Background
William Wirt Kimball was born on January 09, 1848 at Paris, Maine, United States, the son of Brigadier-General William King and Frances Freeland (Rawson) Kimball. He was descended from Richard Kimball who emigrated to America in 1634.
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William Wirt Kimball was born on January 09, 1848 at Paris, Maine, United States, the son of Brigadier-General William King and Frances Freeland (Rawson) Kimball. He was descended from Richard Kimball who emigrated to America in 1634.
In 1869 Kimball graduated from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis and was in the first group of officers who studied at the torpedo station in Newport, 1870-1871.
In 1874 after serving in the Shawmut of the North Atlantic Fleet, Kimball became the torpedo officer in the Intrepid and Alarm, the two first torpedo boats of the United States navy. After promotion to lieutenant, 1874, and an Asiatic cruise in the Alert, 1875-1879, he was on ordnance duty, 1879-1882, and again, 1886-1890, engaged in the development of magazine and machine guns. According to his statement he "designed, constructed, and operated the first armed cars used by United States forces". These must have been used by the landing force which guarded rail transit in Panama, April-May 1885, in which Kimball served. In that year he also prepared a special intelligence report of progress on the Panama Canal.
During this period he was especially interested in submarines, and in 1885 tried vainly to arrange that the inventor John P. Holland should be employed by the Navy Bureau of Ordnance, the government to own his designs. He drew up the specifications when the government first called for bids on submarines in 1886-1887. His friendship for Holland extended over many years. A series of extant letters from Holland to Kimball, 1886-1910, testify to the latter's unwavering support of the inventor's ideas, and to his suggestions for their military adaptation in detail. The inventor offered Kimball a financial share in his discovery, but apparently the offer was not accepted. In 1889 Holland assured Kimball that the submarine was "a subject that you must have the credit of putting into practical shape and introducing. "
After further sea duty Kimball was head of the Office of Naval Intelligence, 1894-1897, and, promoted to lieutenant-commander, in 1897 took command of the first American torpedo boat flotilla, which he held till the close of the Spanish-American War. Torpedo combat was still experimental, and during the war the flotilla did not operate as a unit, but Kimball was in the Santiago campaign in the Du Pont and offered to try sinking Cervera's ships with a Holland submarine, if the government would buy it. He was at the Washington Navy Yard, 1900-01; commanding the Alert, 1901-1903; inspector of the Eighth Light House District, 1904-1905; then commander of the New Jersey; and, with the rank of rear admiral (1908), was given command of the Nicaragua Expeditionary Squadron in December 1909.
Though retired for age in January 1910, he remained with the squadron until it was withdrawn in the following April. Recalled to active duty during the World War, he served as president of the board for examining officers and was in charge of the historical section, office of operations, of the Navy Department. In later years he spent his winters in Washington and summers in Paris, Maine, writing occasionally on naval topics, notably a pamphlet on Our Question of Questions: Arm or Disarm (1917). In his late years he was a secretary of his naval academy class and was chiefly instrumental in promoting its annual reunions, covering sixty years.
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In 1925 Kimball was elected president of the Maine Three-Quarter Century Club.
Kimball was of slight but active physique, quick, aggressive, with keen wit and most genial, kindly manner. It was said that "he never commanded an unhappy ship nor an inefficient one". Of strong mechanical bent, he was always an enthusiast for progressive development in submarines and aeronautics.
Kimball's wife was Esther Smith Spencer, whom he married July 18, 1882 and who died February 12, 1930. He had no children.
