Claude Vernon Ricketts

Background

Claude Vernon Ricketts was born on February 23, 1906 in Greene County, Missouri, the son of Gilbert Luther Ricketts and Sarah Bertha Smith.

Education

He was raised in that state and in Kansas, and attended the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Bainbridge, Maryland, for one year before entering the U. S. Naval Academy (1925), where he was a varsity boxer and football player. He graduated in the upper third of the class of 1929.

Career

He was a signal officer on the aircraft carrier Lexingtonfor a year. After six months on the Battle Fleet staff of Admiral Frank H. Schofield, Ricketts spent eight years in naval aviation.

He received his pilot's wings in February 1932 and then flew scout planes from the cruiser Cincinnati, fighters from the Lexington, and patrol planes from Coco Solo in the Canal Zone.

He also taught at the Pensacola naval air training center. After a year at the General Line postgraduate school at Annapolis (1936 - 1937), Ricketts became executive officer of the destroyer-minesweeper Sicard in the Pacific near Hawaii (1938 - 1940). As assistant gunnery officer of the West Virginia, he counterflooded that battleship and thus prevented it from capsizing after being struck by aerial torpedoes during the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Two months later he transferred to the battleship Maryland. Ricketts participated in South Pacific patrols until assigned in September 1943 to the staff of Admiral Harry W. Hill, commander of Amphibious Group Two of the Fifth Amphibious Force. He took part in the capture of the Gilbert, Marshall, and Marianas islands and of Iwo Jima and Okinawa (1943 - 1945) and in the occupation of Japan.

He was relieved in October 1945 and sent to the Army and Navy Staff College with the rank of captain. After a year as a student at the Naval War College, Ricketts remained as an instructor (1947 - 1949). He then commanded the attack cargo ship Alshain in the Pacific (1949 - 1950) and later the heavy cruiser St. Paul (1954 - 1955), flagship of the Seventh Fleet during the Quemoy crisis. Widely respected for his keen mind, Ricketts returned to key administrative posts with the Atlantic Fleet amphibious forces (1950 - 1952), in the office of the chief of naval operations as head of the Amphibious Warfare Branch (1952 - 1954), and in the Strategic Plans Division (1955-1957, 1958 - 1961), during the last year as its head. Promoted to rear admiral at the beginning of 1956, he commanded a destroyer flotilla in the Atlantic (1957 - 1958) and, with the rank of vice admiral, the Second Fleet and Atlantic Strike Fleet (1961).

Ricketts was promoted to full admiral in September 1961. Two months later he became vice chief of naval operations, in which capacity he experimented with the concept of a multinational nuclear force of ships manned by crews of the several nationalities of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, first using the destroyer Biddle. He died at Bethesda, Maryland.

Achievements

• He was posthumously awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal for his service as Vice Chief of Naval Operations. The Biddle was then renamed the Claude V. Ricketts, an unusual gesture that testified to his popularity in the navy.

Connections

Ricketts married Margery Bernice Corn on May 15, 1930; their two sons also became naval officers.

Father:

Gilbert Luther Ricketts

Mother:

Sarah Bertha Smith

Spouse:

Margery Bernice Corn