Ships
- USS Missouri (BB-63) Captain, 10 May 1986 – 20 June 1986
- USS Missouri (BB-63) Captain, 13 June 1990 – 31 March 1992
Albert L. Kaiss was born in Hagerstown, Maryland, on 10 January 1940, and friends knew him as Lee. He graduated from North Hagerstown High School in 1957 and from the University of Maryland in 1962 with a degree in business. He entered the Navy that year and spent his career as a surface warfare officer. His early sea duty included the dock landing ship Alamo, the destroyer escorts Lester and Charles Berry, and the guided-missile destroyer Henry B. Wilson. He later served as executive officer of the frigate McCandless. In shore assignments he earned a master's degree in international affairs from George Washington University and further master's degrees from the Naval War College and National University.
Command of the destroyer Paul F. Foster and the guided-missile cruiser William H. Standley led him to the ship that marked his name. On 10 May 1986, in San Francisco, he took Missouri back into commission after decades in reserve, one of the Iowa-class battleships returned to service in the buildup of those years. At the ceremony he introduced Mayor Dianne Feinstein. The tour lasted only weeks. A heart condition took him off the ship on 20 June 1986.
He recovered and remained in surface-force work. He commanded the mission task element of the hospital ship Mercy and served as assistant chief of staff for warfare and tactics with the Naval Surface Force. By 1990 he was again fit for full sea duty. The captain then in Missouri had decided to retire, and no successor was waiting. On 13 June 1990 Kaiss returned as commanding officer for a second time.
Missouri reached the Persian Gulf on 3 January 1991 and remained until 21 March, during the war against Iraq. Under his command she launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and fired her 16-inch guns at Iraqi targets. He later put the expenditure at 28 Tomahawks and 783 sixteen-inch salvos, and he took pride that every member of the crew came home uninjured.
On 3 August 1991 he learned that the battleship was to be deactivated within months, and he was allowed to tell the crew ahead of the public announcement. One ceremonial voyage remained. President George H. W. Bush wanted Missouri at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1991 for the fiftieth anniversary of the attack that opened the Pacific war. Kaiss brought her there. The same ship had lain in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945 when Japan signed the surrender, with Chester William Nimitz and William Frederick Halsey, Jr. among the officers on her deck. Her last active appearance placed her within sight of the Arizona memorial.
The final decommissioning was held at Long Beach, California, on 31 March 1992, with more than 7,000 people on the pier. Kaiss ordered the executive officer to haul down the commissioning pennant and the colors and to march the crew ashore. He stayed until he was alone, then walked down the gangway with the pennant in his hand. Stepping onto the pier, he became the last active-duty battleship sailor in the Navy. He retired two days later. From the day William M. Callaghan first took Missouri to sea in 1944 through the long line of captains who followed, Kaiss was the only commanding officer who both placed her in commission and later took her out of commission.
He was a combat veteran of the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War. His decorations included the Bronze Star for valor and more than one Legion of Merit. He returned to Hagerstown. His daughter Julie Laing later said that family came first with him and the ship second, even though he loved Missouri. He died at home there on 25 July 2018, at the age of 78.