Hutchinson Ingham Cone was an American naval officer and shipping executive.
Background
Hutchinson Ingham Cone was born on April 26, 1871 in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He was the first of four children (three boys and a girl) of Daniel Newnan Cone and Annette (Ingraham) Cone, and a descendant of William Cone, a Georgian who had fought under Gen. Francis Marion during the American Revolution. His father, a native of Florida, served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War and in 1885-86 was a member of the Florida legislature. His mother, born in Wappingers Falls was reared in Savannah. Hutchinson Cone grew up in Florida.
Education
After graduating in 1889 from East Florida Military and Agricultural College at Lake City, he briefly taught school and then entered the United States Naval Academy. He studied engineering, was elected vice-president of his class, and graduated in 1894, forty-second in the class of forty-seven.
Career
Following two years of sea duty on the North Atlantic Station, Cone received his commission as assistant engineer. He served for the next five years on the Asiatic Station and on ships of the Pacific Fleet, including the U. S. S. Baltimore during the battle of Manila Bay; he was commissioned an ensign in 1899. After training at the Naval Torpedo Station, he won his first command, the torpedo boat Dale, in 1903. Four years later he commanded the Second Torpedo Flotilla in a difficult passage from Norfolk to San Francisco via the Straits of Magellan. Promoted to lieutenant commander in 1908, he was appointed fleet engineer for the Atlantic Fleet on its famous cruise around the world, a feat largely made possible by the efficient system he organized for continuous inspection and maintenance of machinery and power plants of ships at sea. The success of this mission led President Theodore Roosevelt to name Cone in May 1909 to a four-year term as chief of the navy's Bureau of Engineering, with the temporary rank of rear admiral--an unprecedented appointment for one of his age (thirty-eight) and rank. During his tenure Cone did much to modernize the navy's engineering practices. He presided over the installation of steam turbines, began the changeover from coal-to oil-burning equipment, and initiated investigations which led to the adoption of electric drive. In 1913, gracefully accepting the reversion to his regular rank of lieutenant commander, he became executive officer (second in command) of the battleship Utah; he was temporarily in command during the occupation of Vera Cruz in 1914. This assignment was followed by two years (1915 - 17) as marine superintendent of the Panama Canal. Soon after the United States entered World War I, Vice Admiral William S. Sims, commander of naval forces operating in Europe, put Cone in charge of the United States Naval Aviation Forces, Foreign Service, with headquarters in Paris. Chiefly concerned with protecting convoys, Cone supervised the construction of air bases in the British Isles, France, and Italy, from which numerous attacks were launched on cruising submarines and submarine bases. Though he initially employed seaplanes for patrol and bombing, he became convinced that they were less effective than land aircraft and unsuccessfully sought replacements. Cone's problems with the Navy Department were considerable (not the least was obtaining aircraft and spare parts), but he brought the naval air force to a high level of operating efficiency. His war service ended abruptly in September 1918 when the merchant ship on which he was en route from Queenstown, Ireland, to London was sunk by a German submarine. Cone was severely injured by a torpedo explosion, and after lengthy hospitalization and several postwar assignments, he was retired in 1922 with the rank of rear admiral. Cone's attention in his later years centered on the American merchant marine. Under appointment by President Coolidge, he served as vice-president and general manager of the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation (1924 - 26); as trustee and later vice-president of its successor, the Merchant Fleet Corporation (1928 - 35); and as commissioner and chairman of the United States Shipping Board (1928 - 33). In these positions he spoke out vigorously for an expanded merchant marine, which he termed the nation's second line of defense, and secured appropriations for a program of engineering development that stimulated research into diesel engine propulsion and new methods of shipbuilding. Cone interrupted his government service from 1926 to 1928 to take a position as vice-president and treasurer of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. He left the government permanently in 1935 because of a dispute with the Department of Commerce about changes in the administration of the Merchant Marine Act of 1928. In 1937 he became chairman of the board of directors of Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc. Cone was warmly regarded by associates and respected for his administrative abilities and engineering knowledge; he received many decorations. After 1922 he made his home in Washington, D. C. Cone died of a heart ailment at Orlando, Florida, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Achievements
One of the more notable reformers in American naval history, he had played an important part in the development of the modern navy.
Connections
He was married on October 16, 1900, to Patty Selden, by whom he had two children, Elizabeth and Hutchinson; she died in 1922. On December 17, 1930, he married Julia Mattis.
