Theodore Stark Wilkinson was born on December 22, 1888 in Annapolis, Md. , the only child of Ensign Ernest Wilkinson, USN, and Gulielma Caroline (Bostick) Wilkinson. Both parents had been born on Southern plantations, the father in Louisiana, the mother in South Carolina. The elder Wilkinson resigned from the navy shortly after his son's birth and became a patent lawyer in Washington, D. C.
Even before entering St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H. , in 1902, Theodore Wilkinson had decided on a naval career. He entered the United States Naval Academy in 1905 and graduated at the top of his class in 1909. He later (1912) received an M. S. degree from George Washington University.
As ensign on board the U. S. S. Florida in 1914, Wilkinson commanded a landing party which captured the customshouse at Veracruz, Mexico, leading his men with such skill and courage that he was awarded the Medal of Honor. During World War I he served in the Bureau of Ordnance, where he helped design antisubmarine depth charges and firing mechanisms for mines. After the war, Wilkinson received his first command, that of a destroyer. He later had shore duty in ordnance, served as fleet gunnery officer to the Scouting Force, and was secretary of the navy's General Board (1931 - 1934), rising to the rank of captain in 1937. For the first nine months of 1941 he commanded the battleship Mississippi. In mid-October he was appointed director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) with the rank of rear admiral. He held that post at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. ONI was charged with the gathering of intelligence from such sources as intercepted Japanese dispatches, but not with evaluating it; and though war seemed imminent, neither he nor any other responsible officer anticipated an attack in an area so remote from Japan as Hawaii. In August 1942 Wilkinson became commander of Battleship Division Two, a post he left the following January, when he was named deputy commander, South Pacific Force, under Adm. William F. Halsey. Wilkinson's balance, good humor, and poise during the Solomon Islands campaigns made him indispensable to Halsey. His quick brain solved many operational problems, and his personality conciliated all and sundry, including the touchy French officials of New Caledonia and our tough allies from the Antipodes. He never used foul language and rarely lost his temper; his tact and consideration for others made him beloved by his staff. From July 1943 Wilkinson commanded the Third Amphibious Force, set up headquarters at "Camp Crocodile, " Guadalcanal, and applied his energies to amphibious warfare. In the Pacific theater he was a leading advocate of the "leapfrogging" strategy, through which American forces bypassed those islands on which the enemy was best fortified, cutting them off by air and sea, and concentrated instead on weaker targets. Leapfrogging, more successful than "island hopping, " saved thousands of American lives. Wilkinson was the first to practice it, leaving the enemy out on a limb in Kolombangara while "III 'Phib" captured Vella Lavella in August 1943. Next came the landings in Empress Augusta Bay, Bougainville, a good instance of what the admiral liked to call, in baseball lingo, "hitting 'em where they ain't. " Quick shifts in plans never fazed Wilkinson. In September 1944, when III 'Phib was already partly loaded for a landing on Yap, he was ordered instead to Leyte in the Philippines. His force of 250 ships landed the XXIV Army Corps at Dulag on schedule (October 20, 1944). This exploit earned him promotion to vice admiral. In January 1945, against strong enemy opposition, he landed the XIV Corps at Lingayen, Luzon. His last war mission was to lift Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger's Eighth Army into Tokyo Bay, arriving the day of the Japanese surrender ceremony. Returning to the United States, Wilkinson served as a member of the joint strategic survey committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On Feburary 21, 1946, while he and his wife were boarding the Norfolk-Portsmouth ferry in Virginia, his car went out of control and plunged into the river. His wife survived, but Wilkinson was drowned. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
On December 17, 1918, he married Catherine Dorsey Harlow. They had three children: Ann Harlow, Joan Susannah, and Theodore Stark.
