Ships
- USS Iowa (BB-61) Captain, 25 July 1945 – November 1945
Charles Wellborn, Jr., was born on 30 January 1901 and came from Los Angeles, California. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1920 with the Class of 1921. His first ships were the battleships New Mexico and Nevada. He next served in West Virginia as aide and communications officer to the Commander of Battleships, and he carried the same kind of staff duty in California.
In 1933 he began three years at the Bureau of Ordnance. He then returned to sea in command of the destroyer Perry, served as navigator of the light cruiser Concord, and was gunnery officer for the Commander of Cruisers, Battle Force, in Honolulu. He was promoted to commander on 1 July 1940 and to temporary captain on 20 June 1942.
Early in the Second World War he commanded Destroyer Division 16 and took part in the landings on Sicily. For his work there in July 1943 he received the Legion of Merit. The award covers his coordination of harbor defense, mine clearance, convoy movement, salvage, and naval gunfire for the Seventh Army around Palermo, and his direction of a night landing in the enemy rear at Terranova. A Gold Star in lieu of a second Legion of Merit recognized his command of three destroyer squadrons in the amphibious assault on Italy in January 1944.
He also served with the Fifth Amphibious Force in the Pacific. A further Gold Star, his third Legion of Merit, marked duty as chief of staff to an amphibious group commander before and during the assault on a Japanese-held island, from December 1943 through April 1944. From that operational tour he went to Washington as Director of Officer Personnel in the Bureau of Naval Personnel.
Wellborn became captain of the battleship Iowa (BB-61) on 25 July 1945, in the last weeks of the war against Japan, and he remained in command through November 1945. On 29 July the ship fueled the destroyers McDermut, Monssen, Stockham, and Benham. After the fighting stopped she entered Sagami Wan, outside Tokyo, on 27 August with the occupation force and shifted into Tokyo Bay on 29 August. On 2 September she was there as flagship of William Frederick Halsey, Jr. for the surrender ceremony. Iowa left Tokyo Bay on 20 September, reached Buckner Bay at Okinawa on 23 September, and arrived at Seattle on 15 October. The battleship had first been commissioned in February 1943 under John L. McCrea.
In his later career Wellborn was chief of staff to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, commanded the Second Fleet, commanded the Eastern Sea Frontier, and chaired the United States delegation to the United Nations Military Staff Committee. He retired as a vice admiral. The Navy Distinguished Service Medal was awarded to him as a vice admiral for service from March 1960 to January 1963. He died in 1988.