Pacific ships

USN · Commander

Stillman, Carl R.

All captains

U.S. Naval Academy Lucky Bag, 1927, page 348. Carl Frederic Stillman, of Gilbert, Minnesota. Public domain.

Ships

Carl R. Stillman of the United States Navy was Carl Frederic Stillman, from Gilbert, Minnesota, and a graduate of the Naval Academy in the class of 1927. In the last year of the Pacific war he was executive officer of the battleship South Dakota (BB-57). Twice he was placed in temporary command of that ship. Each spell lasted only days, and each time he was relieved.

His rank followed the usual path of a line officer of his class. He was promoted to lieutenant on 30 June 1936, to lieutenant commander on 1 July 1941, and to temporary commander on 1 September 1942. On 20 March 1945 he was given the temporary rank of captain. The first of his two commands on South Dakota came while he was a commander. The second came after he had become a captain.

The battleship's hard night off Guadalcanal lay years before either of those dates. On the night of 14–15 November 1942 she fought in the same force as Washington against a Japanese squadron that included the battleship Kirishima. Her captain was Thomas L. Gatch, who was wounded in the action. Stillman was not in command. Washington sank Kirishima. South Dakota did not. She was heavily hit, lost electrical power during the fight, and afterward left the South Pacific for a long repair. Lynde D. McCormick was among the captains who had her when she returned to the war. Stillman's authority over the ship came only later, and only while he was her executive officer.

He took temporary command on 30 November 1944 and was relieved on 9 December 1944. Those days were a stopgap, not a settled captaincy, and they were not marked by a battle fought under his orders. He went back to his duties as executive officer while South Dakota remained with the fast forces in the western Pacific. Officers who held her for the long stretches of that period included Charles B. Momsen.

His second temporary command ran from 30 July 1945 until he was relieved on 17 August 1945. It covered the last days of the fighting. Japan agreed to surrender on 15 August, while he was still the temporary commanding officer, and he turned over the duty two days later. Counted together, the two spells amounted to only a few weeks at the head of the ship. Stillman died in Atlanta, Georgia, on 22 December 1994.