 | 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.
When Congress approved a bill 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 ] which requires 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 be made the Naval equivalent to General of the Armies, [2] which a previous failed bill submitted on 25 February 1944 tried to do. [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]
In the United States Navy, officers have various ranks. Equivalency between services is by pay grade. United States Navy commissioned officer ranks have two distinct sets of rank insignia: On dress uniform a series of stripes similar to Commonwealth naval ranks are worn; on service khaki, working uniforms, and special uniform situations, the rank insignia are identical to the equivalent rank in the US Marine Corps.
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. 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 posthumously to Ulysses S. Grant in 2024.
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.
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 chain has major 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.
The rank of admiral of the fleet or fleet admiral was the highest naval rank of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1955 and second-highest from 1962 to 1991.
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.
Commodore was an early title and later a rank in the United States Navy, United States Coast Guard and the Confederate States Navy, and also has been a rank in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps and its ancestor organizations. For over two centuries, the designation has been given varying levels of authority and formality.
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.
United States Army commissioned officers rank insignia in use today.
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 only been held by one man, General Henry H. Arnold, who had served as head of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. As at the time of his promotion, the Air Force was a component of the Army instead of its own branch, the rank has not been first awarded to someone who is serving in the Air Force. Arnold retained the rank when the separate branch was created, and he was redesignated General of the Air Force in 1949.
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).
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.
Although four-star officers appeared in organizations like the Continental Army before the United States of America was founded in 1776, the legislative history of four-star officers in the United States uniformed services began in 1799, when Congress authorized the grade of General of the Armies of the United States for former president George Washington, who was commanding the forces being raised for the Quasi-War with France as a lieutenant general but died without being promoted.
From 1899, when the Navy's Civil War-era four-star grade was recreated after the Spanish-American War, through 1947, when the Officer Personnel Act defined the post-World War II military establishment, four-star grades evolved along two parallel tracks, one decorative and one functional.
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."
