Background
Richard Stanislaus Edwards was born on February 18, 1885 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Richard Stanislaus Edwards and Lucy Brooke Neilson.
Richard Stanislaus Edwards was born on February 18, 1885 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Richard Stanislaus Edwards and Lucy Brooke Neilson.
Edwards studied at the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia from 1896 to 1903 and at the United States Naval Academy, from which he graduated in 1907.
He spent a year studying at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
After eighteen months at sea as a midshipman, he was commissioned ensign in 1909. Edwards' early service was on battleships and destroyers; but in 1912, as a lieutenant, he took submarine training. In 1913 he took command of the submarine C-3 with additional duty as commander, First Group, Submarine Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet. In July 1914 he was promoted to lieutenant.
That summer he was ordered to the Naval Academy, where he taught marine engineering and naval construction for two years. Edwards spent World War I on battleships operating in the Atlantic; he was commissioned temporary lieutenant commander in 1917 and temporary commander the next year. In July 1919 he became aide and gunnery officer on the staff of Vice Admiral Clarence S. Wilkins, commander of a battleship squadron of the Pacific Fleet.
After two years in that duty Edwards was named naval inspector of ordnance in charge of the naval ammunition depot at Kuahua, Hawaii. In July 1924 Edwards took command of the destroyer Wood with such success that he received a letter of commendation in which President Calvin Coolidge noted that the ship had "received the highest combined merit in gunnery exercises and engineering performances for the year ending June 30, 1926, while in competition with all destroyers in our Navy in commission. "
After another tour of shore duty at Kuahua, Edwards in 1928 became executive officer of the battleship Texas, which won the battle efficiency pennant and the gunnery trophy in both 1928-1929 and 1929-1930. In 1930-1932 he was aide and fleet gunnery officer on the staff of Admiral Frank H. Schofield, commander in chief, Battle Fleet.
In the summer of 1932, Edwards joined the staff of the army's Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he remained until the spring of 1934; in 1933 he was promoted to captain. He then spent a year studying at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
In 1935-1937 he was commander, Submarine Squadron Six, based at San Diego, California, before returning to the Atlantic to command the submarine base at New London, Connecticut. When the submarine Squalus sank in May 1939, Edwards' part in the rescue and salvage operations won him the Navy Cross and a commendation from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In 1940 Edwards was ordered to the Pacific to command the battleship Colorado, but after less than four months was called back to New London, where on December 7, 1940, he assumed duty as commander, Submarines Patrol Force, with the rank of rear admiral. Ten days later Admiral Ernest J. King became commander, Patrol Force, which was soon redesignated Atlantic Fleet. Thus began an association that was to be of profound significance in World War II.
On December 20, 1941, King was designated commander in chief, United States Fleet, with headquarters in the Navy Department. Because a staff had to be assembled almost overnight, King drew heavily on tried associates from the Atlantic Fleet. Edwards became deputy chief of staff. Edwards combined penetrating intellectual abilities with an immense capacity for hard work. By his ability to get to the core of complex problems quickly, he greatly lightened King's burdens. Edwards was selfless, with no concern for personal popularity or reputation, desiring only to aid King. Although he earnestly desired to return to sea, the state of his health would not permit it; he therefore remained in Washington throughout the war as King's principal assistant.
In August 1942 Edwards was promoted to vice admiral, and on September 1 he became King's chief of staff. In September 1944 he assumed the new post of deputy commander in chief, United States Fleet-deputy chief of naval operations, in order (in King's words) "to attend to matters of military policy for me, whether derived from the business of the Navy Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department or the several war agencies. "
In April 1945 Edwards was promoted to admiral. With the end of hostilities King took steps to abolish the wartime billet of commander in chief, United States Fleet, because of his view that the chief of naval operations should be the top man in the navy. When this was accomplished on Octember 10, 1945, King continued as chief of naval operations and Edwards became vice chief of naval operations. He continued in that office until March 1, 1946, when he went to San Francisco. He retired in March 1947 and spent the rest of his life in San Francisco. He died at the Naval Hospital in Oakland, California.
Edwards had an ability to get to the core of complex problems quickly. Edwards was selfless, with no concern for personal popularity or reputation.
Quotes from others about the person
One could apply to him the words that Julian Corbett wrote of Lord Barham in The Campaign of Trafalgar: "Unseen and almost unnoticed he was gathering in his fingers the threads of the tradition which the recurring wars had spun, and handling them with a deft mastery to which the distant fleets gave sensitive response".
On August 11, 1914, Richard Edwards married Hallie Ninan Snyder.
