Ships
- USS Stack (DD-406) Captain, 2 August 1940 – 5 February 1943
- USS Trathen (DD-530) Captain, 28 May 1943 – 8 January 1944
Alvord John Greenacre was a United States Navy officer who reached the rank of lieutenant commander and commanded two destroyers in the Pacific during the Second World War. His service placed him with the early-war destroyer force and then with the new Fletcher-class ships that carried the fleet west after 1943.
On 2 August 1940 he took command of Stack (DD-406), a Benham-class destroyer. He remained her captain through the opening years of the war, until 5 February 1943. In that period Stack operated with the Atlantic and then the Pacific fleets, screening larger ships, escorting convoys, and taking part in the long series of operations that followed the American return to the Solomons.
Greenacre left Stack in February 1943 and, on 28 May 1943, became the first commanding officer of Trathen (DD-530). The new destroyer was commissioned that spring and fitted out for the Pacific. He commanded her until 8 January 1944, taking the ship through her shakedown and into her first wartime deployments with the fast carrier and amphibious forces then gathering for the central Pacific offensive.
Officers who served in the same destroyer community included Isaiah Olch, Roy Arthur Newton, Philip Kingsland Sherman, Robert Edward Wheeler, Sam Johnston Caldwell, Fondville Lee Tedder, and John Raymond Millett. Their commands overlapped the same wartime destroyer squadrons in which Greenacre served.
Greenacre’s recorded commands cover the transition from the prewar destroyer Stack to the wartime Trathen. He is identified in the record as captain of each ship for the dates given above, and those tours are the firm outline of his wartime sea service.