Ships
- USS Pensacola (CA-24) Captain, 6 February 1930 – 28 December 1931
Alfred Graham Howe was born on 27 May 1878 and graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1901. He spent his career in the United States Navy and retired as a rear admiral. The command that placed him at the start of a famous cruiser's life was Pensacola.
The ship was built at the New York Navy Yard, laid down in October 1926 and launched in April 1929. She was a treaty cruiser of the new Pensacola class, armed with ten 8-inch guns, and she entered service still carried as a light cruiser. On 6 February 1930 the Navy commissioned her at the yard with Captain Alfred Graham Howe as her first commanding officer.
Howe took her to sea for shakedown that spring. She left New York on 24 March 1930, passed through the Panama Canal, called at Callao in Peru and Valparaíso in Chile, and was back in New York on 5 June. For the rest of his tour she worked along the eastern seaboard and in the Caribbean, and she also crossed to the Pacific for combined fleet practice.
On 1 July 1931, while Howe was still in command, the London Naval Treaty led the Navy to reclassify her as a heavy cruiser because of that 8-inch battery. She became Pensacola (CA-24). Howe remained aboard through the rest of the year and gave up command on 28 December 1931. David Worth Bagley relieved him.
In the First World War Howe had commanded the destroyer Conner on patrol and convoy escort in waters threatened by submarines and mines. For that duty he received the Navy Cross. He lived until 19 March 1970.