral in the Navy; the Coast Guard and the Public Health Service do not have an established grade above admiral. Admiral is equivalent to the rank of general in the other uniformed services. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps has never had an officer hold the grade of admiral. However, 37 U.S.C. § 201 of the U.S. Code established the grade for the NOAA Corps, in case a position is created that merits the four-star grade.
In the United States Armed Forces, a lieutenant general is a three-star general officer in the United States Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force.
A five-star rank is the highest military rank in many countries. The rank is that of the most senior operational military commanders, and within NATO's standard rank scale it is designated by the code OF-10. Not all armed forces have such a rank, and in those that do the actual insignia of the five-star ranks may not contain five stars. For example: the insignia for the French OF-10 rank maréchal de France contains seven stars; the insignia for the Portuguese marechal contains four gold stars. The stars used on the various Commonwealth of Nations rank insignias are sometimes colloquially referred to as pips, but in fact either are stars of the orders of the Garter, Thistle or Bath or are Eversleigh stars, depending on the wearer's original regiment or corps, and are used in combination with other heraldic items, such as batons, crowns, swords or maple leaves.
General of the Air Force (GAF) is a five-star general officer rank and is the highest possible rank in the United States Air Force. General of the Air Force ranks immediately above a general and is equivalent to General of the Army in the United States Army and Fleet Admiral in the United States Navy. The rank has been held only once, by General Henry H. Arnold, who had served as head of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II.
A general officer is an officer of high military rank; in the uniformed services of the United States, general officers are commissioned officers above the field officer ranks, the highest of which is colonel in the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force and captain in the Navy, Coast Guard, Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps (NOAACC).
This is the service summary of Douglas MacArthur, a General in the United States Army, who began his career in 1903 as a second lieutenant and served in three major military conflicts, going on to hold the highest military offices of both the United States and the Philippines.
In many nations, the highest military ranks are classed as being equivalent to, or are officially described as, five-star ranks. However, a number of nations have used or proposed ranks such as generalissimo, which are senior to their five-star equivalent ranks.
A few MacArthur devotees in Congress, like Representative Martin, tried to organize support for honorary six-star rank for the general, but as that would have been a slap at Eisenhower, such legislation had no chance.
effort was made to reward General Douglas MacArthur, this time with specifying a six-star rank, but it never came to fruition
Congress would twice try to promote him from the new rank of General of the Army—a five-star general—to the unique rank of General of the Armies: a proposed six-star general.
President Ford signed today a bill that posthumously promoted George Washington to the rank of six-star General of the Armies
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., ... noted, [Washington] is "the only six-star general in the nation's history."
